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Lettuce Salad
Take two large lettuces, after removing the outer leaves and rinsing the rest in cold water, cut lengthwise in four or six pieces, rub into a bowl and sprinkle over them-- 1 teaspoonful salt. 1/2 teaspoonful pepper. 3 ounces salad oil. 2 ounces English, or 1 ounce French vinegar.
Stir the salad lightly in the bowl until well mixed. Tarragon and chevies, or a little water or mustard cress.--Mrs. R.
A plain oil-and-vinegar dressing built in the bowl, in the older English manner where the leaves are cut in wedges rather than torn. Two things need translation: the ounces are liquid measure, and the acid was weaker than what is on your shelf.
- The measurements3 ounces salad oil is 6 tablespoons; 2 ounces vinegar is 4 tablespoons. That is a sharp 1.5:1 dressing by modern habit, and worth cutting back to about 2 tablespoons of vinegar unless you like it bracing.
- English versus French vinegarThe doubling reflects a difference in strength. "English" vinegar was generally malt, reckoned comparatively mild; "French" meant wine vinegar, held to be stronger and more aromatic, so half as much was called for. A modern 5-6% wine vinegar is probably closer to the French quantity.
- "Salad oil"In late nineteenth-century American cookbooks this usually meant olive oil, though cottonseed oil was becoming common. Olive oil is the likely intended flavour; a neutral oil gives a flatter, sweeter salad.
- "Rub into a bowl"Ambiguous as written. It probably means rubbing the cut lettuce and the seasonings against the sides of the bowl to dissolve the salt and bruise a little flavour out of the leaves -- not rubbing the bowl with garlic, which the recipe never mentions.
- "Chevies"Almost certainly chervil, a standard partner to tarragon in the classic fines herbes pairing. "A little water or mustard cress" means watercress or the peppery sprouted mustard-and-cress of Victorian gardens; a handful of arugula stands in reasonably.
- Order of workDry the rinsed leaves thoroughly. Water clinging to lettuce dilutes the vinegar and keeps the oil from coating, which is the whole point of dressing in the bowl.
- TimingDress at the table. Cut wedges of head lettuce collapse within ten or fifteen minutes under this much salt and acid.
- YieldTwo heads of lettuce and 10 tablespoons of dressing serve four to six as a side.
Cut lettuce dressed with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the serving bowl is one of the oldest continuous forms of English salad, and this version resembles the dressings in English household manuals of the period. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1877), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia and neighbouring housekeepers, many of them credited only by initial, hence the "Mrs. R." signature, was assembled at a point when the region's kitchens were being rebuilt after the war, and the book leans heavily on such short, thrifty, unfussy entries. The distinction it draws between English and French vinegar is itself a period detail: imported wine vinegar was reckoned a more expensive and more concentrated article than domestic malt or cider vinegar, and some cookbooks of the day gave both quantities so a cook could use whichever bottle she actually owned. Tarragon and chervil signal the French side of the tradition.