1940s Archive

Food Flashes

Originally Published July 1945

The “limeade” trees are heavy with the glossy green harvest. Picking of the Persians begins in the lime groves of Florida, the fruit coming to eastern markets between now and September.

The green Persian is as generous of juice as the golden lemon, yet it took a war to bring it to commercial importance. As lime import sources were cut, Florida took over to put this lime's bracing goodness into the menu.

This is the fourth summer the big seedless greens have been seen in northern markets. Now they are an everyday find at the corner grocer's, not merely a luxury for hotel service or to add that glamour touch to a bon voyage basket. Green as a jealous eye, but utterly ripe and juice-dripping. They have to be juicy—it's the law of their state. More than two years ago Florida's legislature passed bills requiring that limes fulfill the same rigid maturity rulings and juice tests which have long been applied to Florida oranges and grapefruit. Inspectors examine the fruit before it's shipped, and only the best are given the nod of approval. A few Florida Key limes are around, but these are mere midgets and of no great importance. Now Florida growers are tearing out “Key” groves to replant with the “greens.”

Like all citrus fruits, limes give vitamin C as well as vitamin A and a host of valuable minerals. But the world loves the lime chiefly for its flavor, so delicately refreshing. Use the lime any way you would be using the lemon, but remember that it's more gentle in its sourness and requires less sugar. Traditionally, limes are the summer's number one cooler. Iced tea takes to lime, tomato juice, too. Save on butter by serving wedges of the lime with asparagus, with green beans, with beets—a drizzle of the juice is all the dressing required. Drip lime juice over melon, avocado, or stewed fruit, and you have an Arabian Night's miracle to dip up with a spoon. Use a slice of the lime to top a clear soup, jellied or hot. Lime enlivens fish. We use the fresh juice in a milk sherbet—a poem served with crushed and sweetened red raspberries.

The Danes' old-fashioned egg salad is a sandwich spread superior. Chopped hard-cooked eggs—that's all it is, sprinkled thick with chives, then blended in a slow-moving mixer with a non-fattening dressing, all spanked up with Worcestershire. If you like, serve it as a salad on water cress or lettuce. Or heap a mound on a meat platter, and circle with paper-thin slices of salami. Hearty, filling fare, spread thick-between squares of dark bread. Cut buttered pumpernickel into narrow strips, and spread on the egg mixture to tag after cocktails. Thin slices of olive, those wearing little red tail lights, would add a bright trim. Old Denmark, 135 East 57th, has this savory mixture: one pint $1, and enough to spread a square yard of bread.

A treasure chest to order straight from the desert carries fresh dates from the palm and a varied assortment of date products, also fresh citrus.

See what you have—three pounds of golden dates, not the usual run, but hand-selected for best texture, finest flavor. Next item out, a two-and-one-quarter pound package of date honey butter, called “crème of the desert,” this to use as a spread on the hot breakfast toast; it's perfect, too, as a filling for cookies and cakes, or use it in pies, mix it into ice cream. A recipe book accompanies the kit giving 250 tested recipes for using dates in breads, cakes, pies, puddings, sauces. Pull out the cake. It's a one-pound date, honey, and walnut fruit loaf in a flat brown slab like an old time heavenly hash. It has a crunchy crust baked to a golden glow covering the rich interior—fresh dates mixed with chopped nuts. This makes a rich dessert if heated slightly and served with whipped cream or ice cream. Cut into tiny squares, it is good to eat as a confection.

Still more surprises. Here is a pound box of stuffed dates, but in new form. Labor is scarce in the date packer's kitchens, and stuffing dates is a whale of a trouble. What the packer does is to turn the dates and the stuffing of nuts and honey into a mechanical mixer; then, well blended, the mass is pressed into inch-thick squares, cut into pieces, and sugar-rolled. The taste is exactly the same as stuffed dates—different in form, that's all. As if this wasn't a boxload, there's more—two pounds of freshly packed and gathered oranges and grapefruit—sweet, sweet, for these fruits are at their best now in the desert country. To order, ask for a “gift case;” wire money or mail check for $10.25 to Russell C. Nicoll, Valerie Jean Date Shop, Thermal, California.

“Constant Comment” is a blend of the Old South being introduced to Manhattan's tea tipplers by Ruth Campbell Bigelow and Mrs. Bertha West Nealey. These women, deploring the decline of the tea table in favor of the cocktail, hope to return the tea hour to its rightful importance by presenting a family of glamorized blends which promise to make tea truly “the sovereign drink of pleasure.” “Constant Comment” is a Ceylon tea, the best that can be purchased in the present wartime market, and is blended with processed orange and numerous spices.

The formula comes from Mrs. Nealey's grandmother, Mary Anne Armstrong, who prepared this tea all the years of her life for her plantation table at Lynch River, S. C. She had the recipe from her mother, and on back to the days of the Jamestown settlers. Six months went into perfecting the blend. Previously, Mrs. Nealey had made the tea in small lots only for the family. When the tea is made in quantity for long-time keeping, the orange requires special processing, so as not to lose the balance of fragrance with the spice.

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