The Victor
Place a ladleful of chocolate ice cream in a suitable dish, and add whipped cream mixed with a spoonful of chopped nuts. Decorate with a cherry.
A fountain formula rather than a kitchen one: it assumes a soda jerk with hard-frozen ice cream, a tub of whipped cream and a jar of cherries within arm's reach. Read it as a set of proportions.
- A ladlefulFountain work was often measured with a numbered disher, and a single sundae portion was probably in the region of 3 to 4 ounces of ice cream. Two #16 scoops is close enough; the whole thing serves one.
- A suitable dishMost likely a footed sundae glass, chilled. Any small stemmed glass or coupe works, but chill it — a warm dish undoes the ice cream before the cream is on.
- Temper the ice creamFountain ice cream was dished hard from a cabinet that ran warmer than a modern home freezer, which sits nearer 0F; let the carton sit out five to ten minutes so the scoop holds its shape without shattering.
- The whipped creamFountain whipped cream may have been only lightly sweetened, since the sundae carried plenty of sugar already. Whip heavy cream (36% fat) to soft peaks only — stiff cream sits on the ice cream like a lid instead of folding around it.
- Mixing in the nutsThe nuts are folded into the cream rather than scattered on top. Chop walnuts, pecans or almonds fine and toast them first; untoasted nuts soften in the cream.
- The cherryBy 1919 the American maraschino was no longer the Italian liqueur-cured fruit but a brined, bleached and re-dyed cherry, which is what a fountain would have reached for. A modern brandied or Luxardo cherry is closer to the older article and better eating.
- Assembly orderIce cream, then cream, then cherry, and serve at once. Nothing here improves with standing.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the flood of drink manuals published as national Prohibition came into force — the title is a joke on the temperance phrase for going dry. Its contents are the sundaes, phosphates and egg drinks associated with the soda fountain, though the book presents them for home readers. Naming individual combinations, as with "The Victor," was ordinary fountain practice. The sundae itself is generally traced to the 1880s or 1890s in the American Midwest, with Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and Ithaca, New York, both claiming it, and the spelling is traditionally explained as a dodge around Sunday laws on soda water — a story often repeated but never firmly documented.