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Banana Sundae a la Delmonico
Spread a small, fresh fern leaf on a saucer, then take a banana, lay it on, cut open at the top so it works as a hinge; spread it out, put on a ladle of vanilla ice cream, a ladle of whipped cream, and lastly pour over it an ounce of prunelle brandy. This is a new brandy cordial (if this is not obtainable, use creme de coco).
A soda-fountain assembly rather than a cooked dish: the only real work is splitting the banana neatly and having everything cold. A few of the original materials need translating.
- Fountain ladlesA fountain "ladle" or dipper of the period was small, probably on the order of an ounce or two, so figure a generous scoop of ice cream and about the same volume of whipped cream. The measure was not standardised.
- Prunelle brandyPrunelle is a French liqueur made from blackthorn sloes and their kernels, sweet and faintly almond-bitter. Any sloe or plum liqueur stands in; the drier English sloe gin is close in flavour but less syrupy.
- Creme de cocoThe fallback is ambiguous: "coco" may stand for cocoa, i.e. creme de cacao, rather than coconut. Either works over vanilla ice cream, but they are different drinks.
- The fern leafDecorative only. Ferns were used as a table and fountain garnish, but many species, bracken in particular, are not food and should not be eaten; keep any leaf under the banana rather than in the dish, or use a mint sprig or a paper doily instead.
- The hingeCut the peel lengthwise along the top only, stopping short of both ends, so the skin opens like a book and holds the fruit. Slitting all the way through leaves you with two loose halves and nothing to serve them in.
- AlcoholAn ounce of liqueur goes on uncooked and unburned, so the alcohol stays. Not one for children.
- YieldOne banana, one serving. Assemble and serve at once; the cream slumps and the fruit browns within a few minutes.
Delmonico's in New York was the byword for expensive dining for much of the nineteenth century, and its name was attached to steaks, potatoes and puddings that the restaurant itself often had nothing to do with; "a la Delmonico" on a card generally signalled the fancy version of a dish. What makes this recipe of its moment is the banana, which large-scale steamship importing had turned from a curiosity into a cheap everyday fruit in American cities by the 1890s, and the liqueur, which the author flags as "a new brandy cordial" -- prunelle, made from blackthorn sloes, was evidently unfamiliar enough that a substitute had to be named in the same breath. Alcohol at the soda fountain would shortly become a problem: Prohibition closed off the prunelle and left the sundae itself, which outlasted it.