Salads And Salad Making

Certain uncooked plants, fruits, and nuts, also cooked vegetables and meats, seasoned with condiments and dressed with oil, cream or butter slightly acidulated, constitute what is known as salads.

Long ago in the time of Virgil many ingredients were brayed together in a mortar to produce some delectable dish, but without doubt even then as now the simpler the salad the better it was. "Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."

The list of plants eaten uncooked as salads by people in general is small, and it has scarcely been added to since the days of antiquity. Lettuce, known since the earliest times, and cultivated in England for more than two hundred years, has always been the favorite salad plant, though radishes were once served on plates of gold - emperors vying with one another to secure the greatest degree of transparency in the vegetable. Black radishes, cultivated in the times of the Romans, are no longer in great demand. The varieties of lettuce are numerous, but all belong to two principal groups: the cabbage lettuce, named from similarity in growth to the vegetable whose name it bears, and the cos lettuce, the long, firm leaves of which form a long, erect head. Romaine belongs to this class. Celery, cucumbers and cabbage divide the honor of a second position, then follow watercress, endive, escarole, peppergrass, dandelion, purslane, and sorrel. Hothouse cucumbers and lettuce are now largely grown by the aid of electric lights. Dandelion, cultivated in rich soil, is broad-leaved (comparatively), tender and easily made crisp. It is usually blanched for use in salads. When the leaves first appear, the plant is covered with a saucer or flower pot, then, when the leaves are of sufficient size, they are beautifully white. When cleaned, crisped, dried, and dressed with French dressing the dandelion makes a most healthful salad. Purslane and sorrel are used in combination with other plants and obviate the use of acid in the dressing. There are but few cooked vegetables, if there be any, that cannot, either in combination or singly, be served as salads; of all it may be said, as Gerarde said of asparagus, " The first sprouts and tender shoots be oftentimes sodden in flesh broth and eaten boiled in faire water, and seasoned with oil, vinegar, and pepper, they are served up as a salad."

Olive oil, the dressing par excellence of a salad, is a form of fat that, eaten in moderation, agrees with almost every one; its use gives "strength and suppleness." It lubricates the alimentary tract and acts as a germicide. Its use is strongly advocated in health as well as in all wasting disease. The first requisite in salad plants is crisp tenderness. Tenderness is secured by quick growth in rich soil with plenty of moisture and suitable light: we say suitable, as many are made tender as well as white by blanching or growing away from the light. Crispness is usually secured by proper care in the kitchen. After thorough cleaning, let stand about half an hour in very cold water, to which a little lemon juice or vinegar has been added. Gather green vegetables from the garden in the early morning or after sunset, keep in a cool place, closely wrapped in paper or in a closed vessel (a tin pail is a convenient utensil), to exclude the air. To avoid a rusty appearance - especially is this the case with celery - postpone the use of water until a short time before serving.