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Fruit Punch
1 Quart Grape Juice 2 Cups Yellow Corn Syrup 6 Lemons 2 Oranges 2 Quarts Mineral Water Mix the grape juice, syrup and juice of lemons and oranges. Chill. Just before serving add the mineral water and thin slices of orange and pineapple cut into dice.
A cold-mixed punch that leans on corn syrup instead of sugar syrup, so nothing needs heating. The proportions make roughly three quarts, or about twelve punch-cup servings.
- Yellow corn syrupThis is the golden or light-amber corn syrup sold in the period under brand names like Karo, not the near-colorless "light" syrup that dominates shelves now and not dark corn syrup, which carries added refiners' molasses. Either modern light corn syrup or golden syrup will stand in; the point of using syrup at all is that it dissolves in cold liquid without cooking.
- SweetnessTwo cups of syrup against a quart of grape juice is very sweet by current taste. Start with half and adjust after the citrus goes in, tasting before dilution since the mineral water will soften it.
- Mineral waterHere it most likely means one of the bottled carbonated table waters sold by the case at the time rather than a still spring water. Club soda or seltzer gives that effect; a strongly mineral sparkling water will read as salty against the grape.
- Citrus yieldSix lemons and two oranges give roughly a cup of lemon juice and half a cup of orange juice, depending on fruit size. Measure rather than count.
- Add the fizz lastThe instruction to hold back the mineral water until serving is the hinge. The base must be thoroughly chilled first, because pouring soda over a room-temperature mixture drives off the carbonation immediately.
- The pineappleCanned pineapple in syrup was widely available in American households in this period, and the recipe does not say which form is meant. Fresh pineapple works equally well.
- IceNo ice is specified, and adding cubes to the bowl will thin the punch as they melt. A single large block, or a ring frozen from grape juice, chills without watering it down.
Punches like this belong to the era when the corn refining industry was actively teaching American cooks to reach for syrup rather than granulated sugar; Karo-branded corn syrup appeared in the early 1900s and its makers distributed booklets and recipe leaflets promoting it in everything from candy to beverages, which may have some bearing on why a bride's compilation calls for two full cups of it in a fruit punch. The recipe also reflects the temperance-adjacent respectability of the wedding-and-reception table: bottled grape juice, commercialized on a large scale from the late nineteenth century as an unfermented alternative to wine, plus bottled carbonated table water, let a hostess serve something festive from a cut-glass bowl with nothing alcoholic in it. The diced pineapple and thin orange slices are a finish often associated with the period, floated as much for the look of the bowl as for flavor.