Part 9

Of every woman worthy of the name, it is the duty to master the secret of the perfect salad, and to prepare it for her own--and man's--greater comfort and joy in this life, and--who knows?--salvation in the next. This secret is all in the dressing. It is easy enough to buy in the market, or order at the greengrocer's a lettuce, or a cucumber, or a pound of tomatoes. But to make of them a masterpiece, there's the rub. Upon the dressing and "fatiguing" success depends. The mission of the lettuce, the resources of the bean were undreamed of until the first woman--it must have been a woman!--divined the virtue that lies in the harmonious combination of oil and vinegar. Vinegar alone and undiluted is for the vulgar; mixed with oil it as much surpasses nectar and ambrosia as these hitherto have been reckoned superior to the liquors of mere human brewing. Of _mayonnaise_ nothing need as yet be said; it ranks rather with sauces, irreproachable when poured upon salmon, or chicken, or lobster--upon the simpler and more delicate salads it seems well-nigh too strong and coarse. The one legitimate dressing in these cases is made of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt, and, on certain rare occasions, mustard.

As with sauces, it is simple to put down in black and white the several ingredients of the good dressing. But what of the proportions? What of the methods of mixing? In the large towns of the United States where men and women delight in the pleasures of the table, are specialists who spend their afternoons going from house to house, preparing the salads for the day's coming great event. And perhaps, in the end, all mankind may see advantages in this division of labour. For only the genius born can mix a salad dressing as it should be mixed. Quantities of pepper and salt, of oil and vinegar for him (or her) are not measured by rule or recipe, but by inspiration. You may generalise and insist upon one spoonful of oil for every guest and one for the bowl--somewhat in the manner of tea-making--and then one-third the quantity of vinegar. But out of these proportions the Philistine will evolve for you a nauseating concoction; the initiated, a dressing of transcendental merit.

As much depends upon the mixing as upon the proportions. The foolish pour in first their oil, then their vinegar, and leave the rest to chance, with results one shudders to remember. The two must be mixed together even as they are poured over the salad, and here the task but begins. For next, they must be mixed with the salad. To "fatigue" it the French call this special part of the process, and indeed, to create a work of art, you must mix and mix and mix until you are fatigued yourself, and your tomatoes or potatoes reduced to one-half their original bulk. Then will the dressing have soaked through and through them, then will every mouthful be a special plea for gluttony, an eloquent argument for the one vice that need not pall with years.

One other ingredient must not be omitted here, since it is as essential as the oil itself. This is the onion--

Rose among roots, the maiden fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul

of every salad. You may rub with it the bowl, you may chop it up fine and sprinkle with it the lettuce, as you might sprinkle an omelet with herbs. But there, in one form or another, it must be. The French have a tendency to abuse it; they will cut it in great slices to spread between layers of tomatoes or cucumbers. But there is a touch of grossness in this device. It is just the _soupçon_ you crave, just the subtle flavour it alone can impart. You do not want your salad, when it comes on the table, to suggest nothing so much as the stewed steak and onions shops in the Strand! The fates forbid.

"What diversities soever there be in herbs, all are shuffled up together under the name of sallade." And Montaigne wrote in sadness, knowing well that there could be no error more fatal. Have you ever asked for a salad at the greengrocer's, and been offered a collection of weeds befitting nothing so much as Betsy Prig's capacious pocket? Have you ever, at the table of the indifferent, been served with the same collection plentifully drenched with "salad cream"? But these are painful memories, speedily to be put aside and banished for evermore. Some combinations there are of herbs or greens or vegetables unspeakably delicious, even in the thought thereof. But it is not at haphazard, by an unsympathetic greengrocer, they can be made; not in haste, from bottles of atrocities, they can be dressed. They are the result of conscientious study, of consummate art.

