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Peach Blush
JUICE OF 1/2 LEMON 3 PEACH PETALS SPRING WATER With a smooth stick mash peach in bottom of a tumbler or tin cup, put in ice, lemon juice and brandy, shake and strain into any wide-mouthed beaker, fill to brim with spring water and set the petals floating on it like tiny sail boats.
A few peach petals look pretty atop any peach blow tipple, sundae or creamy sweet.
Both peach petals and leaves are fine for flavoring custards, too. Florida: Orange Blossom-in this State a bride may toss away her bouquet after the ceremony as recklessly as in any other, but, if she knows her orange blossoms, she clings to them like taxes, to make her first domestic hit by serving them up in pure Italian renaissance style with the honeymoon breakfast, out in the open, of course.
The recipe: float an unbroken egg yolk in a big spoon and hold it in a smartly boiling syrup made of sugar and water, until it's poached. Cook as many yolks as you wish in this manner, one at a time, and keep them warm while you blanch your wedding orange flowers in what's left of the sugar syrup. Garnish the cooked yolks with orange and lemon slices and pour the lightly cooked orange flowers and syrup over all.
A dash of orange flower water adds aroma to this, as indeed, to many another sweet sup. Georgia: Cherokee Rose-significantly, 4 states, Georgia, Iowa, North Dakota and New York, have adopted the rose as their botanical seal- (hence 4 Roses Whiskey perhaps?) But you can make a non-alcoholic rose drink as well, by distilling rose petals with plain water and using this attar to perfume all honeyed desserts, as the Turks do. Also see Iowa.
Idaho: Syringa-See Florida. Since the heavy waxen syringa bloom and the orange blossom are sisters under the wax, they are practically interchangeable in culinary uses.
Try this handy tea or tisane, with syringa or orange flowers, or perhaps a mixture of the two, sipped right under the bush or tree: 2 OUNCES FRESH PETALS I PINT OF BOILING WATER IO MINUTES TIME Strain. Sweeten to taste.
Illinois: Violet-the folks of this State are suckers for this modest wildwood bloom. But then, so are 3 other States, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. And all of them can enjoy a blue-violet salad in the nearest glen, which is a true snacking symphony designed to bring out the melody of a bottle of white wine which should be lugged along in a gunnysack with cracked ice.
A brandy smash dressed with blossoms, built in whatever vessel is at hand. The listed quantities do not match the working instructions, so read the method first and measure by eye.
- Missing amountsThe ingredient list gives only lemon juice, three petals and water, while the method also calls for peach and brandy. A single drink of this type takes about half a ripe peach and 2 oz of brandy; the original leaves both unstated.
- Smooth stickA muddler. A wooden spoon handle does the same work. "Smooth" presumably rules out a bark-covered twig, which would shed grit into the drink.
- Tumbler or tin cupThe tin cup is the shaker: crush the fruit in it, add ice and liquor, cover with a second cup or your palm and shake. Anything about 8-10 oz will do.
- Spring waterHere this most likely means water dipped from a spring. Use still bottled water; the original is flat, though seltzer would liven it.
- PetalsUse blossoms from a tree you know has not been sprayed, and rinse them. Three petals is a garnish, not a flavoring - they float better if the drink is strained into the serving glass first, as written.
- Skip the peach leavesThe aside recommending peach leaves for custards belongs to an older tradition; the leaves contain cyanogenic compounds of the sort found in bitter almonds. Flavor custard with the petals, an almond extract or a vanilla bean instead.
- The blossom tisaneThe infusion given further along - 2 oz fresh petals to 1 pint boiling water, steeped 10 minutes - is offered for syringa or orange flower, and peach blossom would presumably serve too. Two ounces is a surprisingly large quantity of loose petals.
- YieldOne drink. It does not scale well in a shaker, since the fruit needs room to be crushed; build them one at a time.