Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 00:48:06 CDT

From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET

Subject: Re: Ambrosia!



Peter McGraw isn't the only one on the list who remembers ambrosia as

a "salad" (seemed like a dessert to me) made with pieces of fresh fruit

(usually including canned mandarin orange slices), nuts (usually English

walnuts), marshmallows, coconut, and whipped cream (the real stuff).

The fruit had to include apples and bananas. No jello. Jello desserts

came along later, and most of the netters have written about jello desserts

rather than ambrosia. But if one allows the semantic range of terms to

spread, one can call all of them ambrosia. Oh, yes, I forgot pineapple.

I remember reacting in the 1970s to the use of 'ambrosia' to refer to

jello salads -- particularly bothered by use of the term for combinations

that did not include coconut. In the 1940s my mother and her friends would

get whole coconuts when possible and break them open and then grate the

meat. They would save the liquid from the coconut to use in a real

coconut cream pie. This was in the 1940s. DMLance