Home › At the Fountain › American Whole and Sliced Fruits
American Whole and Sliced Fruits
Mix one part of fruit with two parts heavy, simple syrup, and dispense from bowl on counter. Use a ladle to serve the fruit. These fruits are the whole berries and cherries or slices of the larger fruits. In full measure half-gallon jars. Whole Cherries Sliced Orange Sliced Pineapple Whole Crême de Menthe Cherries Sliced Peach Whole Raspberry Whole Maraschino Cherries Flaked Pineapple Whole Strawberry Do not have your syrup too thick, as it does not mix well. American "Fruit Floss."
The most popular specialty ever offered to the dispenser. Apricot Cherry Orange Raspberry Blackberry Peach Pineapple Strawberry These syrups contain all the soft, ripe, luscious part of the fruit, as well as the juice, and make an opaque syrup that absolutely contains all of the fruit that is good and has flavor, consequently all the fruit except the core and the skin. They have a most delicious flavor and are stronger than the concentrated syrups. Mix 1 quart of any flavor Fruit Floss with 4 quarts of very heavy, plain syrup; add 1 ounce of fruit acid, ½ ounce of soda foam and mix thoroughly. Fruit Floss makes the most delicious ice cream soda that can be made.
This is trade instruction written for a soda fountain, so the proportions assume commercial syrup strength and a counter that empties its bowls daily. Two things need translating: what "heavy" syrup meant, and what the two proprietary additives were.
- Heavy simple syrupFountain "heavy" or "plain" syrup was a near-saturated sugar solution, on the order of 30 to 35 degrees Baume on a syrup hydrometer; the exact ratio varied from house to house. The warning not to let it get too thick is the hinge of the first recipe, and the text says why: thicker syrup "does not mix well."
- One part fruit to two parts syrupThe text does not say whether the ratio is by weight or by volume. Fresh whole berries will slump and weep if held more than a day; the list of packed half-gallon jars suggests the original assumed brined or pre-packed fruit.
- "Full measure half-gallon jars"That line is catalogue copy describing how the packed fruits were sold, not an instruction. It tells you the intended batch size: about 2 quarts, which for a home cook is an enormous amount of dessert fruit.
- Fruit FlossA proprietary opaque syrup made from sieved ripe fruit pulp plus juice — skin and core removed. There is no modern product by that name. Unsweetened fruit puree, the kind sold for cocktail and pastry work, is the closest equivalent, though it is thinner and less sweet than the original.
- Fruit acidCitric or tartaric acid; fountain suppliers sold it both as crystals and as a ready-made solution, and the text does not say which is meant here. An ounce per five quarts of finished syrup is a brightening dose, not a preserving one; start with a quarter of it and taste, since the strength of the original is not stated.
- Soda foamA foaming agent, usually a saponin extract of quillaia bark or a solution of egg albumen, added so the drink would build a head against carbonated water. Quillaia extract is still permitted as a beverage foaming agent but is not a retail item. The syrup works without it; the drink is simply flatter looking.
- Creme de menthe cherriesGreen-dyed, mint-flavoured cherries in syrup, sold alongside maraschino. Still made, usually shelved with cocktail garnishes rather than with fruit.
- Holding on the counterAn open bowl of sugared fruit left out all day was normal in a fountain that turned over its stock by closing. At home, keep the fruit refrigerated and covered, and discard it once the syrup begins to smell yeasty or throws bubbles — heavy syrup slows fermentation but does not stop it.
- YieldThe Fruit Floss formula makes about five quarts of finished syrup, enough for roughly eighty sodas at the fountain measure of one and a half to two ounces per glass. Scale to a cup of puree and four cups of syrup for a household batch.
This page belongs to the peak of the American soda fountain, when a drugstore counter was judged on the quality of its crushed fruits and the dispenser bought syrups, fruits and foaming agents from a supply house. The distinction the text draws matters: "whole and sliced fruits" are garnish and body, ladled over ice cream and into sundae glasses, while "Fruit Floss" is a flavouring syrup that carries pulp as well as juice — the selling point being opacity, proof to the customer that real fruit rather than an essence was in the glass. Concentrated and artificially flavoured syrups were the competition, which is why the copy insists these are "stronger than the concentrated syrups." Maraschino cherries, already divorced from the Dalmatian marasca cherry and its liqueur, had by this period become an American confection of brined sweet cherries recoloured and re-flavoured, and the green mint version on this list is the same technology pointed at a different flavour.