Besides, some varieties there be of flavour too delicate to be tampered with: for instance, the cabbage lettuce, as the vulgar call it, which comes in about Easter time, but which, at the cost of a little trouble, can be had all the year round. For some reason unknown, your hard-hearted greengrocer, half the time, objects to it seriously, declares it not to be found from end to end of Covent Garden. But let him understand that upon his providing it depends your custom, and he fetches it--the unprincipled one--fast enough. The ragged outer leaves pulled away, crisp and fresh is the heart, a cool green and white harmony not to be touched by brutal knife. The leaves must be torn apart, gently and lovingly, as the painter plays with the colours on his palette. Then, thrown into the bowl which already has been well rubbed with onion, and slices of hard-boiled egg laid upon the top for adornment and flavouring alike, at once may the dressing of oil and vinegar and salt and pepper be poured on, and the process of "fatiguing" begin. You need add nothing more, to know, as you eat, that life, so long as salads are left to us, is well worth the living.

To say this is to differ in a measure from the great Alexandre, a misfortune surely to be avoided. To this lettuce he would add herbs of every kind; nay, even oysters, or tortoise eggs, or anchovies, or olives--in fact, the subject is one which has sent his ever delightful imagination to work most riotously. But, in all humility, must it still be urged that the cabbage lettuce is best ungarnished, save, it may be, by a touch of the unrivalled celery or slices of the adorable tomato--never, if yours be the heart of an artist, by the smallest fragment of the coarse, crude, stupid beetroot.

The _romaine_, or _cos_, however, is none the worse for Dumas' suggestions; indeed, it is much the better. Its long stiff leaves, as they are, may not be "fatigued" with anything approaching ease or success. It is to be said--with hesitation perhaps, and yet to be said--that they make the better salad for being cut before they are put into the bowl. As if to atone for this unavoidable liberty, dainty additions may not come amiss: the tender little boneless anchovies, fish of almost any and every kind--most admirably, salmon and a bit of red herring in conjunction--cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, radishes--all will blend well and harmoniously. Be bold in your experiments, and fear nothing. Many failures are a paltry price to pay for one perfect dish.

Of other green salads the name is legion: endive, dandelion leaves, chicory, chervil, mustard and cress, and a hundred and more besides before the resources of France--more especially the Midi--and Italy be exhausted. And none may be eaten becomingly without the oil and vinegar dressing; all are the pleasanter for the _soupçon_ of onion, and the egg, hard-boiled; a few gain by more variegated garniture.

But these minor salads--as they might be classed--pale before the glories of the tomato: the _pomodoro_ of the Italian, the _pomme d'amour_ of the Provençal--sweet, musical names, that linger tenderly on the lips. And, indeed, if the tomato were veritably the "love apple" of the Scriptures, and, in Adam's proprietorship, the olives already yielded oil, the vines vinegar, then the tragedy in the Garden of Eden may be explained without the aid of commentary. Many a man--Esau notably--has sold his birthright for less than a good tomato salad.

Dante's _Inferno_ were too good for the depraved who prepare it, as if it were a paltry pickle, with a dosing of vinegar. It must first receive the stimulus of the onion; then its dressing must be fortified by the least suspicion of mustard--English, French, or German, it matters not which--and if the pleasure that follows does not reconcile you to Paradise lost, as well might you live on dry bread and cold water for the rest of your natural days. The joys of the epicure, clearly, are not for you. It seems base and sordid to offer for so exquisite a delicacy hygienic references. But the world is still full of misguided men who prize "dietetic principles" above the delights of gluttony; once assured that from the eating of the tomato will come none of the evils "to which flesh is _erroneously supposed_ to be heir," they might be induced to put tomato salad, made in right fashion, to the test. Then must they be confirmed faddists indeed, if they do not learn that one eats not merely to digest.

