is cooked long. This other has a fine and tender flesh--you
will cook it gently in a hermetically sealed receptacle in
order that its light particles, full of life and dainty
fragrance, are not dissipated. If your mushrooms contain a
fixed and resinous matter, sprinkle them with a dry wine to
dissolve this sapid principle. With these plants you may make
intoxicating mixtures, unique infusions. Turn to Carême, he
will guide you and tell you what wine belongs to such and such
kinds--whether Pomard with its fresh taste, or Saint-Georges;
whether the delicate and sparkling Aï, or the stomachic
Haut-Brion. Read also the witty and elegant pages of M. Joseph
Roques."
The group of fungi known as mushrooms and toadstools constitutes a
valuable accessory, both in themselves and in their properties of
accentuating the flavour of other foods; and to those who are capable
of distinguishing their many delicious species they may form, through a
considerable portion of the year, a marked addition to the variety and
pleasures of the table.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE WOUNDED SNIPE
From an engraving after A. Couquet, R.A.]
[Illustration]
SALLETS AND SALADS
"First then to speak of Sallets, there be some simple, some
compounded, some only to furnish out the table, and some both
for use and adornation."--GERVAISE MARKHAM: The
English Housewife.
To remember a successful salad is generally to remember a successful
dinner; at all events, the perfect dinner necessarily includes the
perfect salad. The mere process of salad-making is among the most
simple of all those that appertain to the table: a little oil, a little
vinegar, of salt and pepper each a little, the onion and the mixing,
with such other herbs and condiments as the artist may elect. And yet
an unexceptionable salad is as rare in the average household as a piece
of old Gubbio, or a fine old Ghiordes prayer-rug. Seldom, indeed, is
this refreshing dish met with as one usually finds it in France--crisp,
tender, and appetising, with none of its ingredients perceptibly
dominant in the _liaison_ which, first pleasingly addressing the taste,
is afterwards destined to soothe and tranquillise digestion. The reason
is not difficult to analyse; the happy touch which is necessary in
salads and sauces being largely a matter of individual address and
a growth of advanced gastronomy. For in the preparing of salads no
formula that is absolute may be given, success depending upon practice,
a correct taste, and minute attention to detail. Here, as in everything
else that is faultless, care and experience are factors requisite to
attainment. But though an infallible recipe may not be laid down,
certain broad lines may be specified, the observance of which, with
application, will render a good salad possible even to the neophyte.
At every season of the year some of the innumerable products of the
vegetable world present themselves to be converted with the aid of the
caster from the crude into the finished form; and more is the pity
that the artists are not as numerous as the esculents. From the first
tributes of the hot-bed--the lettuces, radishes, and garden-cress
of early spring, and the cos, lettuces, and water-cresses of summer
to the endives of autumn and corn-salad and chicory of winter, one
has an abundance of material to choose from in what may be broadly
designated the lettuce tribe, alone. When to these are added other
esculents like celery, the tomato, cucumber, potato, beets, carrots,
beans, celery-root, celery-turnip, etc., together with the manifold
herbs and bulbous plants that may be utilised in connection with them,
surely the roast should never be lacking in this its most harmonious
_appoggiatura_, or the supper-table fail in one of its greatest
attractions.
The salad imparts a zest to the dinner that were otherwise
unattainable. What were those most delectable of game-birds that reward
the sportsman's skill--the snipe and the partridge--without it? It
was rightly held by Evelyn that sallets are an essential part of the
daily food of man, and that no dinner is complete without one; although
those who are not confirmed devotees of the salad-bowl might possibly
prove sceptical as to two forms which he specifies in "Sylva,"--"I am
told that those small young _Acorns_ which we find in the Stock-doves
Craws are a delicious fare, as well as those incomparable _Salads_ of
young herbs taken out of the maws of Partridge at a certain season of
the year, which gives them a preparation far exceeding all the art of
Cookery."
