Lemonade

donna

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Now Florida but always a Kentuckian
512px-Yellow_lemons.jpg
Yellow lemons
Abhijit Tembhekar [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


Many of the earliest Southern cookbooks included recipes for lemonade. One was the 1824 cookbook, "The Virginia Housewife" by Mary Randolph. She simply advised mixing freshly pressed lemon juice with water and sugar to taste. That wasn't much of a recipe but lemonade became very popular in the South.

The key is a basic balance and smooth texture, and simple syrup made with regular granulated white cane sugar. Using a one-to-one ratio, simmer your sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is clear. Make sure the mixture does not boil. Allow the syrup to cool. and keep it refrigerated. Now that you have your syrup, juice a dozen very fresh, springy-feeling lemons, removing the seeds but keeping the pulp for texture and bursts of flavor. Mix in seven cups of filtered water and three cups of the syrup.

You will find this so refreshing and certainly authentic Dixie lemonade.

From: "The Southerner's Handbook", by David DiBenedetto and the editors of Garden & Gun.
 
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Many of the earliest Southern cookbooks included recipes for lemonade. One was the 1824 cookbook, "The Virginia Housewife" by Mary Randolph. She simply advised mixing freshly pressed lemon juice with water and sugar to taste. That wasn't much of a recipe but lemonade became very popular in the South.

The key is a basic balance and smooth texture, and simple syrup made with regular granulated white cane sugar. Using a one-to-one ratio, simmer your sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is clear. Make sure the mixture does not boil. Allow the syrup to cool. and keep it refrigerated. Now that you have your syrup, juice a dozen very fresh, springy-feeling lemons, removing the seeds but keeping the pulp for texture and bursts of flavor. Mix in seven cups of filtered water and three cups of the syrup.

You will find this so refreshing and certainly authentic Dixie lemonade.

From: "The Southerner's Handbook", by David DiBenedetto and the editors of Garden & Gun.
Thanks for posting.
Interesting twist: we'll have to try this....
 
View attachment 150215

Many of the earliest Southern cookbooks included recipes for lemonade. One was the 1824 cookbook, "The Virginia Housewife" by Mary Randolph. She simply advised mixing freshly pressed lemon juice with water and sugar to taste. That wasn't much of a recipe but lemonade became very popular in the South.

The key is a basic balance and smooth texture, and simple syrup made with regular granulated white cane sugar. Using a one-to-one ratio, simmer your sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is clear. Make sure the mixture does not boil. Allow the syrup to cool. and keep it refrigerated. Now that you have your syrup, juice a dozen very fresh, springy-feeling lemons, removing the seeds but keeping the pulp for texture and bursts of flavor. Mix in seven cups of filtered water and three cups of the syrup.

You will find this so refreshing and certainly authentic Dixie lemonade.

From: "The Southerner's Handbook", by David DiBenedetto and the editors of Garden & Gun.
YAY! You posted me a recipe for authentic Dixie lemonade :smile: So excited to try this, @donna ! So easy, too.
 
View attachment 150215

Many of the earliest Southern cookbooks included recipes for lemonade. One was the 1824 cookbook, "The Virginia Housewife" by Mary Randolph. She simply advised mixing freshly pressed lemon juice with water and sugar to taste. That wasn't much of a recipe but lemonade became very popular in the South.

The key is a basic balance and smooth texture, and simple syrup made with regular granulated white cane sugar. Using a one-to-one ratio, simmer your sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is clear. Make sure the mixture does not boil. Allow the syrup to cool. and keep it refrigerated. Now that you have your syrup, juice a dozen very fresh, springy-feeling lemons, removing the seeds but keeping the pulp for texture and bursts of flavor. Mix in seven cups of filtered water and three cups of the syrup.

You will find this so refreshing and certainly authentic Dixie lemonade.

From: "The Southerner's Handbook", by David DiBenedetto and the editors of Garden & Gun.
Sounds good
 
View attachment 150215
She simply advised mixing freshly pressed lemon juice with water and sugar to taste.

My brother used to make lemonade with Mrs. Randolph's recipe -- sort of. He'd get a bottle of lemon juice and used that instead of pressing lemons. He'd always end up with a sugar sludge in the bottom of his glass, because his sugar preference was much too high to mix in cold water! Told him about simple syrups, but, as with pressing fresh lemons, that was too much work for him. Why he didn't just give up and keep some of the powdered stuff on hand (which he'd drink just fine), I have never understood.
 
My goldfish memory wants to know...what famous woman used hail-stones to cool her lemonade??
 
My goldfish memory wants to know...what famous woman used hail-stones to cool her lemonade??

Here is a link to a magazine article where this is mentioned:
St. Nicholas: A Monthly Magazine for Boys and Girls, Volume 27, Issue 2, page 847
This was written significantly after the war-- 1894. Unfortunately, the idea of hailstones in Lemonade is not attributed to any particular person in the text, so this almost (but not quite) answers your question...

https://books.google.com/books?id=U...onepage&q=hailstones to cool lemonade&f=false
 
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