The feeling opposed to salad-worship was evinced by the man who gave an elaborate prescription for the prepara- tion of a salad, which made the mouths of the hsteners water, but ended with the climax : ‘ Mix the ingredients well, and then [in lieu of ‘ serve ’] throw the salad out of the window. From these extremes the art has now happily recovered, and observes that j^Lste milieu which is so often the test of final accomplishment. 352 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY A salad is a culinary preparation which requires, \jesides_ salt and pepper or its tincture, oil, or butter, or cream, and' commonly vinegar. The name is probably derived from the archetype of salads, namely, that of cucumber. For this succulent fruit ought to be deprived of the excess of its juice by a cautious process of salting and pressure before it receives its dressing. Other vegetables have to be prepared by selection and ablution, and then to be freed from adher- ing water by centrifugal action, swinging in a basket or a cloth for the same reason for which the cucumber is pressed, namely, to prevent the dilution and loss of the dressing. Salads vary with the season, and happily there is in the latitude of Europe no month in the year during which a special salad could not be produced as appropriate. In the dressing of salads care should be taken to avoid or limit the use of onions and their congeners. The French love a soupqon d'ail, and impart it to their salads by laying on the bottom of the bowl a crust of bread on which a clove of garlic has been rubbed. But Teutons and Anglo- Saxons have less predilection for the flavouring than the Latin or Semitic races. All salads, after being comminuted by the knife, should first receive the necessary salt and pepper, the latter pre- ferably as tincture, after that the oil, and be well mixed. Some French authors have predilections for particular oils, e.g., green oil of Aramont for lettuce, but such specialization is difficult to practise, and we find that good Lucca oil of sweet taste makes a first-rate dressing. In the North of Europe the salad has always been saturated with oil before any vinegar was added ; but the French consider the chemist and Minister Chaptal as the discoverer, or at least divulger, of this practice. The oil in every salad should not only be plentiful, but also carefully distributed, so that every leaf has a varnish of it, without any notable quantity running to the bottom of the bowl. The addition of vinegar SALADS AND THEIR DRESSINGS 353 should be the last, and should be made with a sparing hand. Wine vinegar is preferable to any other, next comes malt vinegar; least acceptable, though chemically pure, is the diluted acetic acid obtained from the products of the dry distillation of wood. Some may consider these injunc- tions superfluous, but they are either unknown to or un- observed by numbers of cooks even in great establishments. We have so often seen cucumbers immersed in mere vinegar, dusted over with pepper, and oil floating on the top, and other similar gaucheries, that we point out anew the old well-known rules.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

The feeling opposed to salad-worship was evinced by the man who gave an elaborate prescription for the preparation of a salad, which made the mouths of the hsteners water, but ended with the climax : ‘ Mix the ingredients well, and then [in lieu of ‘ serve ’] throw the salad out of the window. From these extremes the art has now happily recovered, and observes that j^Lste milieu which is so often the test of final accomplishment. A salad is a culinary preparation which requires, besides salt and pepper or its tincture, oil, or butter, or cream, and' commonly vinegar. The name is probably derived from the archetype of salads, namely, that of cucumber. For this succulent fruit ought to be deprived of the excess of its juice by a cautious process of salting and pressure before it receives its dressing. Other vegetables have to be prepared by selection and ablution, and then to be freed from adhering water by centrifugal action, swinging in a basket or a cloth for the same reason for which the cucumber is pressed, namely, to prevent the dilution and loss of the dressing. Salads vary with the season, and happily there is in the latitude of Europe no month in the year during which a special salad could not be produced as appropriate. In the dressing of salads care should be taken to avoid or limit the use of onions and their congeners. The French love a soupqon d'ail, and impart it to their salads by laying on the bottom of the bowl a crust of bread on which a clove of garlic has been rubbed. But Teutons and Anglo- Saxons have less predilection for the flavouring than the Latin or Semitic races. All salads, after being comminuted by the knife, should first receive the necessary salt and pepper, the latter preferably as tincture, after that the oil, and be well mixed. Some French authors have predilections for particular oils, e.g., green oil of Aramont for lettuce, but such specialization is difficult to practise, and we find that good Lucca oil of sweet taste makes a first-rate dressing. In the North of Europe the salad has always been saturated with oil before any vinegar was added ; but the French consider the chemist and Minister Chaptal as the discoverer, or at least divulger, of this practice. The oil in every salad should not only be plentiful, but also carefully distributed, so that every leaf has a varnish of it, without any notable quantity running to the bottom of the bowl. The addition of vinegar SALADS AND THEIR DRESSINGS should be the last, and should be made with a sparing hand. Wine vinegar is preferable to any other, next comes malt vinegar; least acceptable, though chemically pure, is the diluted acetic acid obtained from the products of the dry distillation of wood. Some may consider these injunctions superfluous, but they are either unknown to or unobserved by numbers of cooks even in great establishments. We have so often seen cucumbers immersed in mere vinegar, dusted over with pepper, and oil floating on the top, and other similar gaucheries, that we point out anew the old well-known rules.

The spirit of cookery