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Salad, Roman
The Romans used salad, and made it in this way. Cultivated endive was cut small after careful washing and draining, then gravy and oil were poured over it; finely-minced onions were strewn over the whole, then a little vinegar and honey were added, and the salad was sent to table.
An antiquarian note dressed as a recipe: no quantities, no proportions, only a sequence. The one thing to get right is the dressing, which is a sweet-sour vinaigrette loosened with meat juices rather than an oil-and-vinegar emulsion.
- "Gravy" is meat juiceIn Victorian cookery books gravy means the clear, unthickened juices from roast meat or a light meat stock, not a flour-thickened sauce. Use a few spoonfuls of cool, degreased roasting-pan juices or a well-reduced stock; anything starchy will coat the leaves and turn them slack.
- Proportions are yours to setNothing is measured here. A workable dressing for a large head of endive is about 3 tablespoons oil, 1 tablespoon gravy, 2 teaspoons vinegar and 1 teaspoon honey, adjusted for the bitterness of the leaves.
- Which endive"Cultivated endive" in this period covers both curly endive (frisée) and the broad-leaved escarole. Either suits; both are bitter enough to need the honey. Belgian endive (witloof chicory) is a different, later plant and gives a much milder salad.
- Order of assemblyThe oil and gravy go on first, then the onion, then the vinegar and honey. Coating the leaves in fat before the acid hits them keeps them from wilting, which is why the sequence is worth following rather than whisking everything together.
- Onion"Finely minced" means very fine indeed — raw onion in quantity will dominate. A shallot or the white of a spring onion gives a milder result, though Roman kitchens used a range of alliums and how close this comes to the original pungency is guesswork.
- Honey and vinegar togetherRoman cooking pairs honey and vinegar constantly (the same combination as the medicinal oxymel, though that was a drink rather than a dressing), and it wants a sharp wine vinegar, not a sweet balsamic, or the salad reads as candied. Warm the honey slightly if it will not disperse in cold vinegar.
- Dress at the last momentThe instruction to send it straight to table is the operative one. Endive holds up better than lettuce but still collapses within a quarter of an hour under an acid dressing.
- YieldOne large head of endive dressed this way serves three or four as a side salad.
The description is a loose paraphrase of what Roman agricultural and dietary writers say about dressed greens — Columella and Apicius record salads and dressings of leaves with oil, vinegar and pungent alliums, and honey appears often in Roman sauces as a counterweight to vinegar. One thing absent from the Victorian retelling is garum, the fermented fish sauce that supplied the savoury note in many Roman dressings; "gravy" fills that place here, though the book does not say so. Endive in this period was frequently blanched, boiled or served hot as well as dressed raw.