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Mixed Fruit Cup
One dozen fine, large oranges; slice off the top and scoop out the inside and put in bowl of ice water. Be careful not to break the skin of the orange peel. Cut in small pieces one dozen ripe bananas, and a can of sliced pineapple, put them all together, sweeten to taste, and then fill the orange shells. Set each one in a soup plate, filled with crushed ice.
A turn-of-the-century first course rather than a dessert: fruit served cold in its own shell, cut and chilled ahead so the meal can begin the moment guests sit down. Nothing here is difficult, but a few of the instructions assume knowledge the book never spells out.
- The ambiguous line"Put in bowl of ice water" may refer either to the emptied shells, which firm up and stay crisp when held in ice water, or to the scooped pulp being held aside; the wording will not settle it. If you use it for the shells, drain them cut side down before filling.
- Scooping the shellsSlice off the top third, run a grapefruit knife or thin paring knife around the inside of the pith, then work the segments out with a spoon. Trim a thin slice from the base of each so it sits level in its plate.
- Use the pulpThe recipe does not clearly say what becomes of the orange flesh. Segment it, discard membrane and seeds, and add it to the banana and pineapple rather than throwing away the bulk of the fruit.
- Canned pineappleThe recipe does not give a can size; sliced pineapple of the period was commonly sold in a can of roughly a pound and a quarter, packed in syrup. A modern 20 oz can works; drain it, and reserve a little syrup in place of added sugar. Fresh pineapple is fine here and considerably better.
- BananasTwelve bananas for twelve shells is generous to the point of crowding. Cut them last and toss with a spoonful of the pineapple juice or a squeeze of lemon, or they brown before the fruit reaches the table.
- Sweetening"Sweeten to taste" would have meant sugar, granulated or powdered, stirred in and left to dissolve. Do it well ahead and taste again cold — chilled fruit reads less sweet than fruit at room temperature.
- Yield and servingTwelve filled shells, one per person. The crushed ice in the soup plate is structural as well as decorative: it holds the round shell upright and keeps the fruit cold through a first course.
Fruit served at the start of the meal rather than the end was a mark of the newer American service in the years around 1900, when the long, wine-paired dinner was giving way to shorter menus and hostesses wanted an opening course that could be made hours in advance. Grapefruit halves, melon and the "fruit cup" all did that work, and the hollowed orange shell — a container, a garnish and a portion control all at once — appears often in the era's household writing. The canned sliced pineapple is the tell: Hawaiian canning grew rapidly after the turn of the century and had made the fruit widely and cheaply available by the 1910s, and cookbooks of the period reach for it constantly in salads and cold desserts. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, pitched its cook book at the household that wanted a presentable dinner without a trained cook, and this recipe suits that ambition: no heat, no skill, and twelve identical plates.