The Pontiac
Mix two level tablespoonfuls of peanut butter with enough plain syrup to the consistency of cream, and pour over a ladleful of vanilla ice cream. Add a ladleful of rich chocolate syrup and a spoonful of whipped cream. Decorate with a cherry.
A soda-fountain formula written for someone standing behind a marble counter with syrup pumps at hand. Two details need translating: what "plain syrup" is and how big a "ladleful" was.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain" or "simple" syrup was sugar dissolved in water, thick and clear; the trade manuals give various strengths, commonly somewhere around two parts sugar to one of water by weight. A cooled granulated-sugar syrup of that sort is the right thing; corn syrup is heavier and, in practice, harder to work evenly into the peanut butter.
- The hinge: thin the peanut butter firstPeanut butter poured straight onto ice cream seizes into a stiff lump. Work the syrup in a spoonful at a time until it ribbons off the spoon like heavy cream, and do it before the ice cream is scooped.
- LadlefulFountain ladles and dishers varied; syrup ladles ran roughly 1 to 2 fluid ounces and an ice-cream disher of the period about 2 ounces, so read a "ladleful" of ice cream as a generous single scoop and a ladleful of chocolate syrup as somewhere between 2 tablespoons and 1/4 cup. Scale the chocolate back if you want the peanut to lead.
- Period peanut butterCommercial peanut butter of this period predates hydrogenated stabilisation and separated in the jar. Natural-style peanut butter, stirred well, behaves the same way; stabilised modern brands are stiffer and may need a little more syrup.
- Rich chocolate syrupFountain chocolate syrup was generally cooked from cocoa, sugar and water rather than melted chocolate. A cocoa-based sauce stands up well against the salt of the peanut butter.
- Whipped cream and cherryThe recipe asks only for a spoonful of whipped cream and a cherry; at a fountain the cherry would ordinarily have been a maraschino, added last.
- YieldOne sundae. The peanut mixture can be made in quantity and kept covered at room temperature for a day; refrigerating it makes it set too firm to pour.
This is a soda-fountain formula of the kind collected in trade books of fountain recipes, the sort of counter trade that grew as American bars closed and druggists' soda counters took up their custom. Sundaes named for cities, hotels and other borrowed place names were house specialties. Peanut butter itself was still a fairly new commercial product, pushed into public notice by health-food manufacturers around the turn of the century and by the 1910s cheap and plentiful enough to appear at the fountain as a syrup base rather than a sandwich spread.