Of the virtues of lettuce, at any rate, there can be no doubt,
Parkinson having declared that "Lettices all cool a hot and fainting
stomache," and Gerarde averring that "Lettuce cooleth the heate of
the stomache, called the heart-burning, and helpeth it when it is
troubled with choller." And if these assertions be not sufficient,
we have Savarin's assurance that "salad refreshes without weakening,
and comforts without irritating"; not to mention the dictum of his
illustrious predecessor La Reynière, that "the inseparable partner
of the roast may reappear at each meal without ever wearying." In
1758 a German work by J. F. Schutze was published in Leipzig with the
title, "Treatise on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Salads." It
is difficult to imagine how a German could find aught but delight in
this form of food, unless the native black radish was alluded to, or
possibly the cucumber when improperly served. Rather let us at once
accept the unqualified encomium of Jack Cade while in Iden's Kentish
garden,--"I think this word 'sallet' was born to do me good." By the
majority, the name of Sydney Smith is held to be almost synonymous with
that of salad; and even though his recipe be widely familiar, it may
not be overlooked in considering the literature of gastronomy:
"Our forte in the culinary line" [says the witty prelate] "is
our salads; I pique myself on our salads. Saba always dresses
them after my recipe. I have put it into verse. Taste it,
and if you like it I will give it you. I was not aware how
much it had contributed to my reputation till I met Lady----
at Bowood, who begged to be introduced to me, saying she had
so long wished to know me. I was of course highly flattered
till she added, 'For, Mr. Smith, I have heard so much of your
recipe for salads, that I was most anxious to obtain it from
you.' Such and so various are the sources of fame.
"To make this condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boil'd eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, pass'd through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
And, lastly, o'er the flavour'd compound toss
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
'Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day.'"
This is the original and more familiar "A Recipe for Salad," as given
by the author's daughter, Lady Holland, in her "Memoir"--a recipe
that was subsequently placed by the gifted divine in somewhat altered
form, slightly abridged, and the quantity of the ingredients in one or
two instances slightly changed. In the variant it will be seen that
the portions of potato and anchovy were increased and the relative
quantities of oil and vinegar were amended.[58]
It is a question whether this celebrated recipe, so enthusiastically
expressed and so tempting to the uninitiated who would naturally be led
astray by the climax of the ode, has done more harm or more good in
the important interests of salad-making--whether the evil inculcated
in the prescription as a whole has not overbalanced the good results
of extolling the virtues of salad itself. The niceties of salad-making
are so subtle--so little may make or mar--it were unwise to prescribe
either eggs or potato to the inexperienced. The anchovy sauce must,
perforce, be banished as fatal; while mashed potatoes should always
be used with discretion. In corn-salad a little potato assuredly adds
to the unctuousness; and where lettuce is inclined to be tough or
stringy, it may be advantageously employed. It is likewise eminently
useful where the vinegar may have been dealt out too liberally. But
with tender, brittle, well-blanched cos or endive, who would think of
utilising either egg or potato! And how may mustard be appropriately
blended with chicory, water-cresses, or radishes, so rich themselves in
pungency? In the employment of condiments one should ever well consider
the special greenmeat to be treated, or what Montaigne has termed
"the differences of Sallets according to their seasons." Cayenne,
tabasco, and garlic are yet more dangerous in unpractised hands, and
may readily, like the brass of an orchestra run riot, drown with their
dissonance the _arpeggio_ passages and more dulcet notes of the other
instruments.
All things considered, the counsels to the little boys and girls in
the olden French reader, "Rôti-Cochon," such as "the ham of the pig,
well minced, is good to eat, but not without drinking," and "fresh
eggs and salt herrings are good for Lent and other days either fat or
meagre, according to one's appetite and the state of the market,"
are perchance safer gastronomic guides than the recipe of the worthy
English prebendary. For in any formula bearing upon the fashioning of
salads for the benefit of the many, it is better to hold strictly to
oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and onion, and thus create no confusion in
the mind of the tyro, who should proceed by degrees until he becomes
proficient in the art,--
"And thus, complete in figure and in kind,
Obtains at length the salad he designed."
