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Iced Strawberries
Take off the hulls from a quantity of strawberries, and see that they are quite clean and free from grit. Weigh them, and allow to every pound of strawberries three-fourths of a pound of white powdered sugar. Place them in a deep glass dish, with a layer of sugar between every layer of fruit, and for one and one-half pounds of sugar pour over one wineglassful of any fruit-juice that may be preferred. Put the dish into a refrigerator and let it remain for an hour and a half. Then remove it, sprinkle the tops of the strawberries with finely-pounded ice, and then with powdered white sugar, and serve without delay.
A macerated fruit dish that depends entirely on ratio and timing rather than technique. The one thing to watch is the hour and a half: much longer and the berries collapse into syrup.
- The sugar ratioThree-quarters of a pound of sugar to a pound of berries is roughly 1¾ cups sugar to a pound of fruit. Modern strawberries are often sweeter and softer than the berries Oscar would have had; half that sugar is closer to current taste, and the maceration still works.
- "Powdered sugar" hereIn 1896 this meant granulated sugar ground fine — what is now sold as caster or superfine sugar. Confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and will turn cloudy and pasty against wet fruit. Use superfine, or pulse granulated sugar briefly in a grinder.
- A wineglassfulReckon two fluid ounces, a scant quarter cup. The recipe pours this over each 1½ lb of sugar, so for two pounds of berries with the full sugar allowance you want about 2 fl oz of juice. Raspberry, red currant or orange juice all suit.
- "Refrigerator"An ice-cooled chest, holding somewhere around 45–50°F — warmer and less even than a modern fridge. Ninety minutes in a 38°F refrigerator draws less juice; if the berries look dry at the end, give them another twenty minutes at room temperature before serving.
- Pounded iceCrushed or shaved ice from clean cubes. Block ice was broken up for table use with a mallet, sometimes in a canvas bag; coarse chips dilute the syrup as they melt.
- Serve without delayThis is not incidental. The ice and the final dusting of sugar are meant to be seen intact; left standing, the sugar dissolves and the melting ice waters the syrup.
- YieldTwo pounds of hulled berries in a deep glass dish serves six to eight as the end of a meal.
Oscar Tschirky was never technically the Waldorf's chef — he was its maître d'hôtel — but the 1896 volume that carries his name gathered the hotel's working repertoire, and dishes like this one show how much of a grand hotel's dessert service rested on good raw materials rather than pastry work. Iced strawberries belong to a family of macerated-fruit dishes (fraises au sucre and their kin) that European kitchens had long made; what seems to have made them a New York luxury in the 1890s was the combination of out-of-season berries said to have been brought north by rail and a reasonably reliable supply of harvested lake ice. The natural-ice trade is generally reckoned to have been near its peak around this time, and a hotel that could serve fruit dusted with finely pounded ice in a glass dish was advertising its cold-storage capacity as much as its cooking.