February, 1912.] 



157 



Miscellaneous, 



hop sprouts, garden bumet, leaves of 

 musk roses and rosemary. Further 

 mention is made in culinary manuscripts 

 of that period af avens or herb bennet, 

 costmary, cultivated in the Middle Ages 

 for the agreeable fragrance of its leaves, 

 dittany, an aromatic plant, hyssop, 

 savoury, tansy, mallow, and pellitory. 

 How mauy of the above are used in the 

 kitchen nowadays ? These herbs were 

 eaten particularly in the spring-time, 

 for the majority of them were believed 

 to have medicinal properties of special 

 value to the system after the salt-meat 

 diet of the wiutei months. 



The name of John Evelyn naturally 

 rises iD connexion with the salads of the 

 past. He it was who, once for ail, laid 

 down tne true principles of salad-making 

 in his Acetaria," and no later autho- 

 rity has materially improved upon 

 his theories. Distinguishing between 

 " olera," vegetables tor the pot, which 

 should never be eaten raw, and "ace- 

 taria," vegetables which should never 

 be boiled, Evelyn declared that to cook 

 a salad by neat or by any slow process 

 of pickling was to deprive it utterly of 

 its essential qualities. He declined to 

 regard fruits as an ingredient in salads, 

 and he certaiuly knew nothing of the 

 modern combinations of nuts, cheese, 

 fish, eggs, game, and poultry. As re- 

 gards the dressing, he was of the opinion 

 that an "artful mixture of mustard, 

 oil, and vinegar, with or without the 

 addition of hard-boiled yolks of new- 

 laid eggs, carefully rubbed into the 

 dressing," was all sufficient. The may- 

 onnaise sauce of a later period was, of 

 course, unknown to him. A point that 

 Evelyn strongly insisted upon was the 

 composition of the salad-bow. To pour 

 an acetous dressing into a metal bowl, 

 whether silver or pewter, was an out- 

 rage in the eyes of this authority upon 

 salad-making. The only possible bowl 

 to use, he averred, should be one of 

 '•' porcelaine or of Holland Delft Ware." 



Evelyn's list of admissible " saladings" 

 exceeded Gerard's mauy times, and 

 included daisies (blossoms and leaves), 

 gillyflower, nasturtiums, thistles, vine 

 tendrils, tulip bulbs, daffodil buds, &c. 



To come down now to modern salad- 

 making. Everyone knows what a 

 welcome accessory salads are— green 

 and otherwise — to the dinner or supper 

 table, and given a light hand and some 

 sense of artistic arrangement, they are 

 very little trouble to prepare. A 

 popular delusion is abroad that 

 saiads can only be obtained in the 

 summer-time when green food is plenti- 

 ful, whereas any kind of vegetables, raw 



or cooked, may be added or subsituted 

 in their proper season, and the result is 

 still called by the catholic name of salad. 



We have in these days narrowed our 

 list of salad-herbs very materially, and 

 the foundation ingredients for salad- 

 making are now obtained chiefly from 

 lettuce, endive, chicory, cress, water- 

 cress, corn salad, sorrel, spinach, and 

 cucumber, but to any of these may be 

 added cooked potatos, cooked cauliflower 

 sprigs, celery, beetroot, tomatoes, chives, 

 cooked asparagus tips, cooked artichoke 

 bottoms, cardoons, mushrooms, cooked 

 peas, and cooked beans, the whole- be- 

 ing frequently fortified in these days of 

 non-flesh diet by nuts, cheese, eggs, and 

 pulses, or by meat-eaters with flaked 

 cooked fish and fiuely shredded meat, 

 cooked game, or poultry. 



Saiads vary according to the fashion of 

 differeut countries. A true French 

 salad consists of but one kind of veget- 

 able in addition to the herbs used, 

 whilst a Russian salad is noted for its 

 variety of mixed vegetables. The follow- 

 ing is a recipe for a typical French 

 salad :— 



Remove all the outer leaves of two 

 good cos- or three cabbage- lettuces, and 

 cut off the stalks quite close, and wash 

 in cold water, Dry them well after 

 draining them thoroughly in the salad- 

 basket and break up the leaves small. 

 Now beat together in a basin four 

 tablespoonfuls of the best olive oil, with 

 two tablespoonfuls of either plain 

 Orleans wine or tarragon-vinegar wine, 

 and a good pinch of black pepper and 

 salt to taste. Then lay in the lettuce, 

 and turn it well about in the mixture, 

 adding a little very nuely-miuced green 

 spring onions or chives, and very little 

 cnopped green tarragon and chervil. 

 Keep tossing it altogether till the salad 

 has absorbed the dressing, and is equally 

 saturated with it. Then lift it out of 

 the basin and put it into the salad-bowl 

 containing a piece of toasted bread 

 which has previously bean rubbed over 

 with a cut clove of garlic. This salad is 

 called aalade Romaine if cos-lettuce is 

 used, and tSalade de haitue if cabbage- 

 lettuce is used. Endive, sometimes 

 called chicory, salad is made in precisely 

 the same way. 



In the average English household, 

 however, there is still room for enter- 

 prise in the matter of salads. Whether 

 or not we intend to remain as the French 

 cook says, a " one-sauce people," we are 

 certainty in great measure a " one-salad 

 people," and even more a "one-salad- 

 dressing people." The most popular 

 salad in this country is, no doubt, the. 



