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Coupes, Floradora
Prepare a pint only of peach ice cream. Peel and cut in slices two sound, ripe, sweet peaches and place in a bowl. Peel and detach in sections one sound, juicy orange, then cut each section in two, remove seeds and place with peaches, adding a peeled and finely sliced banana. Add an ounce sugar, two tablespoons rum, turn well in seasoning, then evenly divide the fruit into six coupes or champagne glasses. Divide the pint of ice cream over the six glasses, neatly smooth top to dome-shaped form, place a maraschino cherry on top of each and serve.
An assembly job rather than a cooking one, so the only real variables are the quality of the fruit and the temperature of everything when it reaches the table. Two details in the original need translating.
- A pint of ice cream, and no moreThe recipe is emphatic about the quantity because the fruit is meant to dominate: a pint split six ways is roughly a third of a cup each, a dome rather than a scoop. A pint of good commercial peach ice cream is a fair substitute for churning your own.
- An ounce of sugarThat is a weight, about two tablespoons of granulated sugar. Ripe summer peaches and a sweet orange may need less; taste the fruit before you add it all.
- "Coupes"A coupe is the stemmed, shallow-bowled glass the dish is named for, not a baked casserole. The recipe's own alternative, a champagne glass, is exactly right, and any small stemmed glass or footed dish works.
- Let the fruit sit, briefly"Turn well in seasoning" means fold the fruit gently in the sugar and rum. Fifteen to twenty minutes in the refrigerator draws out enough juice to make a light syrup; much longer and the banana goes brown and the peaches slump.
- Chill the glassesNothing here is cooked, so the whole pleasure is contrast between cold fruit and colder ice cream. Put the glasses in the freezer while the fruit macerates and assemble at the last possible moment.
- The rumTwo tablespoons across six servings is a flavouring, not a drink, but it is uncooked and unevaporated. Orange juice with a little grated zest stands in for a version to be served to children.
- YieldSix servings, as written, and it does not scale up well beyond a dozen: cut fruit sitting in sugar deteriorates fast.
Florodora (given as Floradora in this book's title) was a musical comedy that opened in London in 1899 and became a long-running success in New York from 1900, known chiefly for its double sextette and the chorus of "Florodora Girls" who sang it. Dishes were commonly named for the celebrities and hits of the day, though the Melbas, Tetrazzinis and Sarah Bernhardts were named for performers rather than for shows. The coupe — iced fruit in a stemmed glass under ice cream — was a convenient vehicle for such a name, and the form appears in Escoffier's repertoire with many variations on the same few components.