Frozen Lemon
Source: Anonymous, 1920
History
La Mejor Cocinera (Recetas de Cocina) is an anonymous Spanish household cookery book published by Editorial (Saturnino) Calleja in Madrid; its catalog record names no author, and the earliest firmly located editions date to roughly 1921-1923. It is a broad domestic manual whose recipes are organized around principal ingredients — meat, fish, fruit, vegetables — with additional sections on table service and household cleaning. Within that book, this recipe (rendered here as "Frozen Lemon") is a plain lemon water ice: water, sugar, and lemon juice are mixed thoroughly, then transferred to a garrafa and frozen until solid. The garrafa the recipe names is the traditional freezing pail, set in a bath of ice and coarse salt, long used to freeze such mixtures before mechanical refrigeration. The book gives the recipe no headnote, attribution, or origin story. Beyond this, the historical record does not document an inventor, a place of origin, or any social meaning for this specific recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 liter water
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 6 lemons, juiced
Instructions
- Mix the water, sugar, and lemon juice together thoroughly. Transfer to a freezing vessel (garrafa) and freeze until solid.