To the mystical German, the potato first revealed virtues undreamed of by the blind who had thought it but a cheap article of food to satisfy hunger, even by the French who had carried it to such sublime heights in their _purées_ and _soufflés_, their _Parisiennes_ and _Lyonnaises_. Not until it has been allowed to cool, been cut in thin slices, been dressed as a salad, were its subtlest charms suspected. To the German--to that outer barbarian of the midday dinner--we owe at least this one great debt of gratitude. Like none other, does the potato-salad lend itself to the most fantastic play of fancy. It stimulates imagination, it awakens ambition. A thousand and one ways there be of preparing it, each better than the last. With celery, with carrots, with tomatoes, with radishes, with parsley, with cucumber, with every green thing that grows--in greatest perfection with okras, the vegetable dear to Hungarian and American, unknown to poor Britons--it combines graciously and deliciously, each combination a new ecstasy. And, moreover, it is capable of endless decoration; any woman with a grain of ingenuity can make of it a thing of beauty, to look upon which is to sharpen the dullest appetite. So decorative are its possibilities, that at times it is a struggle to decide between its merits as an ornament and its qualities as a delicacy. For truth is, it becomes all the more palatable if dressed and "fatigued" an hour or so before it is eaten, and the oil and vinegar given time to soak through every slice and fragment. The wise will disdain, for the purpose, the ordinary potato, but procure instead the little, hard "salad potato," which never crumbles; it comes usually from Hamburg, and is to be bought for a trifle in the German _delicatessen_ shops of London.

Poetic in the early spring is the salad of "superb asparagus"--pity it should ever be eaten hot with drawn butter!--or of artichoke, or of cucumber--the latter never fail to sprinkle with parsley, touch with onion, and "fatigue" a good half hour before serving. Later, the French bean, or the scarlet runner should be the lyrical element of the feast. And in winter, when curtains are drawn and lamps lit, and fires burn bright, the substantial _Soissons_, for all its memories of French commercials, is not to be despised. But, if your soul aspires to more ethereal flights, then create a vegetable salad--cauliflower, and peas, and potatoes, and beans, and carrots in rhythmical proportions and harmonious blending of hues.

THE SALADS OF SPAIN

They are still many and delicious as when Beckford ate them and was glad, a hundred and more years ago. The treasures of the Incas have dwindled and disappeared; the Alhambra has decayed and been restored on its high hill-top; the masterpieces of Velasquez have been torn from palace walls, to hang in convenient rows in public museums; the greatness of Spain has long been waning. But the Spaniard still mixes his salads with the art and distinction that have been his for centuries. Herein, at least, his genius has not been dimmed, nor his success grown less. And so long as this remains true, so long will there be hope of a new Renaissance in the Iberian peninsula. By a nation's salads may you judge of its degree of civilisation; thus tested, Spain is in the van, not the rear, of all European countries.

It is no small achievement to give distinctive character to national salads, to-day that the virtue of vinegar and oil and the infallibility of incomparable onion are universally acknowledged and respected. And yet Spain, in no idle spirit of self-puffery, can boast of this achievement. She has brought to her _insalada_ a new element, not wholly unknown elsewhere--in Hungary, for instance--but one which only by the Spaniard has been fully appreciated, constantly introduced, and turned to purest profit. This element--need it be said?--is the pepper, now red, now green. The basis of the Spanish salad may be--nay, is--the same as in other lands: tomato, cucumber, lettuce, beans, potatoes. But to these is added pepper--not miserably dried and powdered, but fresh and whole, or in generous slices--and behold! a new combination is created, a new flavour evolved. And it is a flavour so strong, yet subtle withal, so aromatic and spicy, so _bizarre_ and picturesque--dream-inspiring as the aroma of green Chartreuse, stimulating as Cognac of ripe years--that the wonder is its praises hitherto have not been more loudly sung, its delights more widely cultivated. The trumpet-note struck by the glowing scarlet is fitting herald of the rapturous thrills that follow in the eating. Not more voluptuous than the salad thus adorned were the beauties of the harem, who doubtless feasted upon it under the cypresses and myrtles of Andalusia.

