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Red Grape Ice
5 pints of red Tokay grapes (4 pounds.) 1 1/2 pints of water. 1 1/2 pounds of sugar. 1 lemon and 1 orange. 4 whites of eggs.
Select about a fourth part of the grapes to be dropped whole into the ice at last. Scald the rest in a syrup made of the sugar and part of the water and rub the pulp through a strainer together with the syrup and pour over the skins the remaining portion of water, add the juice of the lemon and freeze as usual. If to line a mould the whites of eggs may be omitted and a little red fruit juice or coloring can be added to make a more positive color, but for serving in glasses add the whites whipped firm and beat the ice till smooth and foamy. Cut the orange in strips, without peeling, and strew them in the ice, also the reserved grapes and cover down to freeze firm.
A late-nineteenth-century water ice built on a grape purée, finished in the churn with whipped raw egg white to lighten it. The egg white is the problem: it is never heated at any stage, and freezing does not make it safe.
- Why the cautionFour whipped egg whites are folded into a cold mixture and frozen. Raw egg white carries a real, if small, risk of Salmonella, and freezing preserves rather than destroys it. Any modern grape ice or sorbet recipe should be used instead.
- Red TokayMost likely the Flame Tokay, a large, seeded, pinkish-red California table grape long associated with the Lodi district and common in autumn markets. It is now uncommon in supermarkets; red seeded, thick-skinned grapes are the nearest equivalent.
- The skins do the colouringThe scalding and straining is a colour extraction as much as a pulping. Grape flesh is almost colourless; the pigment sits in the skin, which is why the remaining water is poured over the skins rather than discarded with them.
- SeedsTokays were seeded, and the whole reserved grapes strewn through the finished ice would have contained pips. The recipe assumes the eater deals with them.
- "Freeze as usual"In period pastry work this means a hand-cranked pail packed with cracked ice and rock salt, churned until stiff, then packed down and left to ripen. "Cover down to freeze firm" most likely refers to sealing the can under salt and ice rather than to a freezer compartment.
- Lining a mouldThe note about omitting the whites is technical: an aerated ice will not hold a clean shell against a chilled mould. The added fruit juice or colouring is called for to give the moulded version a more positive colour.
- The orange stripsCut unpeeled, they contribute pith and oil as well as flesh, bitter and aromatic against the sweet grape.
- QuantitiesFive pints of grapes is given as four pounds, so the volume measure is of whole fruit, not juice. The syrup is a pound and a half of sugar to a pint and a half of water, plus whatever juice the grapes yield.
Grape ices belong to the run of fruit water ices common in American pastry manuals of the 1880s and 1890s, when confectioners turned out a range of flavours and moulded ices into shapes for banquet service. The call for red Tokay points to California: Tokay was shipped east by rail from the Lodi region in the closing decades of the century, and its size, thick skin and strong red colour made it a display grape as much as an eating one. The alternative given here, between a plain ice stiff enough to line a mould and a foamy, egg-whitened version for glasses, reflects the period distinction between an ice and a frothed sherbet; the same base did double duty depending on how the dessert was to reach the table.