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Fruit Salad (June Pare lengthwise a ripe)
(June.) Pare lengthwise a ripe pineapple and remove the eyes. With a fork dislodge from the hard centre the single fruits (the lines left by the bracts will indicate the places where the divisions should be made). Slice lengthwise three sweet oranges, after removing the peel and white skin. Peel and slice two bananas, and cut in halves lengthwise one cup of strawberries. If the fruit be sweet, use the juice of half a lemon, otherwise omit it. Beat to an emulsion one-fourth a cup of olive oil, one tablespoonful of honey, and, if needed, the lemon juice; toss the fruit, together or separately, in the dressing, and serve on delicate leaves of lettuce.
The most striking effect is produced by dressing each kind of fruit separately, thus massing each color by itself. When new figs are seasonable, they may be used in fruit salads to take the place of the honey. If the pineapple be of large size, more dressing will be required.
A turn-of-the-century fruit salad dressed with oil and honey rather than cream or mayonnaise. Most of the work is in the pineapple, and the dressing needs attention or it separates on the plate.
- Pulling the pineapple apartThe instruction to dislodge "single fruits" with a fork works only on a very ripe pineapple, where the individual fruitlets separate along the diamond pattern left by the bracts. If yours resists, cut it into wedges and then into chunks; the visual effect is nearly the same once it is massed on the plate.
- The dressing is a vinaigrette without vinegarA quarter cup of olive oil to one tablespoon of honey is a stiff ratio with very little liquid to carry it. Whisk the honey and lemon juice first, then dribble the oil in slowly, or shake everything in a sealed jar. It is likely to separate as it stands, so dress close to serving.
- Choose the oil deliberatelyA grassy, peppery modern extra-virgin will dominate strawberries and banana. Use a gentle oil, or a light nut oil, unless you want the pepper.
- Bananas lastPeel and slice the bananas immediately before serving. Left in the bowl they brown and go slack, and the recipe gives them no acid protection when the fruit is sweet enough to omit the lemon.
- Dressing each fruit separatelyThe recipe allows either, but singles this out as the most striking effect. Toss each fruit in a little dressing in its own bowl and arrange the four in blocks of color on the lettuce. It takes four small bowls and about two extra minutes.
- The fig substitutionFresh figs, quartered, stand in for the honey by supplying the sweetness themselves; if you use them, dress with oil and lemon alone or the salad turns cloying.
- Lettuce"Delicate leaves" means the pale inner heart of a butterhead or a head of Bibb. Romaine or iceberg is too coarse and too wet under an oil dressing.
- YieldA pineapple, three oranges, two bananas and a cup of strawberries should serve roughly four to six as a first course or a light dessert salad, depending on the size of the pineapple.
The parenthetical "(June.)" places the salad in a seasonal scheme, and June is when strawberries and pineapple would both be at hand. Fresh pineapple was a luxury import in this period, carried north by fast steamer from the Caribbean and Florida, and it appears in books of this era with an air of mild extravagance; the later Hawaiian plantations chiefly made canned pineapple cheap rather than fresh. The oil-and-honey dressing places the salad on the savory side of the meal rather than with the sweets; fruit salads of the period were commonly dressed with French dressing or boiled dressing and served on lettuce as a course, and the note about massing each color separately fits a period taste for the salad as an arranged, composed dish.