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Orange Juice
Take about a dozen solid, juicy oranges to make a quart of juice. Pass the juice through filter paper placed in a funnel in order to clarify it. Then paper placed in a funnel in order to clarify it. Then put it in a porcelain-lined saucepan; place over the fire and let it heat to steaming point. Stir in 3 tablespoonfuls of arrowroot moistened in a little cold water; cook clear, then add ½ cup or more of sugar according to acidity of fruit, stir and cook until sugar is dissolved, then turn out to cool and when ready to serve put in a stemmed glass with a piece of ice in each one.
A soda-fountain orange drink lightly bodied with arrowroot so it clings to the glass rather than separating. The whole thing hinges on the starch: it must be slurried cold and cooked just to clarity, or the drink turns cloudy and pasty.
- Duplicated lineThe phrase "paper placed in a funnel in order to clarify it" is repeated in the original, a compositor's error. There is one filtering step, not two.
- YieldA dozen oranges gives roughly a quart of juice, which is four to six fountain glasses. Modern juicing oranges vary widely, so buy by weight rather than by count.
- FilteringFilter paper in a funnel gives a bright, pulp-free juice. A fine chinois lined with a double layer of cheesecloth does the same work far faster; a coffee filter will clog on citrus pulp.
- ArrowrootThree tablespoons to a quart is a deliberate light body, not a pudding. Arrowroot thickens at a lower temperature than cornstarch and holds up better in acid, staying glossy and clear, which may be why it was preferred to flour or cornstarch here.
- Steaming pointSteam rising but short of a simmer; the book gives no temperature. Arrowroot loses its thickening power if held at a hard boil, and prolonged heat will cook the fresh flavor out of the juice.
- Porcelain-lined saucepanThe period's way of saying non-reactive. Any stainless, enameled or glass pan works; bare aluminum, copper or cast iron will pick up a metallic taste from the citric acid.
- SugarHalf a cup per quart is modest for a sweetened fruit drink. The recipe has it stirred in over the heat until dissolved; taste as you go, and remember the drink will read less sweet once chilled and iced.
- ServingCool it fully and chill before serving; the arrowroot body is unpleasant lukewarm. The recipe calls for a single piece of ice in a stemmed glass.
- KeepingStarch-bound juice does not hold well. Use within a day or two; it will weep and thin as the arrowroot breaks down, and it does not freeze usefully.
Fruit drinks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were often treated as a manufactured product rather than simply poured: juice was filtered for clarity, sweetened, and sometimes given body with starch so it looked and drank like a syrup-based beverage rather than plain squeezed fruit. Arrowroot, a starch from the tropical Maranta rhizome, stays transparent in acid where cornstarch clouds and flour muddies. Cheap, reliable oranges by the dozen were a product of Florida and California rail shipping, which by this period put solid, juicy fruit within reach in a way it had not been two generations earlier.