Kettner's book of the table : a manual of cookery : practical, theoretical, historical.

  • Dallas, E. S. (Eneas Sweetland), 1828-1879.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kettner's book of the table : a manual of cookery : practical, theoretical, historical. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    spii’itual part of us, till at last people exalt the preparation of a salad into a religion, and become fanatical about its rites and ceremonies. If Sydney Smith be right, and if the enjoyment of a salad be the height of epicureanism, one would imagine that so simple a taste might be easily gratified. It is a delicacy uphich the poorest of us ought always to command. No cooking is required. Give us a salad-bowl; give us a few raw herbs, and some common condiments, and there is a pleasant repast assured, even if there is nothing to add to it but cold meat. And yet in this England of ours it is difficult to get a good salad—in an English eating-house almost impossible. We have lots of vegetables, with every variety of lettuce and of endive. But in the first place it is a tradition of the English kitchen that salads must be washed and kept in water until ready for use ; the conse- quence is that they lose much of their flavour; they become more watery than they are by nature; and after the salad is devoured one can often see a little pool of water at the bottom of the salad-bowl which the green leaves have not been able to absorb. The tradition of the French kitchen is that no salad must be washed or see the water except the corn salad, which is sometimes called lamb’s lettuce. But it may be said that a salad requires to be cleaned, and hence the need of water. Of course it requires cleaning ; but the French method is to pick the leaves and to clean every separate one with a dxy napkin. This is the reason of the difference between the French mode of serving a salad and ours. In an English house one often sees a lettuce sent up to table whole ; it has been washed whole, and it can be served whole. And when English people see a French salad served, the leaves all severed and sometimes cut, they fancy that this is a mere matter of convenience, the cook saving us trouble. It is not so, but a necessary result of the French process of cleaning the salad. It is not enough, however, to get the herbs in perfection;