Everyone knows that Americans have a sweet tooth. And I can add from experience that they have a very cold one, too. This fondness for ice cream might have become as great in other countries if ice cream had been as easy to get. but in no other country has ice ever been manufactured so widely and sold cheaply. In no other country are automatic refrigerators considered a necessity instead of a luxury. Thus it is that frozen desserts have become as common to Americans as pommes de lerre friles to Frenchmen.
Few Europeans think of ice cream—or water ice—as an everyday dessert. In very few homes would it even be considered a company dessert. In France, for example, fruit in one form or another is the climax. Peaches, pears, apples, ripe and succulent, are served whole and eaten gracefully with a knife or fork. Fruits are combined in a macédoine or compote often enhanced with a little kirsch or oilier liqueur. And many fruits go into tarts or puddings such as apple charlotte. Pots de crème, crème caramel, and oeufs à la neige are other dessert favorites. But let entremets glacés —frozen desserts? The French housewife considers them part of the elaborate menus served in expensive establishments. Or if she plans to serve one at her own soirée, it will be made in the form of an elegant bombe by the pâtisserie which will probably send Someone to unmold and garnish it. She won't want a simple dish of vanilla ice cream and orange ice, mats non! That would appear as a bombe Elysée made by lining a mold with orange ice and tilling the center with a vanilla mousse into which little raisins well marinated in cognac are mixed. Then rosettes of fluffy crèate Chantilly would be nestled against the bombe, a white foil between the silver serving dish and the orange ice. Nor would ice cream with a fruit sauce be considered quite elegant enough for a real party. More probably pêcbe or poire belle dijonuaise would appear. In this the fruit is masked with black currant ice and (he whole sauced with a sauce rice flavored with kirsch or pnunelle liqueur.
The old New York Ritz had a very fine ice-cream plant that could turn out as much as fifty gallons of ice creams and water ices daily. This enabled us to serve unusual flavors because we used expensive fruits and what we made was of extraordinary quality. We used our ice creams and ices and mousses (which are the mixtures frozen in molds without being churned) for bombes, coupes, coeurs, and souffle's glacis in combinations of flavors that were almost endless and with still further variation with fruits in season and appropriate sauces. We often named these combinations for one of our regular guests—always for a lady and often for famous singers and actresses: Mary Garden, Grace Moore, Mary Pickford, and so on. Sweets are seldom named for men. Although a spaghetti sauce is called Caruso, a dessert will be pear Geraldine Farrar. Sometimes the name is for the place where the flavor originated. Thus a bombe Floride is tangerine ice with a center of curaçao mousse and a bombe mexicaine is coffee ice cream with chocolate-mousse.
In those early years of the Ritz we had a mître d' hôtel, the famous Theodore Tzarvas, whom all our guests knew merely a; Theodore and who may be remembered by many people who read this. He was one of those perfect maitre d's born with a sixth sense about food and its service. Or maybe it was just that he went to so much trouble to have everything perfect. At any rate, he checked with me each day to find out what was best coming from the markets so that he could give better advice on the menus to be served when guests reserved tables. But one of his stratagem was not to specify the dessert. He would merely say, “I will have a Special frozen dessert for you.” At dinner time he would make a note of the colors of the gowns of the various hostesses and would have us make special combinations in the kitchen to match them. A pink gown called for strawberry or raspberry ice cream or ice, green meant pistachio, and so on. Eventually it became the custom for the knowing guests to look forward to Theodore's presenting a beautifully molded bombe for a hostess to see before it was served and to hear him say, “To match Madame's gown.” You can imagine the staff we had in our pastry department to keep up with Theodore when five to six hundred covers would be served each night in the roof garden restaurant.
Certain desserts were served on large pieces of sculptured ice called socles, some big enough to require two waiters to carry. I recall a party given for an important guest from Java at which strawberries Fedora were served thus.
Strawberries Fedora
Cut off the top of a huge, very ripe pineapple. Remove the edible part and cut it into small slices or dice. Mix them with an equal amount of strawberries. Add sugar to taste and flavor with kirsch, let them stand in the refrigerator for a few hours. When ready to serve, put a layer of orange ice in the bottom of the pineapple shell, then a layer of fruit, a layer of orange ice, one of fruit, and so on until the pineapple is filled. Replace the top and veil with spun sugar.
I would say that the ultra in frozen desserts are the bombes, coupes, coeurs, and soufflés glacis. A bombe is molded in a metal ice cream mold which has its own snug-fitting cover and is frozen by burying the mold in a mixture of two parts finely chopped ice and one part coarse ice cream salt. A water ice is usually combined with either an ice cream or a mousse, although sometimes a mousse and an ice cream are used together. Flavors are selected to harmonize. The water ice is spread about an inch thick all around the inside surface of the mold and the center is filled with the mousse or ice cream. You can buy the ice cream or water ice or you can freeze cither at home, but you will probably have to make a mousse yourself. And well worth the trouble, especially since it can be done in an automatic refrigerator.
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