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Easter Sunday
White cherry cocktail
Crown of lamb
Mint jelly
Green peas
New potatoes
Spinach
Salad: Lettuce hearts, celery, sliced cooked carrots, mayonnaise dressing
Lily molds of ice cream, or egg shaped molds of ice cream, serving one chocolate, one strawberry and one vanilla egg to each person
Angel food cake
Crown of Lamb: Select parts from two loins containing ribs, trim off back bone, shape each piece in a semi-circle having ribs outside and sew or skewer pieces together to form a crown. Have ends of bones trimmed evenly and cut rather short. When baked well done scrape meat from crown bone ends and cover with paper chop holders before serving.
The menu is a list, but the crown of lamb carries real instructions. The rest is assembly, and a few of the period assumptions need translating.
- Ask the butcherTwo frenched racks of lamb, seven or eight ribs each, tied into a circle is a standing order at any full-service meat counter. Doing it yourself means removing the chine bone and scoring between the ribs so the racks will bend without cracking.
- "Baked well done" is the one line to ignoreLamb cooked through to the period standard will be grey and dry. Roast at 375F and pull the crown at 130-135F at the thickest part of the eye for medium-rare, resting ten minutes. On a 14-16 rib crown that is roughly 25-40 minutes depending on thickness.
- Protect the bone tipsFoil caps on the rib ends during roasting keep them from charring; remove them, scrape any clinging meat and fat as directed, and fit the paper frills at the table. Frills are still sold as "cutlet frills" or "chop frills."
- White cherry cocktailNot a mixed drink in the modern sense but a first-course fruit cup of white cherries (Napoleon or similar), chilled and served in a stemmed glass.
- Mint jelly and peasBoth were usual accompaniments to spring lamb at this date. A sharper mint sauce of chopped mint, sugar and vinegar suits under-done lamb better than the sweet green jelly.
- The ice cream eggsEgg and lily molds were pewter or tin hinged forms, still findable secondhand. Silicone egg molds do the same job: soften the ice cream slightly, pack it hard against the mold walls to avoid air pockets, and refreeze for several hours before unmolding.
- YieldAllow two ribs per person, so a 16-rib crown serves eight. Carving is simply cutting down between the ribs once the frills are on.
Crown roasts belong to the era of the elaborate presentation joint, when a dish's worth was measured partly by how it looked coming through the dining room door, and the crown of lamb was the Easter version of that impulse: spring lamb was the seasonal meat, and the ring of frilled bones made a literal crown for the feast. The Book of a Thousand Menus is a planning book rather than a cookbook, offering a full day's or occasion's table at a glance, and most entries are bare lists with one or two dishes explained in detail. The paper chop frill it calls for is a survival of an older French garnishing habit, generally traced to the practice of dressing bone ends with cut paper to keep fingers clean and to hide the scraped bone; by the 1920s it was decoration alone. The trio of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream eggs at each place reflects how thoroughly commercial ice cream had arrived by then, along with the Easter egg as a confectionery form rather than a dyed hen's egg.