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Frou-Frou
One ounce fruit nectar syrup, 2 ounces peach ice cream. Fill glass ⅔ full with carbonated water, add a small amount of shredded pineapple, and top with whipped cream.
A fountain formula written for someone standing at a marble counter with a syrup rail and a carbonator, so the measurements assume equipment rather than describing it. Translating it is mostly a matter of knowing what the syrups were and in what order the soda man worked.
- Glass sizeFountain sundae and soda glasses of the period commonly ran about 10 to 12 ounces. With one ounce of syrup, two ounces of ice cream and the glass filled only two-thirds, the finished drink comes to something under 8 ounces before the cream goes on.
- Ounces are fluid ouncesSyrup is measured by volume from a pump or ladle, not weighed. Two ounces of ice cream means a small scoop, about a quarter cup, not two ounces on a scale.
- Fruit nectar syrupA fountain stock syrup, generally a blend of fruit juices or fruit acids in heavy sugar syrup rather than any single fruit. A mixed-fruit or peach-apricot syrup is a reasonable modern substitute; a plain fruit syrup with a little citric acid will add some tartness.
- Carbonated waterThe fountain drew highly charged water under pressure, which is fizzier than most bottled soda water. Use the coldest, freshest seltzer you can and pour it against the side of the glass so it does not foam the ice cream over the rim.
- Shredded pineappleIn fountain usage this means canned pineapple pulled into threads, or the shredded pack sold in tins, sweetened in its own syrup. Drained crushed pineapple is the nearest equivalent; the recipe has it going in after the soda.
- Order of workSyrup first, then ice cream, then soda, then fruit, then cream: the order the recipe itself sets out.
- Whipped creamThe recipe does not say whether to sweeten it. Between the syrup, the fruit pack and the ice cream the glass is already sugared, so light sweetening or none is worth considering.
Frou-frou is French for the rustle of a skirt, and by the later nineteenth century it had come into English as a word for anything frilly and decorative -- which suits this glass: a peach soda dressed up with fruit and a cap of cream. Fountain manuals of the era carried hundreds of such named confections, built from the same handful of stock syrups, ice creams and canned fruits, so what distinguished one drink from another was the combination and the name. French borrowings were fashionable in soda nomenclature alongside classical and society names.