Summer Spaghetti: or, Good tomatoes never need help

We meant to go to the hardware store and ended up at a roadside produce tent.

Summer Spaghetti 2 pounds very ripe tomatoes 1 small sweet onion, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed 2 tablespoons finely minced fresh parsley ½ teaspoon basil ¼ cup olive oil Red wine vinegar* Salt and pepper to taste 8 oz shell pasta Freshly grated Parmesan to taste Peel and dice the tomatoes.† Add the onions, garlic, parsley, basil and olive oil to the tomatoes. Season to taste with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Set aside. Cook and drain the spaghetti. Toss the hot spaghetti with the tomato mixture. Serve immediately tossed with cheese. The tomato mixture may be prepared ahead and refrigerated. Bring it back to room temperature before mixing with the hot spaghetti (you can just microwave it for a short time). This is also good served cold, especially with fresh lime juice squeezed over it. *The original recipe uses tarragon wine vinegar, but that seems hard to find these days. † Peeling tomatoes is not as irksome as you may think. If you cut a slit in them, then dip them in boiling water for 30-60 seconds, then put them in cold water, you can pull the peel off with your fingers. Here's a video showing how to do it. The Cotton Country Collection; Junior League of Monroe, Louisiana; 1972

After several years of nothing but supermarket vegetables, it was amazing to find peaches that smelled like peaches. The scent of the cantaloupes actually hit us as soon as we walked in the tent and told us how good they were. For once, we actually ate all of the produce instead of letting it slowly rot in the fridge with our other good intentions.

Getting to today's recipe, we got some really big tomatoes. Like, usually you can't get tomatoes like this unless your neighbor has a tomato patch in her spare time. They looked ordinary sitting by themselves, so here's one with my typewriter for scale.

These were good enough to just slice onto a plate, but we got a lot of tomatoes. So I decided to make something called "Summer Spaghetti."

The Cotton Country Collection; Junior League of Monroe, Louisiana; 1972

I've been eyeing this recipe for a long time, but I could tell that it absolutely depends on good ingredients. And for some reason, the farmer's markets around here all close close bizarrely early in the morning. Even if I end up trudging in the hottest part of the miserable afternoon, I refuse to set an alarm clock to buy vegetables.

The recipe calls for peeled and diced tomatoes. I had horrible visions of squishing the tomatoes into a sad mess while hacking at them with a paring knife, which nearly made me give up before I had put the spaghetti in the pot. Then I figured that if anyone could make peeling tomatoes easier, Delia Smith could. Sure enough, she has a video about peeling tomatoes that requires no knife skills. She says that if you put them in boiling water for a minute or so, "you'll find the skins will slip off really easily." It sounded too good to be true, but it worked! Doing our tomatoes the Delia way was as easy as picking the peel off of a cooked potato with your fingers. I've said this many times, but Delia Smith never fails to come to your aid.

In full disclosure, chopping the tomatoes was a slithery, messy process-- even with a freshly sharpened knife. I don't think there is an easy way around that without some very specific factory machinery. Also, that runoff so delicious that I tipped the cutting board into a teacup.

Aside from waiting for our pasta to boil, this was surprisingly fast to put together. This is all the chopping you have to do for this recipe. If you're half-decent with a knife, you can probably do it while the spaghetti's cooking.

I should have put the tomatoes in a bigger bowl to make room for everything else. But doesn't it look gorgeous anyway?

I should note that our tomatoes got soupy within a few seconds of stirring everything together. This must be why we're told to serve immediately.

I had prepared the full amount of tomatoes since the recipe says we can do that ahead if desired, but only cooked half the pasta. I think this accidentally improved our summer spaghetti. This is the recipe if you make it as written. Don't you think it needs more tomato?

But if you should double the tomatoes (or halve the pasta without halving the tomatoes), you get this. Doesn't it look better?

Note that we splurged on actual Parmesan instead of canned powder.

