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Angel Food (One pint of American Cream)
One pint of American Cream Cocoanut and 2 pints plain syrup in bowl on counter. Into one of our No. 35 Sundae glasses turn a cone-shaped measure of chocolate ice cream. Over this turn a ladleful of cream of cocoanut from bowl on the counter; top off with a tablespoonful of whipped cream. Serve with a sundae spoon.
A soda-fountain assembly rather than a cooked recipe: the only real work is the coconut sauce, and the rest is portioning. The trade names and glass numbers are the parts that need translating.
- American Cream CocoanutA proprietary fountain product of the period, a sweetened coconut preparation bought ready-made by the dispenser rather than compounded on site. Cream of coconut sold for cocktails is the closest modern stand-in, thinned slightly so it ladles.
- Plain syrupFountain shorthand for simple syrup, generally made heavy with sugar. Two pints of it to one pint of coconut cream gives a thin, very sweet sauce by current standards; a one-to-one ratio will be less cloying.
- No. 35 sundae glassA supply-house catalogue number, meaningless outside the trade. A footed tulip sundae glass of roughly 6 to 8 ounces is the equivalent.
- Cone-shaped measureA conical ice cream dipper that turned out a pointed portion standing above the rim of the glass. A standard round scoop gives a comparable quantity if not the same silhouette.
- A ladlefulFountain ladles for a sauce like this were likely around an ounce; two tablespoons over the ice cream is a reasonable reading of the intent.
- Holding the bowl on the counterThe original leaves three pints of sauce sitting out through service, which was normal when a fountain turned over stock in a day. Mix only what will be used in a sitting and keep the rest refrigerated.
- YieldThree pints of sauce, at roughly an ounce a serving, dresses something on the order of four dozen sundaes. Scale down proportionally, keeping the original's two parts syrup to one of coconut cream.
Trade manuals like this one read as though written for a supply trade: the recipes are built around branded products, down to the catalogue number of the glass. That is why "American Cream Cocoanut" appears as an ingredient with no hint of how to make it o a case. The name Angel Food is often said to derive from angel food cake, though that connection is folk tradition rather than documented. Coconut seems to have arrived in American kitchens in quantity in the late nineteenth century, once shredded and desiccated coconut could be packed and shipped, and it turns up often in fountain work of the 1900s and 1910s for the same reason it turns up in cake: it read as luxurious and kept well.