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Sardine Salad
Use a can of boneless sardines. Take them out of the can, skin and flake. Mince six stuffed olives, two stalks of celery, two pickles and half a green pepper, add to the fish, make small mounds on hearts of lettuce and cover with mayonnaise.
A straightforward composed salad that needs only a few notes on quantities and on the sardines themselves.
- Can sizeThe standard flat sardine tin today is about 3.75 oz, and tins of the period were broadly comparable. The recipe gives no yield; one tin plus the vegetables will make about four small mounds as a first course, or two as a light lunch.
- "Boneless sardines"Most tinned sardines now sold are packed whole with the tiny backbone in place, which is soft enough to eat and adds calcium. Skinless-and-boneless fillets exist but are usually the larger, blander fish. Either works; if using whole ones, the instruction to skin them is optional rather than necessary.
- Drain wellThe recipe says nothing about the packing oil, but the salad turns greasy if it goes in. Tip the fish onto paper towel before flaking, and flake with a fork so the fillets stay in visible pieces rather than becoming paste.
- PicklesAn unqualified "pickles" in an American book of this era almost certainly means cucumber pickles; which type is left open. Sour or dill gives a cleaner result against the oily fish; sweet pickle plus the stuffed olives can tip the whole thing sugary.
- Stuffed olivesGreen olives stuffed with pimiento. Six minced olives carry a fair amount of salt, and so do the sardines, so taste before adding any.
- Hearts of lettuceThe inner leaves or wedge of a head lettuce, most likely iceberg, cupped to hold the mound. Little Gem or the inner leaves of romaine do the same job with more flavour.
- MayonnaiseJarred mayonnaise is fine here, though it is stiffer than a homemade dressing. Thin it with a teaspoon of lemon juice or pickle brine so it drapes rather than sits in a lump.
- Make it near servingThe minced vegetables leach liquid within half an hour and the mound slumps. Mix the fish and vegetables ahead if convenient, but assemble on the lettuce and spoon on the mayonnaise at the last minute.
Tinned sardines were one of the cheap protein staples of the early twentieth century, and salad chapters of the 1930s lean on them heavily: shelf-stable, needing no cooking, and requiring only a can opener in a hot kitchen. That last point is echoed in the title of a book called Cook and Be Cool. The construction here is pure period American salad practice: a bound mixture set in a mound on a leaf of lettuce and capped with mayonnaise, the same template used for chicken, salmon, tuna and egg salads of the day. Stuffed olives and pimiento appear so often in these books that they function almost as seasoning, a legacy of the Spanish olive trade that had made pimiento-stuffed green olives a familiar item in the United States.