I don't understand why the recipe writer tried to stretch the summer produce with extra pasta. Farmer's market vegetables don't tend to have a shelf life, and there's no point in parsimony with short-lived ingredients.

This is one of those recipes that reminds you that vegetables can be so damn good. Obviously, if you use the produce from the supermarket, this would be as thrilling as one of those droopy broccoli trays in an office breakroom. But in the summertime when the really good tomatoes appear at farmer's markets, you owe it to yourself.

Sour Cream Cookies: I wouldn't bother if I were you

After so many successes, Mrs. Mary Martensen has let me down.

Sour Cream Cookies ¼ cup butter 1 cup sugar 2 eggs, beaten ½ tsp lemon juice 1 cup sour cream ½ tsp baking soda 3½ cups flour 1 tsp baking powder Heat oven to 400°. Have greased or parchment-lined baking sheets ready. Cream the butter, then thoroughly beat in the sugar. Mix in the eggs, lemon juice, and sour cream. Sift in the remaining dry ingredients. Roll one-fourth inch thick, sprinkle with sugar, and bake ten minutes. Makes sixty cookies. Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933, via The Internet Archive

I always keep sour cream on hand because it's nice in so many things, and my current container was getting close to expiring. And while one can throw out things that are at the end of their prime, aren't cookies better?

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

Mrs. Mary Martensen tells us to add the sugar and a couple of other things to the bowl all at once, but I could already tell that would end badly. After all, our small allotment of butter was still clinging to the sides of the bowl in hard clumps. So I instead beat in the sugar until the two were thoroughly mixed before introducing the remaining ingredients.

Ahhhh, clump free!

We are directed to add "eggs, well beaten." I decided that the eggs would be plenty well-beaten after I was done mixing them in.

And so, it was time to add in the sour cream. Bearing in mind the New England raisin drops, I also added some vanilla-- and also some salt because I think they had unsalted butter in 1933.

After mixing in the flour, I began to doubt Mrs. Mary Martensen. (She had already disappointed us with the cabbage au gratin. At the time I charitably decided that no one's perfect.) No one could take a rolling pin to this sticky mess and make it a quarter-inch thick. 

I thought that maybe like Maxine Menster's cookies, you're supposed to refrigerate the dough first. Perhaps an experienced cook would have known that just from reading the recipe and mentally adding up all the ingredients in their head. 

But because I am not that good, I had already preheated the oven and refused to waste the electricity. So I forgot about doing things properly and thoroughly coated the mass of dough in flour to keep it from sticking. After that, I didn't need a rolling pin. I only had to pat it out with my fingers.

I was surprised at how nice and neat these cookies looked. My success felt like cheating fate.

I feared that these would melt into dough puddles, but instead they became adorable little poufs.

I tasted these and was immediately glad I halved the recipe. They're... not good. They have a perfect texture, but they taste like nothing. They're not merely bland. They taste empty. There is no absence of subtle flavor. Instead, there is no flavor. They weren't even sweet- the sugar somehow dissipated along with everything else. The dough had been promising, all the life in the cookies got cooked out.

I guess it's nice that I cleaned out the fridge and avoided the temptation of excessive calories. Really, this recipe confounds me. The texture is perfect, but they're so depressing. These cookies are what Maxine Menster's are glad they ain't.

Strawberry Whip: or, Spring is turning into summer

We overestimated how much we wanted strawberries.

Strawberry Whip 2 tbsp gelatin, or 1 (¼-oz) envelope 1 tbsp water About 8 oz fresh strawberries A little lemon juice, if desired 1 tsp vanilla Red food coloring, if desired 1 cup cream ½ cup sugar Mix the gelatin and water in a small microwave-safe bowl. Set aside to soak about 5 minutes. Puree the strawberries, then pour through a strainer to remove the seeds and stringy bits. Microwave the gelatin until melted and watery, about 5 seconds or so. Add the gelatin, lemon juice, and vanilla to the strawberries. If desired, add a few drops of red food coloring. Whip the cream and sugar in a large bowl. Then fold in the strawberries. Transfer to the container of your choice, and place in the coldest part of your refrigerator. Chill and serve. Adapted from a handwritten manuscript, 1930s-1940s Notebook of Hannah Dannehy O'Neil

