"Take, take lobsters and lettuces,
Mind that they send you the fish that you order;
Take, take a decent sized salad bowl,
One that's sufficiently deep in the border;
Cut into many a slice,
All of the fish that's nice;
Place in the bowl with due neatness and order;
Then hard-boiled eggs you may
Add in a neat array,
All toward the bowl, just by way of a border.
"Take from the cellar of salt a proportion,
Take from the castors both pepper and oil,
With vinegar too, but a moderate portion,--
Too much of acid your salad will spoil;
Mix them together,
You need not mind whether
You blend them exactly in apple-pie order,
But when you've stirred away,
Mix up the whole you may,
All but the eggs which are used as a border.
"Take, take plenty of seasoning;
A teaspoonful of parsley that's chopped in small pieces
Though, though, the point will bear reasoning,
A small taste of onion the flavour increases
As the sauce curdle may,
Should it, the process stay.
Patiently do it again in good order;
For if you chance to spoil
Vinegar, eggs, and oil,
Still to proceed would on lunacy border."
A Spanish salad, _gaspacho_, is a favourite food of the Andalusian
peasant. It is but bread soaked in oil and water, with a large Spanish
onion peeled, and a fresh cucumber.
Slice three tomatoes, take out the grain and cut up the fruit.
Arrange carefully all these materials in a shallow earthen
pan, tier upon tier, salting and peppering each to taste,
pouring in oil plentifully, and vinegar. Last of all, let the
salad lie in some cool spot for an hour or two, then sprinkle
over it two handfuls of bread-crumbs.
In Spanish peasant houses, the big wooden bowl hanging below the eaves
to keep it cool is always ready for attack. The oil in Spain is not to
our taste; but the salad made as above, with good oil, is delicious.
It should have a sprinkling of red pepper.