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Washington Punch
Grate the rinds of two lemons and four oranges, and put with one pound of sugar in two quarts of water, and boil for ten or twelve minutes. Strain, cool, and add the strained juice of four lemons, four oranges, and one more quart of cold water. Cut two tangerines in thin slices, a bunch of Malaga grapes, seeded and cut in half, a cup of grated pineapple, a banana sliced, and a cup of preserved cherries. Mix well, and add to the syrup, and serve well iced.
A temperance punch built on a boiled citrus-rind syrup, which is where nearly all its flavor comes from. The method is sound; only the quantities and fruit need translating.
- Zest, not pith"Grate the rinds" means the colored outer layer only. Any white pith carried into the syrup will turn the finished punch bitter after the ten-minute boil.
- The hinge: boil the syrup, cool it fullyThe rind must be boiled with the sugar and water so the oils are extracted, and the syrup must be cold before the fresh juice goes in. Adding juice to hot syrup cooks it and flattens the flavor.
- Total volume and yieldThree quarts of water plus the citrus juice and roughly a quart of fruit gives something over a gallon. It fills a standard punch bowl.
- SugarOne pound is about 2 1/4 cups granulated. That is sweet by modern taste against three quarts of liquid, and three-quarters of a pound is defensible.
- Malaga grapesA large green-gold table grape, once the standard winter grape in American markets and now uncommon. Any large seedless green grape halved will do, and skips the seeding.
- Grated pineappleMeans fresh pineapple grated to a pulp with its juice. Crushed canned pineapple, drained of syrup, is the practical equivalent.
- Preserved cherriesSweet cherries put up in syrup, home or commercial, rather than the bright red cocktail cherry of later decades. Cherries in light syrup or good jarred amarena come closer to the original.
- BananaSlice it last and add just before serving. Left sitting in the punch it softens and discolours.
- Icing it"Well iced" here means chilled hard, not diluted. Chill the punch overnight and use a large single block or ring of ice so it does not water down within twenty minutes.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the wave of American temperance cookery that crested in the years around national Prohibition, when hostesses needed a punch bowl that could anchor a party without spirits. The fruit punch was the workhorse of that project: a boiled citrus-rind syrup gave the depth that wine or rum had supplied, and a bowl heaped with cut fruit gave the visual abundance. Naming such a drink for Washington was standard patriotic dressing in these collections, of a piece with the book's own title, and carries no documented connection to the man; recipes called Washington, Colonial, or Liberty punch appear across the period with quite different ingredients. What the ingredient list really records is the reach of the early twentieth-century rail and refrigeration network, which put tangerines, Malaga grapes, pineapple and bananas on the same table at the same time.