Strawberries have been astonishingly cheap these past few weeks. I don't know if it's a bizarre confluence of economic coincidences, if we live near a lot of strawberry farms and didn't know it, or if it's some combination of the two. Furthermore, the berries are actually in season (ish), so they taste like strawberries instead of like nothing. We got one small box last week, and they were so good that we bought a lot of them the next time we went grocery shopping. They soon started to get pruny and squishy, and I didn't want to lose them.

I could have suspended the berries in red Jello. As many have noted before me, gelatin is surprisingly good at extending the lifespan of fresh produce. But today, I wanted to adopt my great-grandmother's apricot whip. Instead of stewing apricots, we're blenderizing strawberries.

After a good pulverization, I ran the strawberries through a sieve. This was the only tedious(ish) part of this whole recipe, but would you want all these seeds and stringy bits in your pink fluff?

As soon as I realized I was making "pink fluff," I had horrible visions of the ballistic-grade pink pie we made a while ago. 

And also, pink fluff is one of the more infamous midcentury desserts. It's almost a symbol of the insipid "cooking" that involved creatively dumping three cans into one bowl. But then I figured this is literally strawberries and cream (with some gelatin to keep it from deflating, of course).

Speaking of strawberries, I decided they needed a bit of artificial assistance to look their best after getting blenderized. Fruit is rarely fruit-colored enough.

This reminds me a lot of the cream of strawberry pie we made a while ago. Both of them are basically strawberries and whipped cream. And both of them looked so pretty at this stage.

This recipe was agreeably fast since we didn't have to wait on a pot of simmering dried fruit. Only ten minutes after sprinkling the gelatin over the water, we were ready to, as the recipe says, "Chill and serve." And then, of course, we discovered that the bowl-scrapings were delicious.

 

This wasn't as magical as I fantasized it would be, but it was still very good indeed. It did get a bit bland in the refrigerator, though- which surprised me. I know strawberry is perhaps the most inoffensive of artificial flavors, but the actual fruits tend to actually have a taste. So while this isn't necesessarily the best way to appreciate fresh strawberries, it's pretty good if they've slipped just a bit past it. 

 

Rice Cheese: It needs more cheese

I couldn't argue with cheese and rice.

Rice Cheese 3 cups cooked rice ½ cup shredded cheese 1 cup tomato puree (fresh or canned)* 1 teaspoon melted butter Salt, black Pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste Heat oven to 325°. Grease a medium-sized casserole dish. Mix all ingredients. Place in casserole dish. If the rice is dry (or if it's right on the edge of being too dry), pour a little water over it. Cover with a lid (or with foil if your baking dish doesn't have a lid) and bake for around 20 minutes. Note: This didn't mind baking at 350°, so you can put it in the oven next to other things baking at that temperature. *In a pinch, you can put canned tomatoes in a blender. "In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; July 8, 1935; page 3

This recipe uses a lot more rice than I expected. I had initially thought it is supposed to creatively refresh leftover rice (because cheese solves everything). But as far as I know, few people cook enough rice to have nearly a quart of it left over. Obviously, we cut the recipe down a lot. 

"In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; July 8, 1935

It seems that people used to boil and drain rice like spaghetti, sometimes adding an extra step where you return the rice to the fire to separate the grains a bit. But today, we are embracing modernity-- even if it means we have to temporarily return our souffle pan (which also steams the occasional pudding) to its original home.

Moving down the recipe, we're supposed to mix the rice with cheese and "tomato sauce." I had a particularly unwelcome suspicion that tomato sauce is Australian for ketchup, so I picked an Australian supermarket chain to see what turned up on their website.