The tendency of the Spaniard is ever to harmony, intricate and infinite. Is not his dish of dishes his _olla cocida_? Is not his favourite course of vegetables the _pisto_? And so likewise with his salads: now he may give you tomato just touched with pepper, cucumber just enlivened by the same stirring presence. But more often he will present you an arrangement which, in its elaboration, may well baffle the first investigation of the student. Peppers, as like as not of both species, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, garlic cut fine as if for a mince of greens--"pepper hash," the American crudely calls an arrangement closely akin in motive--are mingled together so deftly, are steeped in vinegar and oil so effectually, as to seem, not many in one, but _the_ one in many, the crowning glory of the glorious vegetable world of the South. Nothing in common has this delectable salad with the _macédoine_, which the Spaniard also makes. Peas and carrots, potatoes and tomatoes, beans and cauliflowers meet to new purpose, when peppers, red and ardent, wander hither and thither in their midst waging war upon insipidity, destroying, as if by fire, the tame and the commonplace. Again, lettuce untainted by garlic, resisting the slightest suspicion of complexity, may answer for the foolish foreigner who knows no better. But in lettuce prepared for himself the Spaniard spares not the fragrant garlic; neither does he omit his beloved peppers, while he never rebels, rejoicing rather, if occasional slices of cucumber and tomatoes lie hid between the cool green leaves.

But fish furnishes him with text for still more eloquent flights, still loftier compositions. A _mayonnaise_ he can make such as never yet was eaten under milder suns and duller skies; and a _mayonnaise_ far from exhausts his all but unlimited resources. Sardines he will take, or tunny, or any fish that swims, and that, already cooked, has been either shut up long weeks in protecting tins or left but a few hours to cool. Whatever the fish chosen, he places it neatly and confidently at the bottom of his dish; above it he lays lettuce leaves and garlic and long brilliant slices of scarlet pepper; round about it he weaves a garniture of olives and hard-boiled eggs that reveal their hearts of gold. The unrivalled, if cosmopolitan, sauce of vinegar and oil is poured upon the whole and made doubly welcome. But details are varied in every fish salad served in Spain; only in its perfection does it prove unalterable.

These, and their hundred offshoots were conceived in serious moments. But once, in sheer levity of spirit and indolence, the gay Andalusian determined to invent a salad that, to the world beyond his snowy Sierras, would seem wildest jest, but to himself would answer for food and drink, and, because of its simplicity and therefore cheapness, save him many a useless hour of gaining his dinner at the sweat of his brow. And so, to the strumming of guitars and click of castanets, now never heard save in books of travel through Andalusia, _gaspacho_ appeared; destined to be for ever after the target for every travel-writer's wit, the daily fare of its inventor and his descendants. To the Andalusian _gaspacho_ is as _macaroni_ to the Neapolitan, _bouillabaisse_ to the Provençal, chops and steaks to the Englishman. In hotels, grotesquely French or pretentiously English, where butter comes out of tins, and salad is garlicless, _gaspacho_ may be but surreptitiously concocted for the secret benefit of the household. But go to the genuine Andalusian _posada_ or house, travel in Andalusian boat, or breakfast at Andalusian buffet, and ten to one _gaspacho_ figures on the _menu_.

To describe it, Gautier must be borrowed from. What would you? When the master has pronounced upon any given subject, why add an inefficient postscript? When a readymade definition, admirably rendered, is at your command, why be at the pains of making a new one for yourself? Never be guilty of any work when others may do it for you, is surely the one and only golden rule of life. Listen, then, to the considerate Gautier: "_Gaspacho_ deserves a description to itself, and so we shall give here the recipe which would have made the late Brillat-Savarin's hair stand on end. You pour water into a soup tureen, to this water you add vinegar" (why omit the oil, you brilliant but not always reliable poet?), "shreds of garlic, onions cut in quarters, slices of cucumber, some pieces of pepper, a pinch of salt; then you add bits of bread, which are left to soak in this agreeable mess, and you serve cold." It should be further explained that, in the season, tomatoes are almost invariably introduced, that they and all the greens are chopped up very fine, and that the whole has the consistency of a _julienne_ supplied with an unusually lavish quantity of vegetables. It is eaten with a spoon from a soup plate, though on the _menu_ it appears as a course just before the sweets. This explanation made, listen again to Gautier, who writes in frivolous mood. "With us, dogs but tolerably well bred would refuse to compromise their noses in such a mixture. It is the favourite dish of the Andalusians, and the prettiest women, without fear, swallow at evening great spoonfuls of this infernal soup. _Gaspacho_ is held to be most refreshing, an opinion which to us seems a trifle daring, and yet, extraordinary as it may be found at the first taste, you finish by accustoming yourself to it, and even liking it."

