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Tomato and Hickory Nut Salad
Dissolve a box of acidulated gelatine in cold water enough to cover it, using the pink powder inclosed in the gelatine.
Rub the tomatoes through a sieve, add salt and a pinch of red pepper and the dissolved gelatine, and after heating thoroughly and cooling add chopped hickory nuts and small pieces of celery.
Set to cool in a mold. Stir occasionally until it begins to set. When ready to serve, cover with the following dressing:
One teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of sugar, one teaspoon of mustard and three tablespoons of vinegar. Stir in three eggs, one at a time; mix thoroughly. Cook in a double boiler. When cool mix in a pint of stiffly whipped cream and pour over the molded tomato and scatter chopped nuts over it. When serving have a dish filled with crisp, curly lettuce leaves beside your salad, put a leaf on the plate, then a spoon of salad and proceed to eat. Mrs D. L.
Bardwell.
A tomato aspic with a cooked cream dressing, from the period when packaged granulated gelatine had just made molded salads a fixture of the American table. Most of the work is in judging quantities the original leaves open.
- Acidulated gelatineA box of granulated gelatine of this era held about an ounce, the equivalent of four of today's quarter-ounce envelopes, though period recipes differ on how much liquid a box was meant to set; a quart of pulp is a reasonable working assumption. The "acidulated" boxes came with a small paper of acid and colouring -- the "pink powder inclosed" of the recipe; plain unflavoured gelatine plus a tablespoon of lemon juice does much the same job, and the pink tint is optional.
- How many tomatoesNo quantity is given. A quart of thick sieved tomato pulp suits one box of gelatine: about 3 lb of ripe tomatoes, or a 28-oz can plus enough juice to make up the volume. Thinner pulp will set softly.
- Bloom, then warmSoften the gelatine in cold water first, as directed, and heat the tomato only until the granules are fully dissolved. Prolonged boiling can weaken the set, so keep the heat gentle.
- When to add the nutsThe instruction to stir occasionally is the hinge. Fold in the hickory nuts and celery only once the mixture has cooled to the consistency of raw egg white, or the nuts sink and the celery floats and the mold comes out in layers.
- Hickory nutsShagbark hickory nuts were gathered rather than bought and are hard to find shelled. Pecans are the closest relative and the usual stand-in; they are sweeter and softer, so toast them briefly to firm up the texture.
- Red pepper and mustard"Red pepper" here means cayenne, not paprika or a fresh chile. The teaspoon of mustard in the dressing is dry mustard powder.
- The boiled dressingWhisk the eggs into the vinegar mixture off the heat, then cook over simmering water, stirring constantly, until it thickens and coats a spoon, around 170-180F. Let it go too far or too fast and the eggs scramble; strain if that happens.
- A pint of cream is a lotA pint of cream whipped stiff roughly doubles to about a quart, giving well over a quart of dressing, more than a single mold needs. Half a pint is ample unless you are serving a crowd, and the dressing should be folded in only when the cooked base is completely cold.
- Unmolding and yieldDip the mold in warm water for a count of ten and invert onto a chilled platter. The recipe gives no quantities, but on the amounts suggested above it would serve eight to ten as a first course, one spoonful to a lettuce leaf.
Molded tomato salads spread rapidly in American cookbooks as granulated gelatine, sold commercially somewhat earlier, reached the mass market in the 1890s, replacing the calf's-foot stock earlier generations had to boil down themselves. The "acidulated" boxes referred to here were a commercial convenience of the period: an envelope of powdered acid and colouring tucked in with the gelatine so the cook did not have to balance the tartness herself. The dressing is a boiled dressing lightened with whipped cream, often said to have been a common salad sauce in the American Midwest and East well into the twentieth century, and cheaper and steadier than a mayonnaise made by hand. The hickory nuts place the recipe firmly in North America: shagbark hickories were gathered from farm woodlots in autumn, cracked at home, and treated as a free ingredient rather than a bought one. Contributions like this, signed with a name, were how community and magazine cookbooks of the era were assembled.