Thinking that perhaps food definitions have changed a bit since 1935, I decided to see if The Southern Districts Advocate ever had anything to say about "tomato sauce" around the same time they printed today's rice. Sure enough, one edition of "In the Kitchen" was devoted to preserving that year's apparently bountiful tomato harvest. They had a recipe for "A Good Tomato Sauce," which looks like ketchup as we know it today.

"In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; March 4, 1935; page 5

Note the addition of apples, which I think would be really nice if I ever decide to make my own tomato sauce instead of buying it. But getting back to the recipe we're actually making, I didn't want to make a big pan of rice and ketchup-- period-correct or not. (I would be willing to put something like Miss Leslie's ketchup in our rice, but her recipe was in the wrong hemisphere and already a century out of date.) Instead, I pulled some half-pruned tomatoes out of the back of the fridge and put them in our new toy mini-chopper.

The rest of the recipe was easy enough: stir it together and bake.

This tasted like a rough draft of Spanish rice. (Which doesn't surprise me-- both are mostly rice and tomatoes.) I think it could have used more a lot more cheese. I was hoping for something like macaroni and cheese but with rice. Instead we got rice with a gallingly tasteful seasoning of cheese. I wasn't thrilled, but I did keep the leftovers. 

 

If I revisit this, I'll probably triple the cheese. There's a time and a place for using cheese lightly (or so I've heard), and rice absolutely isn't it.

Lemon Pie no. 2: It's always time for lemon pie

I can't imagine needing two lemon pie recipes.

Lemon Pie #2 3 egg yolks Juice and rind of 1 lemon 3 tablespoons flour 1 cup sugar ½ teaspoon salt 1 cup boiling water 1 tablespoon butter 1 9-inch pie shell Heat oven to 350°. Bake the pie shell until slightly golden. Whip the egg yolks and lemon juice until very light, set aside. Sift together the flour, sugar, and salt into a saucepan. Whisk in boiling water until smooth. Add the lemon rind and stir over medium-high heat until it thickens and comes to a boil. Turn off the heat. Add the butter and the egg yolks, stirring until the butter melts. Pour into the pie shell and bake until set, about 25-30 minutes. If desired, top with meringue and return to the oven until lightly browned. I thought this was better with whipped cream instead. Serve at room temperature or refrigerated, depending on preference. Meringue: Beat 3 egg whites (which you saved from separating the egg yolks for the filling) with an electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. Continue beating while gradually sprinkling in 5 tablespoons of sugar. Beat until the sugar is dissolved and everything is smooth and glossy. Spread on the pie, return to the oven, and bake until the meringue is lightly browned. Handwritten note, probably 1930s-1950s Notebook of Hannah D. O'Neil (née Hanora Frances Dannehy)

We may have found why my great-grandmother occasionally needed "a pleasant change from a piece of lemon meringue pie." I can't imagine making lemon pie so often that I needed a second recipe for it.

I was going to skip over this recipe. We already made a lemon pie from her book and liked a lot. Why would anyone need multiple lemon pies? But then again, I have multiple brownie recipes for different moods (the extra-rich brownies, the very sweet brownies, the quick and easy brownies, etc). 

With that in mind, if there is any real variation in lemon pies, I've never found it. They always taste like the recipe on the back of the cornstarch box, whether I make them myself or buy them at the fanciest bakeries my budget can forgive. This pie looked a bit different, which made me wonder: are there other lemon pies and I've been missing out all this time?

Furthermore, I can't imagine why someone would write down a second recipe for the same pie unless it was better than the first.

And lastly, my car battery died and I wanted to bake my way out of being despondent. I didn't mourn the car battery, but I was forced to confront the insane prices of car parts amidst a trade war and an actual war. (Nothing has trickled down to my neighborhood yet.) Lemon pie it would therefore be. 

Three tablespoons of flour didn't seem like much until I got it into the sifter.

