No. 3612

Grape Fruits a la Madison

Poncires a la Madison

The grape fruit is a species of large yellow orange, resembling the Florida orange; it is slightly bitter. Select those that are not too large, cut them across in two, empty the insides, keeping it all in a vessel, and notch the edges of the peel in points; remove the small rounds from the center and then place them to cool in a freezing-box. Prepare a mixture the same as orange punch, Russian Style (No. 3613), the only difference to observe being that all the fruit juice must be used; bring to twelve degrees and let cool to a granite (No. 3611), then serve in the prepared peels.

← No. 3611 Granite in Water Bottles with Currants, Cher Iced Drinks No. 3613 Orange Punch, Russian Style-Unfrozen Cold Dr →

For the Modern Kitchen

A grapefruit granita served back in the scraped-out shells, from Ranhofer's chapter of ices and iced drinks. Two things in the text need decoding before you can work from it: the "twelve degrees" and the word granite.

Twelve degrees means syrup density, not temperatureThroughout The Epicurean, degrees refer to a saccharometer reading (Baume) taken on the sweetened liquid. Twelve degrees is roughly 21-22 Brix, about the sweetness of a light syrup; in practice somewhere around 1 to 1 1/4 cups of sugar dissolved into 4 cups of juice and water, best checked with a hydrometer if you have one. Sweeter than that and it will not set into crystals; much leaner and it freezes into a solid brick.
Granite is the texture, and it is the hingeA granite (granita) is deliberately coarse. Freeze the mixture in a shallow metal pan and drag a fork through it every 30 minutes until it is uniformly grainy, three to four hours. Churning it in an ice cream machine gives you a sorbet, which is not what is being asked for.
Freezing-boxThe original means an ice cave or freezing cabinet packed with ice and salt. A domestic freezer at 0F does the same job; put the hollowed shells in about an hour ahead so they are hard and frosted when filled.
Poncire and grapefruitRanhofer uses poncire, an old French name for a thick-skinned citron, as a stand-in for the grapefruit, which had no settled French name at the time. His description of it as a large, slightly bitter yellow orange tells you how unfamiliar it still was.
The fruit has changedNineteenth-century grapefruit were seedy, sharply bitter and thick-pithed. Modern Marsh or ruby varieties are markedly sweeter and juicier, so taste before adding all the syrup; you may want less sugar and a squeeze of lemon to restore the edge Ranhofer took for granted.
All the juiceThe note that all the fruit juice must be used is the only real change from the punch it is based on. Press the pulp through a sieve rather than a juicer to keep the bitterness from the membranes, and strain out the pips.
The shellsCut across the equator, scoop the segments out cleanly, then remove the tough central core. Notching the rim into points is decorative; a small V-cut every half inch with a paring knife is enough. Trim a sliver off the base if a shell wobbles.
YieldSix medium grapefruit give twelve half-shells to refill. Serve immediately, on a bed of crushed ice, with a spoon.

A Little History

This belongs to the run of ices, punches and granites that Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, published in The Epicurean in 1894. Frozen citrus punches were served mid-meal in the long formal dinners of the period, as a palate-clearing course rather than a dessert, which is why this one is built on the same base as his Orange Punch, Russian Style. The grapefruit itself was still something of a novelty: commercial Florida groves had only begun shipping it north in any quantity in the 1880s, and the fruit had no fixed French name, so Ranhofer reached for poncire, a citron, and felt obliged to explain to his readers what a grapefruit was. Serving an ice in the hollowed rind of its own fruit was standard high-table practice of the era, and appears throughout the book with oranges, melons and pineapples.