Raw Vegetable Salad

A four-vegetable slaw with no measurements for the dressing and no yield. Everything hinges on how finely the vegetables are cut and on keeping the beets from staining the rest.

• Beets lastRaw grated beet bleeds into carrot, celery and cabbage within minutes. Grate the beet separately, dress it on its own, and fold it in just before serving if you want the salad to stay four colors instead of one.
• "Chop very fine"With a knife this means a fine mince; the large holes of a box grater or the shredding disc of a food processor gets there faster and gives a better texture. Avoid the metal blade, which turns carrot and beet to wet pulp.
• A small head of celeryPeriod usage: a whole bunch, roots and outer ribs trimmed away, not a single stalk. Use about four inner ribs plus the leaves, which are worth chopping in.
• Young beetsSmall beets, raw and freshly pulled. Older storage beets are woody and earthy raw and want cooking instead. The greens are edible and can go in shredded.
• French dressing, 1930s senseFrench dressing, period sense -- A plain vinaigrette of roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar with salt and pepper, shaken not emulsified — not the sweet orange bottled dressing the name later came to mean. Figure about 1/3 cup for this quantity.
• Cabbage waterFinely cut cabbage sheds liquid and thins the dressing. Salt it lightly, let it stand ten minutes, and squeeze it dry before mixing if you are not serving immediately.
• Hearts of lettuceThe pale inner core of an iceberg or a Boston head, quartered into wedges or cupped as leaves. Romaine hearts work and hold up better under a wet salad.
• YieldProbably about four as a side, though the recipe gives no yield. Best mixed within an hour of eating; longer and the carrot and celery go limp.