Sardine Salad
The boneless sardines should be used, and mixed with the mayonnaise tartar dressing.
Two lines is all Estes gives, on the assumption that the cook already has a tartar dressing standing by. The whole dish rests on the quality of the fish and the seasoning of the mayonnaise.
- Mayonnaise tartar dressingThe recipe assumes a dressing given elsewhere in the book. A tartar dressing of this period is broadly mayonnaise with chopped pickled things (capers, gherkins or cucumber pickle) and parsley; if you are reconstructing it, something like 3-4 tablespoons of chopped pickle and herbs to a cup of mayonnaise, sharpened with a little of the pickle vinegar, is in the right range.
- "Boneless sardines"By 1911 this indicated a tinned sardine sold as skinned and boned, generally offered as a better grade than the ordinary pack. Modern skinless-and-boneless tins in olive oil are the nearest equivalent; if you use whole sardines, the spine lifts out easily.
- Drain the oilTinned sardines carry a great deal of packing oil, and mayonnaise is already an emulsion of oil. Drain the fish well and blot it, or the dressing slackens and separates on the plate.
- Fold, do not stirBoneless sardines break down to paste under a spoon. Combine with the dressing in a few gentle turns so the fillets stay in recognisable pieces, and dress them shortly before serving.
- QuantityTwo standard tins, giving roughly 5-6 oz of drained fish, with 1/3 to 1/2 cup of tartar dressing serves four as a first course or a light lunch salad.
- ServingA bed of crisp lettuce with lemon wedges and thin buttered toast or crackers suits it; capers and a little chopped hard-boiled egg over the top are a reasonable addition.
Good Things to Eat (1911) was written by Rufus Estes, who was born enslaved in Tennessee in 1857 and went on to cook for the Pullman Palace Car Company and later for the subsidiaries of United States Steel in Chicago. His is among the earliest cookbooks published by an African American author, and its brevity here is characteristic: Estes was writing for people who could cook, and cross-referencing his own dressing recipes rather than repeating them. Tinned sardines suited that world exactly, being shelf-stable, already cooked and available far from any coast; a dining car or a hotel pantry could turn out a fish salad in minutes at any point on the line. The pairing of oily preserved fish with a sharp pickled mayonnaise follows the same logic as tartar sauce with fried fish, which is generally traced to the French sauce tartare of the nineteenth century.