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Asparagus Salad
After having scraped and washed asparagus, boil soft in salt water, drain off water, add pepper, salt and strong cider vinegar, and then cool. Before serving, arrange asparagus so that heads will all lie in center of dish; mix the vinegar in which it was put after removing from the fire with good olive oil or melted butter, and pour over the asparagus. -Mrs. Lewis Brown.
A vinaigrette-dressed asparagus salad in the old style, where the cooking liquor's seasoning becomes the dressing. The one thing worth ignoring is "boil soft."
- Do not boil softAsparagus cooked until limp turns grey-green and stringy, and it will collapse when you try to arrange the heads in the center of the dish. Boil in salted water 3-5 minutes depending on thickness, until a knife slips into the thick end with slight resistance, then drain.
- ScrapingPeriod asparagus was often thicker-stalked and sandier than what is sold now, so scraping likely meant peeling the tough lower third with a knife. With modern thin spears, snap off the woody base and skip the peeling; with jumbo spears, a vegetable peeler on the bottom two inches is still worth the trouble.
- "Strong" cider vinegarNineteenth-century household cider vinegar was not standardized, and its acidity is unknowable; "strong" presumably meant the sharpest on hand. Start with about 2 tablespoons for a pound of asparagus and taste before adding more.
- The marinade becomes the dressingThe seasoned vinegar is poured over the hot asparagus and absorbed as it cools, then mixed with oil or melted butter just before serving. Drain that liquid off into a bowl before plating rather than trying to pour oil into the serving dish.
- Dressing proportionsThe recipe gives no ratio. Three parts oil to one part vinegar is the standard balance; with a sharp vinegar you may want four to one.
- Oil or butterIf you choose melted butter over olive oil, serve the dish barely cool or slightly warm, since butter congeals into flecks on chilled spears. Olive oil is the better choice for a salad meant to be eaten cold.
- YieldA pound to a pound and a half of asparagus serves four as a salad course.
Buckeye Cookery was compiled in the 1870s from contributions by named housewives, which is why this entry carries Mrs. Lewis Brown's signature — the book functioned as a community ledger of tested household practice as much as a cookbook. Asparagus in that period was strictly seasonal, arriving in late spring, and it was normally served hot under a butter or cream sauce; dressing it with vinegar and oil and eating it cold reflects the older European habit, still common in French and German cookery, of treating cooked vegetables as salads. The instruction to arrange the heads toward the center of the dish is a reminder that Victorian table service prized visible arrangement: the tips were the delicacy, and the presentation was meant to show them off.