He was right. _Gaspacho_ has its good points: it is pleasant to the taste, piquant in its very absurdity; it is refreshing, better than richly-spiced sauces when the sun shines hot at midday. Andalusians have not been labouring under a delusion these many years. The pepper is a stimulant; vinegar, oil, and water unite in a drink more cooling and thirst-quenching than abominable red wine of Valdepeñas. Would you be luxurious, would you have your _gaspacho_ differ somewhat from the poor man's, drop in a lump of ice, and double will be your pleasure in the eating.

Like all good things _gaspacho_ has received that sincerest form of flattery, imitation; and, what is more gratifying, received it at home. Lettuce, cut in tiny pieces, is set floating in a large bowl of water, vinegar, and oil, well seasoned with salt. Refreshing this also is claimed to be; though so strange a sight is it to the uninitiated that a prim schoolma'am, strayed from Miss Wilkins's stories into Andalusia, has been seen to throw up hands of wonder, and heard to declare that that salad would find a niche in her diary, to which, as a rule, she confided nothing less precious than her thoughts. Happy Spain, to have so conquered! What is Granada to the possession of so chaste a tribute?

THE STIRRING SAVOURY

First impressions have their value: they may not be dismissed in flippancy of spirit. But for this reason must last impressions be held things of nought, not worthy the consideration of ambitious or intelligent man? First impressions at times are washed away by the rich, fast stream of after-events, even as the first on a slate disappear under the obliterating sponge; last impressions remain to bear testimony after the more tangible facts have passed into the _ewigkeit_. Else, where the use of the ballade's _envoy_, of the final sweet or stirring scene as the curtain falls upon the play?

It is the same with all the arts--with love, too, for that matter, were there but space to prove it. Love, however, dwindles in importance when there is question of dinner or breakfast. Life consists of eating and drinking, as greater philosophers than Sir Andrew Aguecheek have learned to their infinite delight, have preached to the solace of others. Therefore, so order your life that the last impressions of your eating and drinking may be more joyful, more beautiful than the first; then, and only then, will you have solved that problem of problems which, since the world began, has set many a Galahad upon long and weary quest. It behoves you to see that the feast, which opened with ecstasy, does not close with platitude, and thus cover you with shame and confusion. A paltry amateur, a clumsy bungler, is he who squanders all his talent upon the soup, and leaves the savoury to take care of itself. Be warned in time!

The patriotic claim the savoury as England's invention. Their patriotism is pretty and pleasing; moreover, it is not without a glimmering of truth. For to England belongs the glorious discovery that the dinner which ends with a savoury ends with rapture that passeth human understanding! The thing itself has its near of kin, its ancestors, as one might say. Caviar, olives, lax, anchovies, herrings' roe, sardines, and as many more of the large and noble family--do not these appear as _antipasti_ in Italy? In Russia and Scandinavia do they not, spread symmetrically on side table, serve the purpose of America's cocktail? And among the palms, as among the pines, coldness is held to be an essential quality in them. Hot from the ardent oven, the Parisian welcomes their presence between the soup and the fish, and many are the enthusiasts who declare this to be the one and only time for their discreet appearance upon the _menu_. Reason is in the plea: none but the narrow-minded would condemn it untested and untried. He who prizes change, who rebels even against the monotony of the perfect, may now and again follow this fashion so gaily applauded by _gourmets_ of distinction. But, remembering the _much_ that depends upon last impressions, the wise will reserve his savoury to make therewith a fair, brave ending.