To speak of salads in aught but the most reverential spirit were sacrilege. To be honoured aright, they should be eaten only in the company of the devout or in complete solitude—and perhaps this latter is the wiser plan. Who, but the outer barbarian, will not with a good salad, A book, a taper, and a cup Of country wine, divinely sup? Over your hot meats you cannot linger; if alone with them, and read you must, a common newspaper, opened at the day's despatches, best serves your purpose; else, your gravies and sauces congeal into a horrid white mess upon your plate, and tepid is every unsavoury morsel your fork carries to your mouth. But over any one of the "salad clan"—lettuce or tomato, beans or potato, as fancy prompts—you can revel at leisure in your Balzac, your Heine, Far behind has the Continent left Great Britain in the matter of salads. To eat them in perfection you must cross the Channel—as, indeed, you must in the pursuit of all the daintiest dishes—and travel still farther than France. The French will give you for breakfast a bowl of Soissons, for dinner a Romaine, which long survive as tender memories; even the humble dandelion they have enlisted in the good cause. With the Italian you will fare no less well; better it may be, for, with the poetic feeling that has disappeared for ever from their art and architecture, they fill the salad bowl at times with such delicate conceits as tender young violet leaves, so that you may smell the spring in the blossoms at your throat, while you devour it in the greens set before you. But in The Briton, it must be admitted, has of late progressed. Gone is the time when his favourite salad was a horror unspeakable: an onion and a lettuce served whole, chopped up by himself, smothered in salt and pepper, and But, though these sorry customs still survive here and there, even as superstitions linger among ignorant peasants, British eyes are opening to the truth. The coming of the salad in England marks the passing of the Englishman from barbarous depth to civilised heights. Has Of every woman worthy of the name, it is the duty to master the secret of the perfect salad, and to prepare it for her own—and man's—greater comfort and joy in this life, and—who knows?—salvation in the next. This secret is all in the dressing. It is easy enough to buy in the market, or order at the greengrocer's a lettuce, or a cucumber, or a pound of tomatoes. But to make of them a masterpiece, there's the rub. Upon the dressing and "fatiguing" success depends. The mission of the lettuce, the resources of the bean were undreamed of until the first woman—it must have been a woman!—divined the virtue that lies in the harmonious combination of oil and vinegar. Vinegar alone and undiluted is for the vulgar; mixed with oil it as much surpasses nectar and ambrosia as As with sauces, it is simple to put down in black and white the several ingredients of the good dressing. But what of the proportions? What of the methods of mixing? In the large towns of the United States where men and women delight in the pleasures of the table, are specialists who spend their afternoons going from house to house, preparing the salads for the day's coming great event. And perhaps, in the end, all mankind may see advantages in this division of labour. For only the genius born can mix a salad dressing as it should be mixed. Quantities of pepper and salt, of oil and vinegar for him (or her) are not measured by rule or recipe, but by inspiration. You As much depends upon the mixing as upon the proportions. The foolish pour in first their oil, then their vinegar, and leave the rest to chance, with results one shudders to remember. The two must be mixed together even as they are poured over the salad, and here the task but begins. For next, they must be mixed with the salad. To "fatigue" it the French call this special part of the process, and indeed, to create a work of art, you must mix and mix and mix until you are fatigued yourself, and your tomatoes or potatoes reduced to one-half their original bulk. Then will the dressing have soaked through and through them, then will every mouthful be a special plea for gluttony, an eloquent argument for the one vice that need not pall with years. One other ingredient must not be omitted Rose among roots, the maiden fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul of every salad. You may rub with it the bowl, you may chop it up fine and sprinkle with it the lettuce, as you might sprinkle an omelet with herbs. But there, in one form or another, it must be. The French have a tendency to abuse it; they will cut it in great slices to spread between layers of tomatoes or cucumbers. But there is a