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Spanish Salad
One cup of chicken meat cut in small pieces, cucumber cut in cubes, one cup of English walnut meats broken in pieces, one-half can of French peas and two cups of celery cut in strips, well mixed with a silver fork; add one cup of simple salad dressing. Serve very cold on shredded lettuce or individually in lettuce nests, and garnish with Spanish peppers cut in points.
A composed chicken salad of the type American cookbooks turned out by the dozen around 1900, distinguished only by its pimiento garnish. Two of its measurements are vague, and one ingredient no longer exists under that name.
- The cucumber is unmeasuredNo quantity is given. One medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut in small cubes, gives roughly a cup, which balances the other ingredients. Salt it briefly and drain if you want the salad to stay crisp rather than watery.
- "One-half can of French peas"Can sizes of the period were less standardised than ours, so this is genuinely ambiguous. Something like half to three-quarters of a cup of drained small peas is a reasonable reading; "French peas" in American books of this date usually pointed to petits pois, the tiny sweet style, still sold canned or frozen.
- Simple salad dressingThe term generally indicated a plain dressing rather than a rich cooked one: oil, vinegar, salt, mustard and sometimes a little sugar, or a thin mayonnaise. A cup is generous for roughly six cups of solids, so add it in stages and stop when everything is coated.
- Spanish peppersMost probably canned pimientos, sweet and skinned, rather than a hot chile. Cut them into pointed triangles for the garnish as directed; roasted and peeled red bell pepper is the closest fresh substitute.
- The silver forkNot affectation. Steel of the period discoloured on contact with acid dressings and could stain the cut fruit and vegetables. Any modern stainless or wooden implement does the job; the real instruction is to fold gently so the peas and chicken keep their shape.
- ChickenPoached or roasted breast and thigh, cooled before mixing. Warm chicken thins the dressing and softens the celery.
- Serving and yieldAbout six cups of salad, which fills four to six lettuce nests as a luncheon course. It wants to be thoroughly cold; assemble the dressing into it no more than an hour ahead so the walnuts stay firm.
Around the turn of the twentieth century "Spanish" on an American menu often seems to have meant little more than the presence of pimiento, the mild skinned red pepper that arrived in cans from Spain and quickly became a staple of the domestic pantry, where it also colored cream cheese, deviled eggs and countless salads. The rest of the dish is squarely in the tradition of the composed "chicken salad" that filled ladies' luncheon menus of the period: cooked poultry stretched with celery, nuts and a costly imported canned vegetable, bound lightly and served cold in a cup of lettuce. French peas are generally taken to have been a marker of expense, which may be why the recipe specifies them rather than garden peas, and the individual lettuce nest reflects the era's fondness for portioning salads at the table rather than in a communal bowl. The instruction to mix with a silver fork is a small survival of an older kitchen worry about reactive metal.