The Salem
Put into a glass one fourth full of cracked ice, four tablespoonfuls of sweet cream, two tablespoonfuls of chocolate syrup, and one tablespoonful of orange syrup. Pour in milk to fill glass. Stir well and add a spoonful of ice cream.
A soda-fountain formula, written for someone standing behind a marble counter with a rack of syrups at hand. Scaled for one tall glass, it assembles in under a minute.
- The glassThe recipe says only "a glass," and fills it with milk. A tall soda glass of roughly 10-12 oz suits the quantities; in anything much smaller the ice, cream and milk leave no room for the scoop on top.
- Sweet cream"Sweet" here means unsoured, not sugared. Any pouring cream will do; a richer cream gives the drink more body against all that milk.
- Orange syrupNot orange juice and not a liqueur. Fountain orange syrup was a sugar syrup flavoured with orange oil or peel. A homemade syrup of sugar, water and grated zest stands in; cut the quantity if yours is intensely flavoured.
- Chocolate syrupFountain chocolate syrup was generally cocoa, sugar and water cooked to a pourable consistency. A modern syrup will work, though if it is very sweet the orange will be harder to find.
- Cracked iceThe recipe specifies cracked ice, filling the glass one fourth full; crushed ice will dilute the drink faster.
- The scoop"A spoonful of ice cream" is added at the end, after the stirring; the flavour is not specified.
- YieldOne drink.
Books of this sort appeared in the years when American temperance sentiment was hardening into law, and a soda fountain offered a counter at which something elaborate with a name on it could be ordered in company without liquor. A well-stocked fountain carried a range of flavouring syrups, so that named drinks could be assembled from combinations. Naming a house combination after a city, a college or a customer was common fountain practice rather than any claim of local origin: "The Salem" belongs to a genre of drink names, not to a documented place of invention.