Miss Corson's practical American cookery and household management

This delicious fruit is of late years so abundant and cheap that it well deserves the attention of good housekeepers. It is an excellent dessert fruit, and, if quite ripe, is far less unwholesome than is generally supposed. As served usually, it is peeled, sliced, and sugared before it is sent to the table ; but more of its flavor and juice are preserved if it is served with the skin on, in English fashion, or in West-Indian style, as directed below ; either way it can easily be handled, for a knife and fork are always required to cut it readily, a teaspoon being quite inadequate for that purpose. Perfectly ripe pineapples do not really require sugar; but as many prefer to use it, it is well to place a dish of powdered sugar on the table with the fruit. The beauty of the fruit is in its shape and color, and these are lost if it is entirely cut up before being served. In England, where pineapples are always the greatest luxuries, they are cut in horizontal slices with a very sharp, thin-bladed knife, the slices being kept together, and the crown being left on the fruit, which is placed in the centre of a dish of assorted fruit as the chief ornament of the dessert. The pineapple can also be cut from the crown to the base in wedge-shaped slices, the middle being left just entire enough to hold the slices in place until they are needed for serving ; they can then be readily dislodged with a thin, sharp knife, and served with a silver knife and fork. [illustration: ICED PINEAPPLE] ICED PINEAPPLE. Take a ripe pineapple by the crown, holding it in the left hand over a large dish ; with a very sharp, thin knife remove the skin and eyes ; then grate it off the core into the same dish, using a large tin grater, which should be very clean and bright ; while grating the fruit, hold it by the crown in the right hand, and steady the grater firmly in the left ; after the pineapple is grated, put it into a glass dish, dust a little powdered sugar over it, pour upon it a glass of sherry, and put it for an hour in the ice-box; then serve it very cold. In Europe, porcelain and marbleized fruit-graters are made at china manufactories. BANANAS AND ORANGES. Peel three bananas, — the red sort is the best for this dish, — slice them crosswise, and lay them on a dish ; just before serving them, squeeze the juice of an orange over them, dust them thickly with powdered sugar, and serve them at once. The bananas should be very cold before they are peeled. A variation of this dish is made by cutting the pulp of three or four oranges with the bananas, instead of using the juice. Whipped cream, and cream and sugar, are sometimes served with them. AMBROSIA. Pare and grate a pineapple as directed in the recipe for iced pineapple ; peel half a dozen large Florida oranges, and tear their pulp away from the inner membranes, rejecting the seeds, and preserving all the juice ; remove the shell and brown skin from a cocoanut, and grate it, saving the milk; put the pineapple, orange, and cocoanut in layers in a glass dish, slightly sprinkling each layer with powdered sugar ; mix with the milk of the cocoanut any of the pineapple and orange juice which may remain in the dishes in