HERBS AND SALADS

Evening Star, Issue 23421, 11 November 1939, Page 6

HERBS AND SALADS

No cold luncheon is complete without a good salad, but many have an idea that only lettuce, onions, radish, chives, and mustard and cress are required to make a delicious salad. But those who have travelled abroad have pleasant memories of the ideal salads which were served up to them from time to time. The reason for this is that they have a larger variety of salad plants _to select from than those in cultivation here, s How often does the conventional salad as the season advances become tough and insipid because it is generally made up with the same varieties month after month ? There is a large number of plants suitable for this dish. For example, who would prefer a tough, flabby lettuce to sweet, tender corn which can be grown in any warm position in the garden? The following can be grown successfully in most gardens:—Chicory, sweet corn, dandelion (this should be blanched under a pot), purslain, ram-

pion (can be used as spinach or the roots as with radishes), sorrel (broad leaf) and the common nasturtium (the young green leaves add a delightful flavour to salads), cardoon (the midrib of the leaf is also useful for this work). Endive is certainly more valuable for salads than lettuce. The cultivation is the same, but after the plant becomes matured it should be blanched by placing a pot or tin over it, when it becomes very sweet and crisp. The following herbs are useful for soups and sauces:—Basil, celery seed, chervil, clary, fennel, marjoram, sage, savoury, thyme, and parsley.