CONCERNING SALADS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 65, 10 December 1907, Page 3

CONCERNING SALADS.

How old and how general is the use of salads one hardly realises. Even of St. tiieronymus, who lived on bread and water for the last ninety years of his life, St. Anthony said he was "not without a certain lusting after salad"; whilst Shakespearo, in "Henry VI," makes Jack Cade say that a salad "is not amiss to'cool a man's stomach in the hot weather." But the salads of those days were much more composite aftairs than would appeal to the cultivated taste of to-day. ; Here, for instance, is a recipe of a little earlier date: "Take parsel, sawge, garlyc, chibooles (chives), oynons, lottos, borage, mynto, poirettes, fenel, and cressis; lave and waisho hem smallo with thyne hondo, and, myxing him wel wyth rawo oyl, lay on vynegar and salt and servo .liven now one of the commonest of English errors in salad making is the using of too many ingredients and of too elaborate a dressing. In this connection Sydney Smith's pft-quoted and rhymed prescription is well known.

Nearly every form of cooked meat or vegetable may bo used for salad making; but the salads of greatest valuo in spring, summer, and hot weather generally, aro those : made with the true salading plants—lettuce, cress, i endive, cucumber, tomato, and so on —which are used in tho uncooked state Probably most people will agree that of all salads eaten in this Cjountry the plain lettuce salad is tho most delicately flavoured and most generally welcome, and anyone who can prepare a perfect lettuce salad will have but littlo difficulty with other kinds. Fresh, crisp young plants should bo chosen, and where possible these should be gathered on the day they are to be used. If fresh gathered, the lettuce should not bo placed in water, but the outer loaves should bo torn off, and only the inner, tender, well-wiped ones used. In the case of most bought lettuces, however, it will usually be found wise to wash them well; the leaves should then be shaken, and afterwards carefully dried (without being bruised) by placing them between the layors of 'a soft absorbent cloth, for it is important that the leaves should be perfectly dry. Place them in a bowl of ample size, and pour over thsm a mixture of one teaspoonful of salt, with one tablespoonful of good olive oil; then add three more tablespoonfuls of oil and lightly toss the leaves until every part has a slight covering of tho oil. Then add a tablespoonful of good vinegar and about a saltspoonfu] of coarsoly ground black pepper (freshly ground in a hand pepper mill), and.mix it all gently but thoroughly. Directly it is mixed a salad should be served and eaten. Of courso, if a larger salad is required, more of each of tho 'ingredients should be added, but the proportions given abovo should not bo departed from. Tho salad should not be describable as hot, salt, sour, or oily. Better results mil attend the efforts of those who follow this advice than of those who\ act on tho much•quoted, and (in ignorance) often approvingly quoted, ■ Spanish saying that "it takes four persons to mako a successful salad; a spendthrift to throw in the oil, a miser to drop in the vinegar, a lawyer to administer tho seasoning, and a madman to stir the whole together." ■ . ■ Especially misleading is tho fourth of these pieces of advice, for it is in the mixing that the greatest caro arid tho lightest of hands are required. 1 Whilst perfect results aro obtained only by adding the several ingredients of the salad dressing separately, non-epicures sometimes prefer to mix the dressing and add it to the salad at the last moment in its complete form. In mixing this so-called French dressing.the chief points to bear in mind are that the vinegar should bo added last, and that it should be dropped in n little at a time, and thoroughly mixed. Besides these there are innumerable others, such as potato salads, tomato salads,, onion salads, mushroom salads, a la macedoine salads, Flemish salads, Swedish salads, Japanese salads, egg salads, meat salads, and, fruit salads, to give but. a few tempting' and suggestive headings, all of which deservo attention, and, granted caro and intelligence, are not difficult to produce