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Dessert

How We Cook in Tennessee

A frozen dessert made from fruit juice, sugar, water, lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

How We Cook in Tennessee

Ingredients

Directions

Lemon ice and mint

  1. Strain ten large juicy lemons and freeze.

  2. Make a quart of lemon ice.

  3. Color the lemon ice green with leaf green coloring.

  4. Just before it begins to freeze, add three teaspoonfuls of extract of mint.

Grape sherbet

  1. Lay a square of cheese cloth over a large bowl.

  2. Drop in two pounds of ripe Concord grapes and mash with a wooden masher.

  3. After squeezing out all the juice, add an equal amount of water, juice of two lemons, and a pound or more of sugar.

  4. Freeze.

  5. Boil one pound of sugar and one quart of water together for five minutes.

  6. Strain and cool.

  7. When cold, add one pint of unfermented grape juice and two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice.

  8. Turn the mixture into the freezer and stir slowly until frozen.

  9. Remove the dasher and stir in a meringue made by beating the white of one egg to a stiff froth and adding one tablespoonful of powdered sugar.

  10. Repack the can and stand aside for one hour and a half.

  11. All sherbets may be made after this recipe, substituting the same amount of other fruit juices.

Apple and peach sherbet

  1. Cook apples before running them through a sieve.

  2. Add juice of two lemons to a quart of apples.

  3. Make same as peach sherbet below.

  4. Take two quarts water, one quart sugar, one quart peaches after being mashed, and the beaten whites of three eggs.

  5. Boil one cup sugar, and while hot pour over the beaten eggs and let cool.

  6. Mix rest of sugar and water.

  7. Pour into freezer, and when it begins to freeze, pour in the peaches and frosting and freeze.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

530Calories
17 gProtein
16 gFat
88 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Apple1 medium (182g)95
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Concord Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Peach1 medium (150g)59
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Peppermintnot in our table0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Peach + appletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Grape + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Cheese + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together294 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten whites form a stiff froth that lightens the frozen texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and keeps the frozen result from becoming rock-hard.
Concord grapes
Provide the main juice and fruit flavour of the grape sherbet.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavour of the fruit.
Peaches
Supply fruit pulp and flavour, giving body to the frozen mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten egg white into the partly frozen mixture. Egg white whipped to a stiff froth traps air that lightens the sherbet. If the mixture is already fully frozen or the meringue is under-whipped, it will not blend in evenly and the texture will be dense and icy.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, sugar, peach, lemon, cheese, apple, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, peach, lemon, cheese, apple, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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