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Romaine with French Dressing
Remove the wilted leaves from two heads of romaine, trim off the stalk and cut the heads in halves lengthwise (if heads are large, they may be cut in quarters); lay in cold water, cut side down, until crisp. Drain well, dispose on salad plates and pour over French Dressing. Serve two Cheese Fingers with each portion of Salad.
A plate salad from the era when romaine was still sometimes sold as "cos" lettuce and dressing meant oil and vinegar mixed at the table. Almost nothing here needs changing; a few terms do.
- French Dressing means vinaigretteIn a 1900s American cookbook this is oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, whisked or shaken to combine; period books give the proportions variously, commonly somewhere between two and three parts oil to one of vinegar. It is not the sweet orange-red bottled dressing that later took the name.
- The crisping soakThis is the hinge of the recipe. The recipe gives no time, only 'until crisp': halved heads left cut-side down in cold water take up water through the ribs and stiffen, generally a matter of half an hour.
- Drain properlyWater clinging in the leaf cups will thin the dressing and pool on the plate. Shake the halves hard, cut side down, and blot the base with a towel before plating.
- Dress at the last momentWhole halved heads hold up better than torn leaves, but dressed leaves soften as they stand. Pour the dressing as the plates go to the table.
- Romaine size has changedModern supermarket romaine hearts are smaller than the field-grown heads assumed here. Two full heads give four halves; if you are using trimmed hearts, allow one per person and skip the quartering.
- Cheese FingersThe capitalisation suggests a cross-reference to another recipe in the book; cheese fingers of the period are generally strips of pastry or bread baked with grated cheese. Any thin cheese straw or crisp cheese-topped toast finger serves the same purpose.
- YieldFour half-heads as written, one per person; the recipe itself states no yield, and large heads cut in quarters would go further.
Romaine reached American tables as a fashionable alternative to the butterhead and iceberg lettuces of the period, valued for ribs that stayed crisp under oil and vinegar. The name points to Rome een to to France by way of the papal gardens at Avignon, though that story is folk tradition; the English name "cos" derives separately from the Greek island of Kos. The plain dressed salad is served with cheese straws on the side, something crisp and savory standing in for the cheese board.