The Rosedale
Place a ladleful of chocolate ice cream in a sherbet glass, and pour over grated pineapple. Add a spoonful of whipped cream, and decorate with a cherry or chopped walnuts.
A soda-fountain assembly rather than a cooked dish, so the whole thing turns on portioning and temperature. A few of the terms belong to the counter trade rather than the home kitchen.
- A ladlefulFountain dippers varied, but a modest portion of roughly a half cup of ice cream fills a sherbet glass without crowding the topping.
- The sherbet glassA stemmed, wide-mouthed glass of roughly 5 to 8 ounces, not the tall tulip used for sundaes today. Any small footed dessert glass works; the point is that the fruit and cream sit visible above the rim of the ice cream.
- Grated pineappleAt the fountain this generally meant tinned crushed pineapple in its syrup. Canned crushed pineapple is the direct equivalent; drain it lightly so the syrup does not flood the glass.
- Fresh pineapple, if you use itRaw pineapple contains bromelain, a protein-digesting enzyme, which can slacken whipped cream and may give it a bitter edge on standing. Canned fruit has been heated, which deactivates the enzyme.
- Whipped creamHeavy cream whipped to soft peaks, lightly sweetened or not at all given the pineapple syrup. Pressurised cream from a can collapses too quickly against cold fruit.
- The cherryBy this period the fountain cherry was commonly a sweetened, dyed red cherry rather than one steeped in maraschino liqueur, though it was not yet identical to the modern product. A brandied or Luxardo cherry gives a better flavour but a darker, less period look.
- Assemble to orderEverything is cold and nothing sets, so build it in the glass immediately before serving. Ice cream softening under warm syrup is the one failure mode here.
- YieldOne glass, one person.
This comes from a soda-fountain book of the years around the arrival of national Prohibition: going on the water wagon meant giving up drink. Fountains had been promoted as rivals to saloons since the late nineteenth century, and when the bars shut some of them took over the premises, keeping the long counter, the mirrors and the stools while swapping spirits for syrups. Named sundaes like this one were a feature of the trade, shops maintaining lists of proprietary combinations built from the same handful of ice creams, crushed fruits and nuts. The chocolate-and-pineapple pairing looks odd now but appears regularly in fountain lists, tinned crushed pineapple being cheap and reliably sweet. A name like The Rosedale most likely echoes a hotel, street or neighbourhood, though nothing in the recipe tells us which.