Nothing can exceed the joy-giving properties of an apple salad if it
be rightly concocted. For myself I prefer that there shall be a
judicious mixture of celery with the apple, that the pepper, salt, and
oil be added with a sparing hand, and that without fail lemon juice
shall be used in place of vinegar. It hardly seems necessary to say,
and yet one never knows just what is the proper stopping place in
giving advice, that a steel knife must not be allowed to touch the
apples, else what might have been and should be a thing of beauty is a
damaging blight to an otherwise perfectly appointed table. This kind
of salad is in its rightful place when accompanying any variety of
black duck, and just now wild ducks are of prime flavor. The marketmen
know this, but I find that not many of them know why these birds are
to be in their best estate for the next two months, when the reason
as explained to me by sportsmen is both sound and plausible, namely,
that now the birds are getting their feed where it is the sweetest and
best, along the shores of fresh ponds, but later when Jack Frost shall
have done his perfect work they must hie them to the salt marshes for
sustenance, and very soon thereafter the fact of their changed diet is
made manifest to those who dine from them.