W. J Ferguson
CREOLE SALAD
2 onions 3/4 cup brown sugar 4 cucumbers 1/4 cup vinegar Chop onions very fine, pare and slice cucumbers, sprinkle with salt, cover with ice water, let stand one hour, drain and add onions, sprinkle with cayenne pepper and dress with cream and vinegar mixed together. Serve on lettuce leaves.
Um!
Sincerely, ar & Ferguson
A cold cucumber-and-onion salad in the old American style, with a dressing of cream soured on the spot by vinegar. The ingredient list and the method do not quite agree, so read both before you start.
- The missing sugarThree-quarters of a cup of brown sugar is listed but never used in the instructions, and there is no cream in the list though the dressing calls for it. Assume the sugar dissolves into the vinegar for the dressing, and start with far less tasted as you go, since 3/4 cup against 1/4 cup vinegar is closer to a syrup than a dressing.
- Cream and vinegarStirring vinegar into cream curdles it into a thick, tangy dressing heavavy cream holds together best; light cream or half-and-half will break into grains. Mix it at the last moment and pour it over the drained cucumbers just before serving.
- Salting and icingThe hour in salted ice water firms the cucumber slices and draws out water so the dressing is not diluted. Drain thoroughly and pat dry, or the cream will pool. Bitterness was more often a complaint in older cucumbers than in the varieties usually sold now, so for most cooks today the step is mainly about texture.
- CucumbersThe instruction to pare them suggests a tougher-skinned cucumber than the thin-skinned sorts common now. Thin-skinned English or small Persian cucumbers can be substituted to roughly the same volume and need no peeling.
- CayenneThe recipe gives no quantity, only 'sprinkle with cayenne pepper.' Start small -- about an eighth of a teaspoon for four cucumbers -- and add more if you want it.
- OnionTwo raw onions against four cucumbers is aggressive by current taste. A single sweet or red onion, chopped very fine and rinsed under cold water to take off the sulfur bite, is a gentler option.
- Yield and timingServes four to six as a side. Dress and serve immediately: the salted cucumbers keep weeping and will thin the cream if the salad stands.
This comes from a 1916 collection in which stage performers of the day sent in their favorite dishes; W. J. Ferguson was a veteran American actor best remembered for having been a young callboy at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot. The "Creole" label was applied loosely in such books, often meaning little more than the presence of cayenne — there is nothing here of the roux, filé, or Louisiana cooking, and the cream-and-vinegar dressing over iced cucumbers is a thoroughly Anglo-American formula found under a dozen other names. Salting and icing cucumbers was a common enough treatment of the vegetable, and the sweet-sour cream dressing is generally reckoned to predate commercial mayonnaise in home kitchens by decades. The cheerful "Um!" and the signature are part of the original contribution.