But Sydney Smith has contributed such a host of good things, that
any slight divergence from orthodoxy in his salad may be freely
forgiven. Infinitely more baneful than anchovy sauce is the bottled
"salad-dressing" of commerce, in whatever guise it may appear--that
milky, mysterious compound which is set upon certain restaurant and
hotel tables, and through the cajoleries of the merchant-grocer
or blandishments of the advertiser often even invades otherwise
respectable households. As for the abominations that so frequently
masquerade as "pure olive-oil," and boldly flaunt themselves as "wine
vinegar" in many hostelries, they are too dreadful to consider;
and one's only recourse is to order them off, with the catsup,
pepper-sauce, sour pickles, and other "incongruities of good cheer,"
and subsist in imagination on the salads that have been.
If oil has been termed the soul of a salad, it is no less true that
vinegar is its _vivendi causâ_. There should be no trouble in procuring
excellent virgin olive-oil, French or Italian, at a moderate price.
It should be bright and limpid, and possess a delicate, not a strong
flavour of the olive from the first gentle pressing of the slightly
underripe fruit. The juice expressed by heavy crushing of overripe
fruit is to be avoided, being dark in colour and possessed of a strong
taste. No other product, however refined or clarified, or however
vaunted in the interests of trade, can take the place of olive-oil.
For those who are indifferent to quality, cottonseed oil, as well as
the juices of countless other seeds, will continue to be supplied or
used as adulterants in connection with olive-oil. Good oil, like good
wine, is a gift from the gods. The grape and the olive are among the
priceless benefactions of the soil, and were destined, each in its way,
to promote the welfare of man.
It is even more rare to find good vinegar than good oil or wine on the
average hotel, restaurant, or household table. Pure cider or sound wine
vinegar should alone be employed, and this is best obtained by making
it one's self and not trusting to the labels and brands of commerce.
The best wine vinegar is that made from red Bordeaux or red or white
Burgundy; the best cider vinegar being the product of fine, selected
apples like the Russet or Northern Spy, with absolute cleanliness in
manufacture. The liquid should draw clear and be possessed of a fresh
vinous fragrance; and no other material should be mixed with it than
what is necessary of the same kind for replenishing the barrel. Where
vinegar is excessively sharp, it may be corrected, when using, by
the addition of a little Bordeaux wine. Lemon juice is an excellent
substitute for vinegar where this may be lacking in quality; and by
some is preferred in the dressing of delicate salads like cos and
lettuce. The use of tarragon vinegar is extremely unadvisable in
company dinners. To many it is very disagreeable; and even to those who
might not be averse to it occasionally, its frequent abuse causes them
to anathematise instead of bless the architect of the salad.
As regards pepper, the adulterated powdered article is far superior
to the genuine Piper nigrum; the white pepper being the same
condiment freed from its outer husk by maceration in water and
subsequent rubbing. The genuine black peppercorn is much too spicy and
high-flavoured to enter largely as a salad component; and where it is
laboriously ground out from a mill at table, as is often the case,--the
host preoccupied with the task where he should be considering the
sequence and temperature of his wines,--it is always coarse; while
its pronounced resemblance to allspice mars the delicacy which is the
charm of a salad. Moreover, the energy which should be expended upon
the mixing, where the nature of the salad renders it advisable to be
made just before serving, is largely spent upon the exacting process of
turning the box-wood mill.[59]
"The difference between a perfect salad and one that has failed is
immense," says the observant Baron Brisse. It must be remembered that
in salad-making many forms of the crude material may not be prepared
to advantage immediately before serving. Among such may be included
corn-salad, dandelion, curled endive, cabbage, and all species of
lettuce, endive, or chicory that may be in the least coriaceous. These
require to be prepared a considerable period before using and to be
thoroughly mixed, even to pressing them with the fork and spoon,
in order that the dressing may be partly absorbed by the leaves to
render them tender. The same rule will apply to all species in which
the bitter element is pronounced. Thorough mixing should never be
neglected. The bowl should be ample, the material dry and freshly
plucked, and the onion, chives, parsley, celery, or whatever herbs are
employed should not be chopped until just before they are required.