I hadn't made this pie yet, and I already liked it more than the one that shows up on the back of the cornstarch box. That one never seems to set unless I burn an offering to Fornax (the Roman goddess of hearth and oven), and even then I sometimes end up euphemistically calling it custard.This one uses a lot more to hold it together.

Let the record show that because we semi-always follow directions here at A Book of Cookrye, I did in fact get out the sifter for this. It seemed like more bother than I'd usually do for a lemon pie, but I'm not the one who wrote this down. 

As directed, I stirred in boiling water "until smooth," which was a lot easier than I expected. I thought I'd have to thrash this with a whisk, but we were done in a few seconds.

I did this in a separate bowl because I actually like my nonstick pot now.

The recipe doesn't mention using the lemon rind, but I think it really makes the flavor pop. I'm going to assume people would have done that instead of throwing out ingredients that were right on the countertop and waiting. Maybe cooks back then thought adding the rind was too obvious to write down, like "discard the eggshells."

This particular recipe calls for egg yolks "beaten light," which I've never seen in a lemon pie before. Usually you just put everything in the top of a double boiler and stir it for a minute or two. I put the whisk attachment into our mixer to see what the point of this might be. Seeing a single whisk (they were too cheap to put two in the box) hovering over the food made me think of when I replaced my broken handmixer with a power drill (which at the time led to several unsolicited and unculinary wall perforations).

I thought that one lemon wasn't enough for a whole pie, so I bought two. (Perhaps my great-grandmother meant a large lemon, rather than the smaller ones?) But a generously-dipped tasting spoon showed me that the first lemon was more than enough for the pie, so I put the other one away for future plans.

We are next told to add the butter and whipped egg yolks right to the pot. There's no mention of slowly spooning hot filling into the egg yolks until they're tempered. I was in a bit of a mood, so I decided to see if I really needed to bother with that. Maybe whipping them changes something and thus forestalls egg drop soup?

 

To my surprise, this actually worked. Nothing got scrambled, and we had a few swirls of foam that floated on top of the pot. I had thought they'd completely deflate and mix in. Perhaps this is like one of those sponge puddings that bake in layers? (Also, I really should have slipped in some artificial dye. This would have been really cute if it was pink.)

I decided not to make a meringue because they only last a day or so before deflating and dripping out those little brown beads. (Remember the rice pudding?) I do like a good meringue, but I also like desserts that last a bit.

However, this pie was incomplete without some sort of white fluff on top. I always thought people just did the meringue for presentation, but lemon pie is a lot better when dressed. So I gave it a dollop of whipped cream.

 

I didn't think a single lemon would be enough for a whole pie, but you'll notice that this is a relatively shallow pie so it all worked out. It was really good. More so than the other pie, this one tasted like fresh lemon. It's easy to make and hard to give away. If you don't want to make a whole pie of it, this would make really good lemon squares if you bake it on a shortbread cookie crust. Or, imagine it in a pavlova or a blitz forte.

Savory Baked Rice: or, I swear someone's aunt makes this

I've never tasted this before, but I would swear I have.

Savory Baked Rice ¾ cup raw rice 1½ cups water About ½ tsp salt 1 chopped onion (or about 4 oz frozen chopped onion*-- no need to defrost) 1 well-beaten egg 1½ cups milk Salt and pepper to taste Cook the rice, water, onion, and salt until done-- whether you use a rice cooker or a saucepan. If desired, add some extra seasonings before cooking-- I really liked it with a generous shake of dried parsley. While you're waiting on the rice, beat the egg until uniform. When the rice is done, heat oven to 350° (gas mark 4, 180°C). Grease a pie pan. Mix the milk with the rice-- this cools it off enough to prevent curdling the egg. Then add the egg and mix well. Add salt and pepper, and any other seasonings to taste. Bake 20 minutes. Serve warm. *There's no need to precisely weigh out the frozen onion. I just eyeballed about a third of a 12-oz package. "In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; August 21, 1933; page 1

The recipe ends with "Serve with mashed potatoes and tomato sauce." I don't know anything about the town of Katanning, but I did note that more than half the newspaper was concerned with livestock and crops. Carbs with a side of carbs makes more sense out in farm country. 

