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Lettuce and Banana Salad
Arrange some white lettuce in a flat dish, and on top put a quantity of very narrow strips of banana not larger than a knitting needle.
Cover with French or Mayonnaise dressing and serve very cold. Chopped nuts may be scattered over all if desired.
— Mrs. Chas. J. Bagley
A straightforward composed salad from the era when fruit-and-mayonnaise combinations were considered elegant. The only real technique is in the knife work and the timing.
- "White lettuce"This means the pale, tender inner leaves of a head lettuce — Boston or butterhead types in this period, or the crisphead lettuces. The blanched heart was prized for its crispness and mild flavour; the coarse outer leaves were generally put to other uses.
- Knitting-needle stripsKnitting needles came in a wide range of gauges, the finer steel ones only a couple of millimetres across, so the intention is a fine julienne, not slices. Cut the banana lengthwise into planks, then into matchsticks with a thin sharp blade; a firm, slightly underripe banana holds the shape and a soft one will not.
- Cut at the last momentThe hinge of the dish. Banana browns within minutes of exposure, and no amount of chilling stops it. Cut and dress immediately before serving, or toss the strips in a little lemon juice first — the acid slows oxidation and is no intrusion under a French dressing.
- French dressing, 1900 senseNot the sweet orange bottled stuff. In this period French dressing means oil, vinegar, salt and pepper whisked together, roughly three parts oil to one of vinegar, mixed fresh and used at once.
- MayonnaisePeriod mayonnaise was made by hand with raw yolk and was thicker and more assertive than most jarred versions. If using the alternative, thin commercial mayonnaise with a spoonful of lemon juice or cream so it coats the strips rather than clumping.
- Serve very coldChill the lettuce and the serving dish, not the assembled salad. Bananas held in the refrigerator for long turn grey-black at the skin and go slack in texture.
- NutsThe recipe does not specify; walnuts or pecans are plausible choices. Toast them briefly and chop coarsely; they add the only crunch in a dish that is otherwise soft on soft.
- YieldNo quantities are given. Reckon one banana and a small head of lettuce for four as a side salad.
Banana salads belong to a specific moment: by the turn of the century improved shipping and rail distribution had brought the banana within reach of ordinary American households, and cooks put it everywhere to show they had it. Pairing fruit with mayonnaise looks odd now but was thoroughly conventional then — the Waldorf salad, apple and celery bound in mayonnaise, is credited to the Waldorf Hotel in the mid-1890s and follows the same pattern. Community cookbooks like this one, assembled from members' contributions and sold to raise church or club funds, are one place such fashions surface, each receipt signed with the name of the woman who supplied it. The instruction to cut the banana no thicker than a knitting needle is a nice period measure: a knitting needle was a common household object, and a readier gauge than a ruler in most kitchens.