Above all, a salad, like white wine, should be served cold.
The too frequent latter-day custom of creating a separate course
of salad and cheese, in order to prolong the number of courses, is
incongruous. The salad belongs to the roast, and it should not be
called upon to perform the service of a separate bridge between this
and the sweets. The mission of the salad is to correct the too liberal
ingestion of rich and fatty substances, to prepare for the dessert, to
stimulate and divert the taste, and to promote stomachic harmony at a
time when the appetite has begun to flag and the palate is impatient of
a long delay between the roast and the _demi-tasse_.
It is next to impossible, as has already been remarked, to give
absolute directions for the compounding of a salad, so far as the
precise amount of each component is concerned, some exacting more oil
and salt, some more vinegar and pepper than others--the acidity of
vinegar withal being an extremely variable quantity. Some are enhanced
by mustard or red pepper, and with some the pounded yellow of the
egg and mashed potato are improvements. The place of the salad, too,
requires to be considered--whether it is to be an accompaniment of the
roast or is designed as something more substantial for the luncheon
or supper-table. In the latter case a macédoine of freshly cooked
vegetables composed of beets, potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips,
Lima beans, cauliflower, celery-turnip, etc., might be excellent,
whereas it would hardly prove appropriate with roast game at the
dinner. After all,--to revert to formulas,--the best recipe for a
salad, perhaps, is the oft-quoted Spanish proverb which calls for a
quartet to compose it--a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a
counsellor for salt, and a madman for mixing.
An excellent addition to nearly any form of salad is chopped onion,
parsley, and celery. Some onion, however small a quantity, is
invariably required, unless chives be used instead, or the bowl be
rubbed with garlic, or bread rubbed with garlic be stirred in, for
those who may prefer. Of the several modes of mixing salads, each of
which is extolled by different authorities, some may be better than
others, but all are good, as a philosopher has observed with respect
to the merits of whiskey. And of these different methods, again a
distinction needs to be made according to the material. Once more it
may be said, _plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose_, and that alone
through practice and intelligent study of the perspective of blending
may the art of salad-making be mastered.
As simple and as good a so-termed French dressing as any for general
use is to add to the minced onion the requisite quantity of salt,
letting this stand for five or ten minutes; then, after adding to this
the proper quantity of oil, vinegar, and pepper, stir thoroughly and
pour over the salad. If English mustard is required, this should be
previously incorporated with the oil. The result still depends upon the
fine adjustment of the ingredients, the mixing, and the quality and
character of the material.
Another method is to mix the salt and mustard, where mustard may be
employed, with the oil, incorporating them by degrees, then adding
the vinegar; pepper the salad material separately, and lastly pour on
and mix in the dressing thoroughly. Separate peppering of the leaves,
however, possesses no advantage; on the contrary, it is more trying to
the eyes, and the pepper is much less evenly distributed.
A third method consists in placing the necessary salt and pepper in the
salad-spoon, then pouring the vinegar into the spoon and stirring with
the fork until the salt and pepper become well amalgamated with the
vinegar. This is subsequently to be well mixed with the salad material,
on which chopped onion and herbs have been placed, vigorously agitated,
and afterwards, when the oil has been added, mixed a second time. By
the jewelled white fingers of a pretty and well-gowned hostess who has
a knack at salad-making this formula may be executed at table with
highly artistic results.
