Banana Salad
Banana salad may be served with either a boiled dressing or a mayonnaise, sprinkling a few chopped English walnuts over the dressing.
A one-line note in the spirit of its period, when a "salad" could be little more than fruit, a dressing and something crunchy. Everything unstated has to be supplied by the cook.
- Quantities and yieldThe original gives none. As a working proportion, allow one banana per person, sliced on the diagonal or split lengthwise, with about a tablespoon of dressing each; half a cup of chopped walnuts will cover six servings.
- Boiled dressingNot mayonnaise thinned out but a separate preparation: egg yolks, vinegar, a little sugar, mustard and flour or cornstarch, cooked over water until it coats a spoon, then cooled. It is tart and custard-like, and it was the everyday house dressing before jarred mayonnaise. Cook it to at least 160F and chill it before it meets the fruit.
- Mayonnaise in 1911Homemade and made with raw yolks. Its consistency varied with the cook, and modern jarred mayonnaise may be stiffer than what Estes had in mind; if so, slacken it with a spoonful of lemon juice or cream so it pours over the fruit rather than sitting on it.
- English walnutsSimply the common walnut, named to distinguish it from the native black walnut, which is far more assertive. Use ordinary walnut halves, and toast them briefly if you want them to register against the soft fruit.
- BrowningThe hinge of the dish. Cut bananas discolour within minutes; slice them last, toss with lemon juice, and dress immediately before serving. A banana salad assembled an hour ahead looks grey.
- ServingFruit salads of this date were often set on a lettuce leaf on an individual plate, with the dressing spooned over and the nuts scattered last so they stay crisp; the recipe itself specifies only that the nuts go over the dressing.
Rufus Estes published Good Things to Eat in 1911, after years cooking in Chicago restaurants and on Pullman private railcars; born into slavery in Tennessee, he joined a small line of African American cookbook authors that already included Malinda Russell in 1866 and Abby Fisher in 1881. The banana salad belongs squarely to its moment: steamship refrigeration and the growth of the Central American fruit trade had turned bananas from a luxury novelty of the 1870s into a cheap, year-round staple by the 1900s, and American cookbooks of the decade are full of them, in fritters, in puddings and, most fashionably, in salads. The fruit-and-mayonnaise salad on a lettuce leaf strikes modern readers as odd, but it was then a mark of a refined table, and the choice Estes offers between a thrifty boiled dressing and a mayonnaise tells you he was writing for both the home cook and the dining car.