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Floating Islands of Cream
Put one teacupful of jelly or jam into a basin with the whites of two eggs and beat them well. Whip one pint of cream and when well frothed turn it into an oval or round-shaped dish. With a tablespoon drop the jelly about on the cream. It is then ready to be served.
This is a very short dessert with a hidden problem: the egg whites are never cooked, never heated, and never even chilled with acid or sugar syrup. What follows explains the units and the hazard rather than offering a way around it.
- Raw egg white, uncookedThe whites of two eggs are beaten with jam and served as they are. Nothing in the method reaches a temperature that would deal with Salmonella, which can be present inside an intact shell egg as well as on it. A modern recipe for floating islands either poaches the meringue in hot milk or uses a cooked or pasteurised base.
- Who it was served toUncooked egg is a particular risk for children, pregnant women, older adults and anyone immunocompromised, which covers a good share of any dinner table. If you want this dessert, use a current recipe that heats or pasteurises the whites.
- The cream compounds itA pint of whipped cream holding raw egg white will stand unrefrigerated while it is spooned and served. Cream is a hospitable medium, and although the jelly brings some sugar, the dish has nothing at the concentration of a syrup, alcohol or acid that would slow anything down.
- A teacupfulIn American books of this period a teacupful is usually reckoned smaller than the eight-ounce measuring cup, commonly around six fluid ounces, though usage varied. A stiff jelly such as currant, quince or raspberry would be firm enough to hold its shape on the cream.
- A pint of creamSixteen fluid ounces of heavy cream, which whips up to something close to a quart of froth. Nineteenth-century cream was unhomogenised, and its fat content varied with the dairy rather than being standardised as it is now.
- The name is misleadingThis is not the poached-meringue oeufs à la neige that usually goes by "floating island." The "islands" are dabs of jelly on a lake of cream, which is why no cooking step appears at all.
Floating island covers a family of desserts rather than one dish. The French île flottante and oeufs à la neige set poached meringue on custard; English and American books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often meant something looser, islands of jelly, jam or sponge afloat on whipped cream or sweetened wine, and the name migrated freely between them. Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) comes from a period when hotel kitchens worked with far less refrigeration and no modern food-safety inspection, and its uncooked cream-and-egg confections are a fair record of that moment: quick, showy and assembled at the last minute.