There is finally the plan adopted by Chaptal, which consists in
saturating and mixing the salad material with oil, seasoned with pepper
and salt, before employing the vinegar. By this treatment the salad can
never become too acid, for should the vinegar happen to be excessive,
it slips over the oil to the bottom of the bowl. This means, while
advantageous for tender cos or lettuce, is not so desirable for any
material that may have a tendency to toughness, as the vinegar may not
as readily penetrate and soften the leaves. Good oil, vinegar, and
pepper and careful incorporating of the ingredients, with a judicious
use of herbs, and the tact born of experience, count for everything in
the preparation of salads.
Mayonnaise dressing of course belongs to certain greenmeat salads, as
well as the so-called French dressing--the most easily prepared and
wholesome of all. The mayonnaise is especially favoured by femininity,
and the French dressing by the sterner sex; though for meat salads, as
a general rule, the mayonnaise, mayonnaise _à la ravigotte_, or sauce
_provençale_ is prescriptive.
Growing salad is an art of the kitchen-garden, in which soil, selection
of varieties, watering, shading, blanching, and protection have their
part. But with a little space and care, salads may be had by almost
every one during the greater portion of the year. For late autumn
and winter use, the different varieties of endive, corn-salad, and
chicory are easily raised: corn-salad requiring no other trouble than
two or three sowings in August, a little attention in watering and
shading, and the gathering of the hardy green tufts beneath the snow.
Late endive calls for a dry, well-protected root-house, while chicory
needs to be taken up by the roots and forced in boxes in the cellar,
due attention being paid to excluding the light. Of this excellent
winter salad, the comparatively new variety "Witloof," largely grown
in Belgium for the Paris market, is an improvement on the old "Barbe
de Capucin." Of late years the useful and easily grown, broad-leaved
Batavian endive has deteriorated, having become coarser-grained and
often recalling the cabbage in flavour. Cos is the most difficult of
all salads to grow under our tropical summer sun, and unless well
grown--brittle, blanched, and free from bitterness--it is next to
worthless. Many good varieties of lettuce have a tendency to run out,
and these should be carefully watched by the gardener.
On the restaurant cards salads usually appear with their French
appellations, which are sometimes confusing. In France, for instance,
chicory is generally termed endive, and endive is termed chicory.
Lettuce is naturally laitue, cos being known as romaine, broad-leaved
Batavian endive as escarolle--the curled-leaved varieties of endive
being familiar as chicorée frisée. Corn-salad is the mâche or doucette,
chicory is the "Barbe de Capucin," though the variety "Witloof" passes
current as endive. There is nothing mysterious, therefore, as some
suppose, in French salads and French names of salads beyond the fact
that in restaurants of the higher class special attention is paid to
procure the best possible material from skilled market-gardeners, and
the dressing is supposed to be performed by a competent practitioner
who has the best of condiments at command.
"The field is never wholly void of cypress and tulip," saith a ghazel
of Hafiz; "one goeth, but another yet appeareth in its place." It
is much the same with the successive profusion of sallets. By way
of variety, a salad of raw celery-root with a mayonnaise dressing,
somewhat thinned, in which a generous amount of mustard has been
blended, affords a pleasing distinction from celery in the usual
form and the green material which constantly offers itself; as does
also an occasional salad of the scarcer celery-turnip, beloved by
Europeans. Sliced radishes, and young green onions from the garden,
as an accompaniment to the first trout or shad, need no apology. The
appetising but indigestible and flatulent German black radish is not to
be recommended, although one may retain the most grateful recollections
of the potato, cucumber, and herring salads of the Fatherland.
Spain has always borne a reputation for its salads in inverse ratio to
that of its cookery; and if one is fond of pepper and peppers, green or
red, as well as garlic, the Spanish salad, whether of tomato, cucumber,
beans, potato, or lettuce, is to be commended. The Italian may be
relied upon never to neglect garlic wherever any excuse for utilising
it is presented; but the Spaniard, in addition, deems it a heresy if
the live pepper does not sting, stimulate, and permeate.