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Temperance Punch
1 Gallon Water 4 Cups Yellow Corn Syrup 1 Dozen Lemons 1/2 Dozen Oranges 1 Can Pineapple Cut pineapple into dice and pour syrup made from water, corn syrup and fruit juice over it. Fill bowl about half full of cracked ice, and add punch.
A large-format party punch built on corn syrup rather than granulated sugar. The method is barely sketched, so the proportions and a few missing steps are worth spelling out.
- What "yellow corn syrup" meansOlder labels distinguished white (clear, light) from yellow or golden corn syrup, the latter darker and faintly caramel in flavor. Light corn syrup is the closest current product; dark corn syrup will color the punch and push it toward molasses.
- Sweetness ratioCorn syrup is less sweet than sucrose by weight, so four cups is roughly the sweetening power of about three cups of sugar. Taste the syrup base after the juice goes in and adjust before icing.
- How much juiceA dozen lemons yields roughly 1 1/2 to 2 1/4 cups of juice; a half dozen oranges roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups. Roll and juice at room temperature and strain out pulp and seeds.
- The can of pineappleThe intended size is unstated, but a No. 2 can of the period held about 20 oz. Use a 20 oz can of pineapple in juice, dice the fruit, and pour the canning juice into the punch rather than discarding it.
- Make the syrup first, then add juiceThe recipe's 'syrup' is water and corn syrup combined; corn syrup will disperse in cold water with stirring. If you do warm it to combine, let it cool before adding the citrus juice, as heating fresh juice dulls its flavour.
- Ice and dilutionFilling the bowl half full of cracked ice means the punch will be diluted considerably as it melts. Mix it slightly stronger than you want it, or freeze part of the punch itself into a block and float that instead.
- YieldSomething like a gallon and three-quarters before ice, which at a four-ounce punch cup is roughly 40 servings. Halve everything for an ordinary party.
"Temperance" in a punch recipe is a label of intent: it announces to the hostess that the bowl on the sideboard contains nothing stronger than fruit juice, at a time when a punch bowl at a wedding or church social carried real social freight. A punch that could be made in gallons from lemons, canned pineapple and a bottle of syrup was exactly the kind of large-quantity, occasion-scaled recipe a household kept on hand. The reliance on corn syrup rather than sugar reflects the early twentieth-century commercial push behind bottled corn syrup, which was widely promoted for confectionery and beverages and is often said to have been especially useful when sugar was scarce; the fact that the recipe specifies the yellow grade rather than the white suggests a period when cooks were expected to know the difference.