The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-07-05
salad Making.
From "All the Year Round

c1Olerlc ana snort IN temper, keep taxing Dlue
handkerchiefs out of their hats and dashing them
in again as if they were trying to knock out the
crowns, and street apple women fall asleep totally
needless of custom or urchin thieves; when shop
boys drip pattens on the pavement with their
water cans. aid splash any person If they can
safely; when Chaplain omnibus'drvers are
thisiier than usual and drain of stout faster than
their smoking horses suck up the pallsful Of
water held up TO them by the hostlers at the half
way house when in the West End squares pleas
ant music ooZes from open windows and Venetian
blinds when Covent Garden is one vast flower
bed, and smells like Bucklersbury at simple
time - when dirty-Ookiug men, either burglars
tired of the nights prowl, or idle mechanics. go
to sleep face downwards in the parks, and give
them the appearance of battle fields, and the
Achilles. though not over-olothed, is so hot that
he'd scorch you if you touched him-then, say.
il is q pleasure to retire into some oldfashioned
tavern-the Mitre, where Doctor johnson planned
with Boswell his venturous trip to the Hebrides;
or the Cheshire Cheese, which Goldsmith used to
frequent-go and refresh your body with steak,
and your eyes with a salad. AS you stir up that
moist foliage, the fatigue and dust and heat and
stiffness Of London pass from you, and there
arise thoughts of
Dance, and PIOvsncsi song, and sunburut mirth,
and Of
"Grass. the thicket, and the fruit tree wild,
White hawthorn, and the pastoral Byzantine
Fast fading vioets covered up in leaves"
At such times fancy myself again in my own
country garden, beating the dark earth from the
fbrous root of the portly lettuces, whose large
hearts have almost burst the bass zones that bind
them, drawing carefully my pink radishes, or lift
ing out tenderly the young onions with heads
scarcely bigger than bodkins; if divestmyself Of
culinary Thoughts, imagine myself laziy lying on
my back, buried in Towering grass, just ripe for
| the scythe, watching foot above be an orange
| shelled lady.bird climbing grass stalk, or some
| little blue butterflies Pickering round a honey
| sweet clover. flower.
The old French proverb-maker who said
| "Qui win bolt spres salsde
Est en- danger stre malAde'
had many other wise saws relating to food, Of
| more or less value, such as,
"Old fish. old oil. and old friends are best.
| Veals, fowls. and fish I'LL the chuchysrds.
Take the middle the OF OIL and the bottom OF
A AtssT R. 15a wine wine is sh i:l priest
| Yeu drink much after q egg after OK
OF all salads lobster salad is the most pictur-
esque. The red-skinned flesh of the creature con-
trasts exquisitely twas surely intended to contrast
exquisitelyl with the tender April green of the
virgin lettuce. To parody Briliat Saverin may
not say, Powerful kings, invincible paladns.
friends of Nero and HeliOgabslus, how pity you,
for you did not know the lobster salad The
very scarlet of the lobster-shell gives one an ap-
! petite. With what keen pleasure one cleaves
the crimson plate'armor OF the sea monster
through with one steady, strong pressure from
| head to heel from his little black prominent
beads of eyes to the last brown flament Of his
fan-like tail. Easily as an almond from its soft
| shell, gently as coin from q m0ul0, cOUos the
plastic flesh. We toss it into the bed Of lettuce
leaves, and prepare for the sauce. We make il
like Mrs. Randall, but with this difference that we
put more oil and less vinegar and we do not for
get essence of snchovy, mushroom ketchup, hard
boiled eggs, or a little modifying cream.
Mashed potato, rubbed down with cream, mus
tard and salt is no bad substitute for egg, and i'm.
parts to q salad a new and not unpleasng flavor.
Tomatoes-those warm orangelobed tropical
"pommes glamour ARE excellent, too, in q
salad. Their rch-6svored pulp and skin, warm
as capsicums are incompatible, if well spread
and difused on proper friendly footing with the
other ingredients. French beans, too, the most
delicate of vegetables, make a salad of great
merit You must boil the beans as usual for the
table, then mix dressing in the following pro-
-Four mustard ladies' of mustard.
Four salt ladies of salt.
Three dessert spOonsful Of essence Of anchoVy.
-Four ditto of mushroom ketchup.
Three ditto of the best Italian oil.
Twelve ditto of vinegar.
Three unbOiled eggs.
The Spanish use pomegranstes In their salads.
For myself dislike that fruit with the shell like
baked clay. The Arab poets may compare the
lips of those they love to the rosy, feshy pps Of
the pomegranate, but to my mind the acid is OF
an uninterestng, insipid and rather disagreeable
character. Perhaps they are grateful to men
choked with the dusty heat Of Spanish sum
mer; but when one can pick from the green
parent tree an orange just following, who would
eat the poor Wdtefy trult OF OfhnauA. OLnl, IC
the epicure, eager for novelty the thing is worth
a trial-at the worst it is only bowl of salad tC
be thrown away; for, depend upon it, servants
won't eat what their masters dislike.
In the time of the regency an old French emigre
Of taste and refinement, an epicurean marquis
who had perhaps often supped at the Petit
|, Tri8non with the thOughtless, laughing ladies o.
, poor Marie Antonette, or reveled with Egalite il
the Palais Royal on dishes rarer and stranger
than even nightingsles' brains or stewed cana
riee-attended parties at the West End as a pre-
, psrer of salads. He carried with him mahogan.
, case full of sauces and essences and the result
was (well, only Spaniarc could express IL b.
, joining the tips of his five jointed fingers, an
then blowing them apart with kiss)-
"Whew Perfection"
The old emigre made a fortune, and returned
: | with the BourbOns TO regenerate the French wit
, q new salad mixture. Ventre de St. Girls tina
4 man would have deserved a London statue a
much as the duke of York or Jenner, had he Onl
! left us his recipe.
If tradition be correct the roi da Ia salade cor
structed bis finest work somewhat on these lines
7 He chopped up three anchoVies with lttl
shallot and some parsley; these he threw into
) bowl, with little mustard and SALT two table
: spoonfuls Of oil, and one brimming over with vim
:, egar; when madly mixed, he added 10 these eI
; tTemely thin, short slices of Westphalia ham, Q
the finest roast beef, which be first stepped in th
: seasoning. he then covered the bowl, and
: three hours the salad VAS fit for table. He ga
Dished with parsley and few walters of bacon
J Perfection is not the word. A dying man coul
!, get up to taste that salad. Let that salad be tn
- tombstone Of all French cooks. Let it be th
"a first question to sspirants, " Do you know how I
: construct e make is a word degrading to I'd
. grand seience)-do you know, monsieur, how
= construct the Salade des Hesperides!n II h
= wretch says "No," look down again on you
= blOttingpsper, bow and glance at the door. A
: the Count de NJ once said to Talleyrand of a cal
!. oidate for secretsrysbip:
. have no great opinion of this mans mind
= be has never eaten pudding la Richelieu, and B
. does not know the outlet Ia Soubise.n A
Il Briiat ssverin says, profoundly 1t ischiehy me
- OF intellect who hold good eating in honor; Il
~ herd is not capable of a mental operation whiC
consists in long sequence Of appropriations az
! many severe decisions Of the Judgment"
?, The ship John Bright sailed from Liverpool 4
e | New York on the 9Th of Inna with GO Mormon