"In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; August 21, 1933

Today, we're starting with rice and a special other ingredient: an onion! I don't know why I never thought to add a chopped raw onion to the rice cooker before, but I'm definitely doing it again whether I revisit this recipe or not.

I also put generous shake of dried parsley in the rice water. I think dried parsley is very underrated in modern food. It makes things taste properly seasoned and adds such an interesting flavor. Parsley deserves to be more than decorative sprigs on the side of fancy plates.

Aside from waiting for the rice to cook, this recipe was surprisingly quick to put together. You just put it all in a bowl and stir. Though since I didn't want any stubborn clumps of egg that refused to beat out, I made a short detour and beat our egg electrically. I imagine that anyone doing this in the 1930s could have used a handcranked eggbeater and done it nearly as fast. 

The recipe says "more eggs can be added," but the price of eggs still hasn't quite recovered from the last time Trump was president. 

 After mixing, it looked (as all unbaked rice puddings seem to do) like soggy porridge.

Things were a lot better after baking. The rice came out of the oven ever-so-slightly golden on top and smelling amazing.

This was a lot better than it should have been. Seriously, this tastes like something that somebody's aunt always brings. I don't think anyone in my family has ever made anything like this, but I would swear it spontaneously generated on the Thanksgiving table at least once. And like all good recipes that someone's aunt brings, there were a lot of leftovers and we were glad to have them. 

 

Fresh Berry Whip: or, You probably shouldn't skimp on the title ingredient

Strawberries have been almost absurdly cheap. (Well, cheap by wartime prices.) Naturally, we bought a lot and forgot they have a shelf life of about two minutes. But because our refrigerator has been perhaps a bit too enthusiastic since its most recent repair, the strawberries didn't expire. They just shrivelled and looked like it. And as soon as I mashed them a bit with a spoon, they smelled deliciously like fresh strawberries.

Fresh Berry Whip 1½ cups raspberries or sliced strawberries (about 8oz or 225g) ⅓ cup sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice (from a fresh lemon instead of a bottle if possible) 1 (&frac14oz) envelope unflavored gelatin, or 1 tablespoon gelatin powder ¼ cup cold water ¾ cup boiling water ⅛ teaspoon salt Red food coloring, if desired If you don't have an ice maker, place a large bowl of water in the refrigerator ahead of time to get very cold. Crush the berries slightly in a small bowl or large cup. Mix in the sugar and let stand 10 minutes. Then stir in lemon juice to taste. While the berries are standing and waiting, sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a small bowl, and let stand five minutes. Then add the boiling water and stir until dissolved. After ten minutes, force half of the berries through a sieve. Place the pulp in a measuring cup and add the syrup that came out of them as they soaked. Then add enough water to make ¾ cup. Pour into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add the gelatin and salt to the sieved berries. Place the bowl in a large bowl of ice-cold water. Stir until it gets thick and syrupy. If desired, add red food coloring to make it a prettier shade of pink. (It'll be kind of pale-looking without it.) Then beat with an electric mixer (or a handcranked eggbeater) until it is whipped. Refrigerate until it is half-firm but not quite set, which may only take a few minutes. To check, sprinkle one or two of the remaining berries on top. They should stay on top instead of sinking to the bottom of the bowl. Then fold in the remaining berries. Refrigerate until firm. Turn into a serving bowl or pile in individual bowls. Garnish with whole or sliced berries, if desired. Will keep for a couple of nights in a sealed container. Serves 5. Good Desserts A-Plenty!, Minute Gelatin (General Foods Corporation), 1942-ish

I actually like when fruit goes slightly off in the fridge. I can't forgive myself for putting fresh and lovely fruit into a batch of muffins where it cannot be fully appreciated. But when the fruit is squishy or half-hardened, I'm no longer being extravagant when I cook it. Instead, I'm starving the garbage can.

