“The dressing of the salad should be saturated with oil, and seasoned
with pepper and salt before the vinegar is added. It results from
this process that there never can be too much vinegar; for, from the
specific gravity of the vinegar compared with oil, what is more than
useful will fall to the bottom of the bowl. The salt should not be
dissolved in the vinegar, but in the oil, by which means it is more
equally distributed throughout the salad.”—_Chaptal, a French chemist._
The Spanish proverb says, “that to make a perfect salad, there should be
a miser for oil, a spendthrift for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a
madcap to stir the ingredients up and mix them well together.”