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The Strand
Mix two teaspoonfuls of raspberry syrup, two teaspoonfuls of sweet cream, one egg, and a dash of ginger syrup. Shake well with shaved ice, strain into a glass and add soda water.
A soda-fountain egg drink from the era when the dispenser behind the counter was expected to work as fast as a bartender. The whole raw egg is the problem, and it is not a fixable one within the recipe as printed.
- The raw eggA whole shell egg is shaken into the glass and served immediately, never heated at any point. Raw shell eggs carry a risk of Salmonella, which is not reduced by ice, acid syrup or carbonation.
- The cream compounds itCream in this period may not have been pasteurised, and the drink has no heat step at any stage. Raw egg with no heat step is the combination current guidance warns against, particularly for children, pregnant women, older drinkers and anyone immunocompromised.
- If you want the drinkUse a current recipe written around pasteurized egg product or an egg-free formula. Do not scale or adjust the version above.
- Raspberry syrupFountain syrup of the period was a heavy sugar syrup flavoured with fruit juice, rather than the thin fruit syrups sold for pancakes. Ginger syrup was a sharper fountain flavouring, called for here as a dash rather than a measured spoonful.
- Shaved iceFountains shaved ice from a block, which chills and aerates quickly on the shake.
- Soda water lastThe carbonated water goes in after straining, at the glass, so the gas is not knocked out in the shaker.
- YieldOne glass: a single fountain serving, not a pitcher drink.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to a genre that flourished in the years around national Prohibition: collections of fountain drinks pitched at druggists and confectioners who were, in effect, running bars without liquor. Drink names in these books borrow freely from the saloon and the theatre; what "The Strand" was meant to suggest is not recorded. Egg drinks were a fixture of the American soda fountain from the late nineteenth century onward, sold as nourishment as much as refreshment, and egg phosphates and egg lemonades belong to the same counter practice. The dispenser's manuals of the period assume a skilled operator with a shaker, a shaved-ice bin and a rank of syrup pumps, working at speed for a customer standing at the marble.