We just happened to have the perfect recipe for the fruit in this tiny slip of a cookbook from the WWII rationing era. And I do mean a "tiny slip" of a booklet. It's only 2.5 by 5 inches of very small print (or about 65 by 130 millimeters for our metric friends). 

This stapled wallet-sized book is such a product of its time. First, the title "Good Desserts A-Plenty!" (with a jaunty exclamation mark) attempts to reassure you that you'll still have sweets amid food shortages. Second, it has little patriotic stars up and down each page. Third, it's printed as cheaply as possible. They didn't even cut the pages on the alignment marks; a lot of the text is ever-so-slightly crooked. 

The book has no date, but I'm going to guess that it's from right before rationing officially kicked in. I only say that because there's no cheery mention of stretching your "ration points."

Speaking of food shortages, we didn't have quite enough berries for this recipe. I think this is why our "fresh berry whip" ultimately didn't come out as good as it could have. But as I was measuring things, I decided that I was making a period-correct mistake. Also, I didn't want to buy more fruit just to pulverize and gelatinize it.

I was going to forcefully mash the berries through the sieve (I didn't see that they were supposed to be sliced until too late), but they put up a better fight than I anticipated. Fortunately, we recently got a new toy at a flea market:

I'm leaving the price tag on because I love how cheap this was.

I don't know if sugar was rationed when this book came out, but I think people were already cutting back regardless. It may look like we put a lot of sugar on the strawberries, but that's only because everything is confined into one small cup.

 

After ten minutes, the sugar had done its hygroscopic business on the strawberries and made an incredibly delicious syrup. If the rest of the recipe fails, you might want to stop here and spoon this into cute (and very small) bowls. To make it extra-fancy, you could add a drop of balsamic vinegar or a spoonful of wine.

We didn't get a lot of pulp out of our sieved strawberries, even though I managed to force everything through the mesh except a few stringy bits. This recipe may serve five, but it is not meant to serve five with leftovers.  

Interestingly, our cup of sieved strawberries stayed in layers. The syrup is on the bottom, then the strawberries in the middle, then the water we added floated over the rest.

I was surprised when our mixture whipped up as well as it did. And it stayed whipped instead of deflating as soon as I turned off the mixer. When I put the rest of the fruit on top, the foam held it up.

When I tried a spoonful, this tasted unexpectedly artificial-- and it wasn't the good kind of artificial flavoring. This tasted like the candy you throw away when you get home from trick-or-treating. To be fair, this recipe called for more fruit than we actually had threatening to go off, so I probably watered it more than I should have. Also, it probably would have been a lot better had I squeezed a fresh lemon instead of using the cheap bottled juice that's been in the fridge for a while. The recipe has promise, but I wasn't thrilled with what was about to congeal.

As I cleaned up, I had to finally acknowledge that our recipe used a lot of bowls. And with all our sieving and other fruit-related excitement, it made a splattery mess of the countertop. The impending crowded dishwasher and the rest of the mess had me muttering "this had better be worth it" as I waited for our fresh berry whip to refrigerate.

I can never decide if pink fluff looks cute and vintage, or if it looks like it came out of a medical textbook.

As aforementioned, I think I underserved this recipe by scrimping on fruit. Then again, I think that a lot of people back then probably did the same thing. (The shortages were real.) But with insufficient strawberries, this tasted like cheap fruit Jello. However, I imagine this would be a lot better if I actually used enough berries in it.

Also, don't go away thinking this looked normal. It wobbled unnervingly.

If strawberries remain cheap, I just might try this again with all the fruit it's entitled to (and with fresh lemon juice). It seems like it wants to be a very nice summery recipe, just the thing for when central AC hasn't yet made its way into homes. (Why do you think people kept going out to see cheesy matinee movies in the theater?) I also imagine this being really good on a summer picnic. But if you don't use enough fruit, it's just water and a third-cup of sugar.