Then there are salads. To make one of cheese rub the yolk of a
hard-boiled egg in a basin with a tablespoonful of salad oil; add one
teaspoonful of salt, a bit of cayenne and a little made mustard; when
all is well mixed stir in about half a pound of grated Parmesan
cheese, the juice of an onion, and a tablespoon of vinegar. Serve on
lettuce leaves. You will find that this will go particularly well with
sandwiches of bloater paste.
But for a salad to be served with a jellied meat, make one of nuts,
one kind or several, broken into bits, mixed with an equal quantity of
sliced olives and spread with only a very little mayonnaise.
I did want to tell you of ways to make some very appetizing beverages,
for the sort of occasions we are discussing, but they will have to
wait. And perhaps it's just as well; already my conscience is
troubling me for fear that you are going to be so taken up with the
goodies I have told you of that you will have no inclination to think
on "better things" when it comes Sunday. But it can't be helped now.
* * * * *
Last spring a certain Boston man with his family moved into the
country. Not so far out, however, but that he could come to town daily
to attend to business, and yet far enough from the gilded dome to be
able to buy sufficient land for a small farm without paying all
creation for it. The next move was the stocking of the farm. So a
Jersey cow was bought to keep the family supplied with cream, a flock
of prize hens was set at work in a bran new henhouse that there might
be fresh eggs on hand, and last but not least, a pair of tiny young
pigs were secured to provide the household with sweet, home-made pork
when winter should set in. And having secured the stock, the owner
proceeded at once to make pets, collectively and individually, of the
whole equipment. Actually the cow would manage to look half-way
intelligent when he stroked her neck and told her she was the sort
that deserved to live in clover the year round; the hens really did
add a note to their regular cackle when the master was about, to show
him that they knew who gave them heaping measures of grain, and the
pigs, which he called Tim and Jim, got in no time to know their names
when they were spoken by his voice. Well, cold weather came on and
with it those crisp, frosty mornings when a toothsomely seasoned
sausage with a potato purée makes an ideal breakfast. So Tim and Jim
went the way of all pork, and in due course of time their owner had
the satisfaction of seeing on his own breakfast table pork "of his own
raising." And what do you think happened then?
"Susan," said he to his wife, "I can't do it; if you will believe me,
I can't eat that pork. Give it away--give it all away. Never have any
more put on this table. Why, dash it all, Susan, I may be a ninny, but
I was actually fond of Tim and Jim, and don't see what I was thinking
of when I had them killed."
"Samuel," said the wife, a woman who knew how and when to point a
moral, "you needn't call yourself a ninny; be thankful for the feeling
you have, because it can give you a glimpse, though from afar off, of
the mighty power that will make of us a nation of vegetarians, if we
ever do become such."
And I, when I heard of this little episode, fell to wondering if it
would be such terribly hard lines after all to be put on a strictly
vegetarian diet. At any rate, I managed to turn out one dinner, sans
fish, sans flesh, sans fowl, that didn't appear in the least like a
substitute for something better. You shall have the menu:
Consommé with asparagus points.
Mushroom cannelons. Poached eggs with tomato.
Macaroni with cheese.
String beans with butter.
Walnut salad.
Lemon soufflé. Coffee.