Strawberries have been almost absurdly cheap. (Well, cheap by wartime price standards.) 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 (¼oz) 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
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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.