touch of grossness in this device. It is just the soupÇon you crave, just the subtle flavour it alone can impart. You do not want your salad, when it comes on the table, to suggest nothing so much as the stewed steak and onions shops in the Strand! The fates forbid. "What diversities soever there be in herbs, all are shuffled up together under the name of sallade." And Montaigne wrote in sadness, knowing well that there could be no error more fatal. Have you ever asked for a salad at the greengrocer's, and been offered a collection of Besides, some varieties there be of flavour too delicate to be tampered with: for instance, the cabbage lettuce, as the vulgar call it, which comes in about Easter time, but which, at the cost of a little trouble, can be had all the year round. For some reason unknown, your hard-hearted greengrocer, half the time, objects to it seriously, declares it not to be found from end to end of Covent Garden. But let him understand that upon his providing it depends your custom, and he fetches it—the unprincipled To say this is to differ in a measure from the great Alexandre, a misfortune surely to be avoided. To this lettuce he would add herbs of every kind; nay, even oysters, or tortoise eggs, or anchovies, or olives—in fact, the subject is one which has sent his ever delightful imagination to work most riotously. But, in all humility, must it still be urged that the cabbage lettuce is best ungarnished, save, it may be, by a touch of the unrivalled celery or The romaine, or cos, however, is none the worse for Dumas' suggestions; indeed, it is much the better. Its long stiff leaves, as they are, may not be "fatigued" with anything approaching ease or success. It is to be said—with hesitation perhaps, and yet to be said—that they make the better salad for being cut before they are put into the bowl. As if to atone for this unavoidable liberty, dainty additions may not come amiss: the tender little boneless anchovies, fish of almost any and every kind—most admirably, salmon and a bit of red herring in conjunction—cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, radishes—all will blend well and harmoniously. Be bold in your experiments, and fear nothing. Many failures are a paltry price to pay for one perfect dish. Of other green salads the name is legion: endive, dandelion leaves, chicory, chervil, mustard and cress, and a hundred and more besides before the resources of France—more especially the Midi—and Italy be exhausted. And none But these minor salads—as they might be classed—pale before the glories of the tomato: the pomodoro of the Italian, the pomme d'amour of the ProvenÇal—sweet, musical names, that linger tenderly on the lips. And, indeed, if the tomato were veritably the "love apple" of the Scriptures, and, in Adam's proprietorship, the olives already yielded oil, the vines vinegar, then the tragedy in the Garden of Eden may be explained without the aid of commentary. Many a man—Esau notably—has sold his birthright for less than a good tomato salad. Dante's Inferno were too good for the depraved who prepare it, as if it were a paltry pickle, with a dosing of vinegar. It must first receive the stimulus of the onion; then its dressing must be fortified by the least suspicion of mustard—English, French, or German, it matters not which—and if the pleasure that follows does not reconcile you to Paradise lost, as well might you live on dry bread and cold To the mystical German, the potato first revealed virtues undreamed of by the blind who had thought it but a cheap article of food to satisfy hunger, even by the French who had carried it to such sublime heights in their purÉes and soufflÉs, their Parisiennes and Lyonnaises. Not until it has been allowed to cool, been cut in thin slices, been dressed as a salad, were its subtlest charms suspected. To the German—to that outer barbarian of the midday dinner—we owe at least this one great debt of gratitude. Like none other, does the potato-salad lend Poetic in the early spring is the salad of "superb asparagus"—pity it should ever be eaten hot with drawn butter!—or of artichoke, or of cucumber—the latter never fail to sprinkle with parsley, touch with onion, and "fatigue" a good half hour before serving. Later, the French bean, or the scarlet runner should be the lyrical element of the feast. And in winter, when curtains are drawn and lamps lit, and fires burn bright, the substantial Soissons, for all its memories of French commercials, is not to be despised. But, if your soul aspires to more ethereal flights, then create a vegetable salad—cauliflower, and peas, and potatoes, and beans, and carrots in rhythmical proportions and harmonious blending of hues. |