Two yolks of eggs, a teaspoonful of salt, and three of
mustard,--it should have been mixed with hot water before
using,--a little cayenne pepper, a spoonful of vinegar; pound
the eggs and mix well. Common vinegar is preferred by many,
but some like tarragon vinegar better. Stir this gently for a
minute, then add two full spoonfuls of best oil of Lucca.
"A sage for the mustard, a miser for the vinegar, a
spendthrift for the oil, and a madman to stir" is the old saw.
Add a teaspoonful of brown sugar, half a dozen little spring
onions cut fine, three or four slices of beet root, the white
of the egg, not cut too small, and then the lettuce itself,
which should be torn from the head stock by the fingers.
Some French salad dressers say _fatiguez la salade_, which means,
shake it, mix it, and bruise it; but the modern arrangement is to
delicately cover the leaves with the dressing, and not to bruise them.
This is an old-fashioned salad.
An excellent salad of cold boiled potatoes cut into slices about an
inch thick, may be made with thin slices of fresh beet root, and
onions cut very thin, and very little of them, with the same dressing,
minus the sugar.
Francatelli speaks of a Russian salad with lobster, a German salad
with herrings, and an Italian salad with potatoes; but these come more
under the head of the mayonnaises than of the simpler salads.
The cucumber comes next to lettuce, as a purely vegetable salad, and
is most desirable with fish. Dr. Johnson declared that the best thing
you could do with a cucumber, after you had prepared it with much care
and thought, was to throw it out of the window; but Dr. Johnson,
although he could write Rasselas and a dictionary, knew nothing about
the art of entertaining. He was an eater, a glutton, a _gourmand_, not
a _gourmet_. How should he dare to speak against a cucumber salad?
Endive and chiccory should be added to the list of vegetable salads.
Neither of them is good, however.
An old-fashioned French salad is made thus: "Chop three anchovies, an
onion, and some parsley small; put them in a bowl with two
tablespoonfuls of vinegar, one of oil, a little mustard and salt. When
well mixed, add some slices of cold roast beef not exceeding two or
three inches long. Make three hours before eating. Garnish with
parsley." This is by no means a bad way of serving up yesterday's
roast beef.
The etymology of salad is said to be "sal," or something salted.
Shakspeare mentions the salad five or six times. In Henry VI., Jack
Cade, in his extremity of peril when hiding from his pursuers in Ida's
garden, says he has climbed over the wall to see if he could eat
grass, or pick a salad, which he says "will not come amiss to cool a
man's stomach in the hot weather." In Antony and Cleopatra, the
passionate queen speaks of her "salad days" when she was "green in
judgment, cool in blood." This means, however, something raw or
unripe. Hamlet uses the word with the more ancient orthography of
"sallet," and says in his speech to the players, "I remember when
there were no sallets in these times to make them savoury." By this he
meant there was nothing piquant in them, no Attic salt. One author,
not so illustrious, claims that the noblest prerogative of man is
that he is a cooking animal, and a salad eater.
"The lion is generous as a hero, the rat artful as a lawyer, the dove
gentle as a lover, the beaver is a good engineer, the monkey is a
clever actor, but none of them can make a salad. The wisest sheep
never thought of culling and testing his grasses, seasoning them with
thyme or tarragon, softening them with oil, exasperating them with
mustard, sharpening them with vinegar, spiritualizing them with a
suspicion of onions, in that no sheep has made a salad. Their only
sauce is hunger.
"Salads," says this pleasant writer, "were invented by Adam and
Eve,--probably made of pomegranates as to-day in Spain."
Of all salads, lobster is the most picturesque and beautiful. Its very
scarlet is a trumpet tone to appetite. It lies embedded in green
leaves like a magnificent tropical cactus. A good dressing for lobster
is essence of anchovy, mushroom ketchup, hard-boiled eggs, and a
little cream.
Mashed potatoes, rubbed down with cream, or simply mixed with vinegar,
are no bad substitute for eggs, and impart to the salad a new and not
unpleasing flavour. French beans, the most delicate of vegetables,
give the salad eater a new sensation. A dressing can be mixed in the
following proportions: "Four mustard ladles of mustard, four salt
ladles of salt. Three spoonfuls of best Italian oil, twelve of
vinegar, three unboiled eggs. All are to be carefully rubbed
together." This is for those who like sours and not sweets. An old
French _émigré_, who had to make his living in England during the time
of the Regency, a man of taste and refinement, an epicurean Marquis,
carried to noblemen's houses his mahogany box full of essences,
spices, and condiments, and made his salad in this way: he chopped up
three anchovies with a little shallot and some parsley; these he threw
into a bowl with a little mustard and salt, two tablespoonfuls of oil,
and one brimming over with vinegar. When thoroughly merged he added
his lettuce, or celery, or potato, extremely thin, short slices of
best Westphalia ham, or the finest roast beef, which he had steeped in
the vinegar. He garnished with parsley and a few layers of bacon. This
man was called _Le Roi de la salade_.