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Maraschino Sundae Walnut Bisque
This is the most delicious down-to-date and swellest sundae that can be served at the soda counter; to make it in thoroughly good style you should proceed as follows: Mix one pint of American Whole Walnut Bisque with two pints plain syrup in the bowl on the counter (you can use the walnut meats whole as You don't want accidental trade on soda-you want regular custom. The fountain tells people whether you are making a specialty of soda or not. they come in walnut bisque, or break them up in smaller pieces, whichever you prefer). Place a cone-shaped measure of ice cream in our No. 34 Sundae Glass, over this sprinkle some of the walnut bisque from the bowl on the counter, and on top of this pour an ounce of apricot syrup made from American Apricot Floss. There is no flavor that goes so well with nuts as apricot. This sundae sells in different places for 10 or 15 cents, but to make a dead swell thing of it you should put on the top of the sundae, as described above, a teaspoonful of whipped cream and top it off with American Maraschino Cherry. You can then, without difficulty, get 15 or 20 cents for this sundae. When served with the addition of the whipped cream and maraschino cherry this sundae is known as Walnut Cream Bisque. Serve with a sundae spoon.
A trade-book sundae built almost entirely from proprietary bottled goods sold by the publisher's supply house. Everything in it has a straightforward modern equivalent, and the assembly is a matter of order rather than technique.
- Read past the ad copyThe sentence beginning "you don't want accidental trade on soda" is a fragment of advertising text that has been set into the middle of the parenthesis by mistake. Ignore it; the parenthesis is only telling you that the walnuts may be left whole or broken up.
- "Walnut Bisque"A branded preparation of walnut meats in syrup, not a soup and not an ice cream; the recipe shows only that it consists of walnut meats that may be left whole or broken up and mixed with plain syrup. Substitute walnut halves steeped in warm simple syrup until glossy; drain lightly before use. Toasting the nuts first improves them considerably.
- Plain syrupFountain simple syrup, generally cooked heavier than modern bar syrup, though no formula is given here. Cut with a little water if the finished sundae tastes cloying.
- "Apricot Floss"A proprietary crushed-fruit fountain preparation from which the apricot syrup was made; the recipe says only that the ounce of syrup comes from it. Apricot preserves thinned with a spoonful of hot water and passed through a sieve gives much the same effect.
- ProportionsOne pint of walnut bisque to two pints syrup makes a counter bowl for many servings, not one dish. For a single sundae figure about 2 tablespoons of the nut-and-syrup mixture and the specified 1 fluid ounce of apricot syrup.
- The cone of ice creamThe recipe calls for a cone-shaped measure of ice cream. Two firmly packed scoops mounded in a tall glass reproduces it; the No. 34 glass is the publisher's own catalogue number and its size and shape are not stated here.
- Order mattersNuts first, apricot syrup second, whipped cream and cherry last, as the recipe sets them down. Syrup poured over the nuts glazes them.
- YieldOne glass per person. The pint of walnut bisque mixed with two pints of syrup makes three pints in all, enough to dress a great many sundaes, and was meant to sit on the counter through a day's trade.
This page belongs to a genre of turn-of-the-century trade manuals written for the druggist who had installed a marble fountain and needed to make it pay — hence the frank talk here about whether a dish fetches ten cents or twenty. The sundae itself was still a young form, generally traced to the 1890s and often said to have arisen where local ordinance discouraged the sale of soda water on Sundays, leaving the syrup and ice cream without the fizz. What the page really documents is the industrialisation of the fountain: walnuts, apricot and maraschino cherries all arrive in branded jars from a single supply house, and the "recipe" is as much a purchase order as a set of instructions. Maraschino cherries of this period were still commonly preserved in maraschino liqueur; the sweet dyed brine version familiar today became standard in the United States after Prohibition.