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POTATO SALAD (a German recipe)
Cut the potatoes into slices the third of an inch thick, and sprinkle a little pepper and salt amongst them. Cut two or three rashers of bacon into very small pieces, and fry these over a gentle fire until they are lightly browned. Pour into the pan with them half a cupful of water and half a cupful of vinegar, let the bacon simmer in this for a minute, and pour the sauce over the potatoes. If after soaking a little time the salad looks dry, add half a cupful of milk. Time, five or six minutes to make the salad dressing. Probable cost of potatoes, 1d. to 1 1/2d. per pound.
A warm German-style potato salad dressed with bacon and vinegar rather than mayonnaise. The recipe assumes a good deal of knowledge on the cook's part, including the single step it never mentions.
- The potatoes are already cookedCassell's takes it for granted that you are slicing boiled potatoes. Boil them whole in their skins until just tender, peel while still warm, then slice a third of an inch thick so they hold together. Waxy varieties are essential; floury ones collapse into the dressing.
- Serve it warmThis is the hinge. The slices should be warm when the hot bacon and vinegar hit them, because warm potato absorbs dressing and cold potato repels it. Assemble shortly before the meal rather than chilling it.
- QuantitiesNone are given for the potatoes. The dressing here suits about 2 lb of potatoes, serving four to six as a side dish.
- RashersTwo or three rashers is roughly 2-3 oz of bacon; streaky works best here. Cut it into small dice and render slowly so the fat runs out; the fat is as much a part of the dressing as the vinegar.
- The vinegarEqual parts water and vinegar is sharp by modern standards, and Victorian malt vinegar was broadly comparable in strength to today's, though graded strengths varied. Cider or white wine vinegar gives a rounder result, and it is worth tasting and adding a pinch of sugar before pouring.
- The milkMilk added to a vinegar dressing is liable to curdle, particularly while the pan liquid is still hot. If the salad seems dry, a spoonful of the potato cooking water or a little more bacon fat does the job without splitting.
- SeasoningPepper and salt alone is austere. Finely sliced onion or shallot softened in the bacon fat, and chopped chives or parsley stirred through at the end, are standard in German versions and cost nothing.
- Cost noteThe penny-per-pound pricing is a period reference point, not a guide; Cassell's quoted prices in pre-decimal pence throughout.
Warm potato salad dressed with bacon fat and vinegar is the southern German Kartoffelsalat, still the standard form in Swabia and Bavaria, where the mayonnaise-bound version belongs further north. Its appearance in a late-Victorian British dictionary of cookery reflects how thoroughly German dishes had entered the English middle-class repertoire by then; Cassell's collects a good many recipes labelled simply "a German recipe" in the same way. The potato itself had by this date shifted from a curiosity to a cheap and reliable staple in Britain, and a dish of dressed potatoes was something a careful household could put on the table for pennies.