Alfred Suzanne - 200 Ways to Make a Salad: The Handy 1914 Guide

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is an unabridged republication of the edition originally published in 1914 by The Food and Cookery Publishing Agency, London, under the title and subtitle A Book of Salads: The Art of Salad Dressing.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Suzanne, Alfred. | Senn, Charles Herman, 1862-1934.

Title: 200 ways to make a salad : the handy 1914 guide / Alfred Suzanne and Charles Herman Senn.

Other titles: Art de preparer et daccommoder les salades. English | Two hundred ways to make a salad

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, 2017. | Translation of: Art de preparer et daccommoder les salades. | Originally published in 1914 by The Food and Cookery Publishing Agency, London, under the title The Art of Salad Dressing. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017027942| ISBN 9780486818092 (paperback) | ISBN 0486818098 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Salads. | BISAC: COOKING / Courses & Dishes / Appetizers. | COOKING / Courses & Dishes / Salads. | COOKING / Courses & Dishes / Sauces & Dressings. | COOKING / Health & Healing / Low Carbohydrate. | COOKING / Methods / Quick & Easy. | COOKING / Regional & Ethnic / American / General. | COOKING / Specific Ingredients / Meat. | COOKING / Specific Ingredients / Poultry. | COOKING / Specific Ingredients / Seafood. | COOKING / Specific Ingredients / Vegetables. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX740 .S8913 2017 | DDC 641.83dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027942

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

81809801 2017

www.doverpublications.com

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THERE NEED be no apology for offering a book on salads, because few manuals are in existence which deal exclusively with this important section of the culinary art.

Salads are recognised as an indispensable course for any lunch or dinner, and for the sake of health some kind of salad ought to form an item in every family menu throughout the year.

Such being the case, it is well to have a pleasing variety of reliable combinations at ones command.

To many persons the word salad represents but a very limited opportunity, and yet every month of the year practically brings in some kind of material wherewith a delicious salad can be made. Salad making is not, as a rule, classed as an art, inasmuch as everybody thinks he or she can make a salad; but there is, I venture to assert, a great difference between a well-dressed salad and the dishes one meets with at times, which are given that name.

This book of recipes is the most complete work of its kind I have as yet seen, and considering the fact that Monsieur A. Suzanne is one of the most renowned chefs of the present day, this manual should find its way into thousands of kitchens.

Every recipe contributed by Monsieur Suzanne reflects the genius of a master-hand in the art of making salads.

The reception accorded to Monsieur Suzannes LArt de Prparer et dAccommoder les Salades, of which the present work is a translation by A. M. Garance, has been very flattering, and justly so, because it is a work on a popular subject, and supplies a want felt by every matre dhtel, cook, and housekeeper.

The various chapters on salads contained in this book give a large number of new salad combinations, and include many which have recently been introduced.

There is a Spanish proverb that is full of meaning to the salad mixer. It runs:

To make a perfect salad four persons are needed. There should be a miser for the vinegar, a spendthrift for the oil, a wise man for the salt, and a madcap to stir up the ingredients and mix them well.

In this new edition, which has been thoroughly revised and brought up to date, a new chapter has been added giving minute directions for new salad combinations in which the latest novelties in this branch of cookery are included.

C. Herman Senn

London, March 1914.

INTRODUCTION

UNDER THE generic name of salad we include all foods seasoned with oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and various other condiments. The same name is applied illogically in the opinion of the purists to mixtures of fruit with sugar, spices, and liqueurs.

Salads may be arranged in six distinct classes:

1. Green salads (herbaceous plants).

2. Other vegetable salads (leguminous plants).

3. Fish salads.

4. Poultry and game salads.

5. Meat salads.

6. Fruit salads.

Salad, no matter of what class, is liked by everybody. Its presence at any meal is welcome, and it is looked upon as a wholesome and refreshing food, and at the same time as a powerful aid to digestion.

In nearly all European languages the word is practically the same. It is salade in French, insalada in Italian, Salat in German, salate in Russian, and ensalada in Spanish.

Etymologically salad is derived from the Latin sal, salt; as in classic times it appears that this was the only condiment employed.

Salad was in favour in the reign of Louis XIV. Boileau, in satirical verse, describes a bad dinner at which two salads were served, one of yellow purslane, the other of wilted green stuff, both smelling of rancid oil and swimming in strong vinegar. This shows that then, as now, the quality of the oil and vinegar used was considered of first importance. But the excellence of these is not the only requisite for a good salad; the other flavouring ingredients must be in correct proportion and skilfully added.

A salad at dinner is a necessity, almost a passion with some people; the craving for it may be compared to that of an inveterate smoker for his pipe, of English women for tea, and the Chinese for opium.

Of the large number of green plants that may be eaten as salad the principal are lettuce, chicory, watercress, barbe (blanched dandeliona species grown like celery), corn-salad, rampion, purslane, dandelion, and endive.

In spite of the apparent homogeneity of these plants they differ essentially in taste; each kind, therefore, requires special preparation and seasoning.

The leguminous vegetables that can be used in the form of salad are numerous. The chief of these are white and green haricots, lentils, beetroot, celery, potatoes, salsify, cucumber, truffles, tomatoes, and carrots.

The fish used in salad are such as have a firm flesh; for instance, salmon, turbot, sole, trout, mackerel, and tunny. But herrings and anchovies are used as flavourings.

Boiled and braised meat (beef, as a rule), poultry, and game can be served in the same way.

Every nation has its own way of preparing salad, and according to the custom of the country mixtures of cream, yolk of egg, mustard, red and white pepper, horseradish, anchovy, lemon juice, bacon fat, garlic, finely chopped herbs, and, of course, oil and vinegar are used in the seasoning.

A salad is really good only when it is judiciously seasoned, and as simple as this seems it requires care and skill.

The old Spanish proverb, referred to in the preface, is perhaps true as regards the first three co-operators in the salad; but it errs as regards the last, who should be skilful and intelligent rather than madly energetic.

J.-J. Rousseau wrote that the salad required so much care in order to retain the essential properties of the plants that they should not be touched except by the delicate fingers of a young girl.

The philosopher was doubtless writing of times before the invention of forks. It seems, in fact, that in these days the duty of dressing the salad fell to the prettiest girl in the company, and she mixed it with her fingers before the assembled guests.