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Cauliflower Salad
Marinate a prepared cauliflower (see recipe on Page 95) with French Dressing, to which add one tablespoon finely chopped chives. Dispose in a nest of peppergrass, water cress, endive or lettuce heart leaves. Sprinkle with grated Edam cheese.
A cold vegetable salad of the kind that filled the space between roast and dessert on an American Sunday table. The whole thing hinges on dressing the cauliflower while it is still warm, so it drinks up the vinaigrette rather than shedding it.
- The cross-referenceThe recipe on Page 95 is not reproduced here. In books of this period a "prepared" cauliflower generally means one trimmed, soaked in salted water to drive out insects, and boiled until a knife enters the stalk with slight resistance — figure on something like 15 to 20 minutes for a whole medium head, less if broken into florets. Drain it thoroughly and stand it upside down for a few minutes so water does not pool in the crown.
- Marinate warmMarinate -- Let the cauliflower cool in the dressing for at least an hour, turning once or twice. Dressing vegetables while still warm is a common way of helping them take up a vinaigrette, though the recipe itself specifies nothing about temperature.
- French DressingIn books of this period this means oil, vinegar, salt and pepper whisked or shaken together, with no mustard, sugar or emulsifier unless stated. Period ratios vary, commonly between two and four parts oil to one of vinegar; around 6 tablespoons oil to 2 of vinegar will coat a medium head.
- PeppergrassGarden cress (Lepidium sativum), a sharp, peppery small-leaved salad green sold under that name in seed catalogues of the day. Watercress or arugula stands in for it; the point is a bite that cuts the oil.
- EndiveIn 1900s American usage this generally means curly endive or frisée rather than the pale Belgian chicons, which were then a rarity. Either works, but frisée gives the "nest" the original has in mind.
- EdamA firm, mild Dutch cheese in a red wax rind, still widely available. Grate it fine on the small holes so it falls as a dusting; a young Gouda or a mild aged cheese is a reasonable substitute. Add it only at the moment of serving or it goes damp.
- Presentation and yieldServe the head whole on its bed of greens and cut it into wedges at table, or break it into florets first for easier service. A medium head dresses four to six as a side salad.
Cauliflower dressed with oil and vinegar and served cold belongs to a long European habit of treating cooked vegetables as salad — the French salade de chou-fleur and the Italian practice of marinating boiled vegetables both predate American cookbooks by centuries. What marks this version as turn-of-the-century American is the styling: the vegetable is set in a deliberate "nest" of contrasting greens and finished with grated cheese, the sort of composed, plated salad that magazines and cookery schools of the 1890s and 1900s pushed hard as a sign of a refined table. Edam is a telling choice. Its red wax rind made it durable and shippable, and it was among the imported cheeses stocked by American grocers before the First World War, so it turns up in period recipes wherever a writer wanted a grating cheese that a reader could actually buy. Peppergrass, meanwhile, points the other way — it was a kitchen-garden crop, sown in a row and cut young, and it gradually disappeared from these salads.