Shrubs and Syllabub: Colonial Desserts Take the Edge of Summer Heat!
Okay, 105 degree heat demands more than a meal of calf’s heart–another recipe in Mary Randolph’s Virginia Housewife cookbook of 1824. Or actually, I should say that it demands less than a calf’s heart. When it is as hot as it was when I visited Colonial Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago, you really want to stick your face in something icy. Something icy with a little booze is even better.
The King’s Arms Tavern, a tourist favorite at CW, offers about two of the tastiest things I’ve eaten in summer in a long time. The first is the “Shrub,” pictured above. The Berry Shrub, left, is described on the menu as frosted cranberry juice and raspberry sorbet. The Fruit Shrub, pictured right, is frosted Tropical Fruit Juice and Lemon Sorbet. Boy, are these tasty after trolloping around like a tourist through steamy kitchen gardens. If a visit to the King’s Arms Tavern is not forthcoming, may I recommend making these delights at home while your husband dons a tri-corner hat and waxes violent objections to King George and the great tyranny! Huzzah! Best to make him wear the Colonial Breeches, too, in the name of authenticity. He may object, but wave a Shrub in his face and he will relent!
Now Syllabub is where the boozy desserts come in. This is a lovely Colonial treat, not nearly as nasty sounding as the above Calf’s heart. This one is actually worth trying to make at home, although I also tasted it at the King’s Arms Tavern. The recipe I tasted at the King’s Arms tastes more closely related to this modern recipe for Lemon Syllabub than for the concoction described in The Virginia Housewife, which calls for milk seasoned with sugar and white whine, “but not enough to curdle it; fill glasses nearly full, and crown them with whipt cream seasoned.” Another Virginia Housewife recipe builds on this and calls for the addition of raspberry or strawberry marmalade to flavor and color the syllabub–which it may be presumed as more regularly in stock in an early American Virginia pantry than a host of lemons. Also, small slices of cake may also be floated on the Syllabub, and again, garnished with mint or another dollop of light cream. I normally don’t like to mix milk and alcohol; however, if it is cold and creamy enough, and it is the aforementioned 105 degrees, I say load in the cold milk and alcohol, and my stomach can battle the curdling internally. Mmm, mmmm…
