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Red Cabbage with Celery
Trim one head of red cabbage and cut into quarters.
Soak in cold water for thirty minutes, and slice into shreds. Cut two heads of celery into very thin slices. At serving-time, mix and add one tablespoon of chopped onion. Mix with French dressing and serve
A plain shredded slaw of the pre-mayonnaise school, dressed only at the table. Two terms in it mean something different now than they did in 1911.
- French dressingIn this period the phrase means a simple vinaigrette: roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar, whisked with salt and pepper, sometimes a little mustard. It is not the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under that name in American supermarkets today.
- Two heads of celeryA "head" is a whole bunch, not a rib. Two bunches to one cabbage gives a salad that is closer to half celery, which is the point of the dish; if that reads as too much, one bunch and the inner heart of a second is a reasonable balance.
- The soakThirty minutes in cold water crisps the leaves and draws out grit from the quarters. Drain thoroughly and dry the shreds well, or the dressing will slide off and pool.
- ShreddingCut the quarters across the grain as thinly as the knife allows, core removed. Thick shreds of red cabbage stay tough and squeaky; a mandoline or the slicing disc of a food processor is faster and more even.
- Dress at the last minuteEstes says "at serving-time" for a reason. Vinegar turns red cabbage a brighter magenta almost at once, and after an hour the celery goes limp and weeps water into the bowl.
- The onionOne tablespoon chopped onion for a whole head of cabbage is a seasoning, not an ingredient. Chop it finely; a mild white or sweet onion, or a shallot, suits raw service better than a strong yellow one.
- YieldAn average head of red cabbage with two bunches of celery makes about eight to ten side servings. Season the salad itself with salt as well as the dressing, and taste before it goes to the table.
Good Things to Eat (1911) was written by Rufus Estes, born enslaved in Tennessee in 1857, who cooked for the Pullman Company's private railroad cars before taking charge of the kitchens at a Chicago subsidiary of U.S. Steel. His salad chapter reflects the dining-car and hotel style of the day: raw vegetables cut fine, dressed simply, and assembled at the moment of service rather than made ahead. Cabbage was among the vegetables that kept in a cold cellar long after lettuce had gone, and celery — then a relatively expensive, showy crop, often served standing in a cut-glass vase on the table — supplied the crispness. Pairing the two gets a fresh salad out of nothing but storage vegetables, which is precisely what a February menu needed.