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Pear Salad
1 teaspoonful onion juice 1 teaspoonful salt 1 tablespoonful vinegar Cut the pears in halves, remove the stones, and scrape the pulp from the skin. Peel the tomatoes, add them to the pear pulp, add the red pepper, and pound them till they are smooth, then drain off the liquid. Add the salt, onion juice, and lemon juice to the mixture.
Mix thoroughly and serve in small earthenware dishes.
The ingredient list printed here is partial, and the fruit is not what a modern reader assumes. Read the method first, then work backwards.
- The "pears" are avocadosPears have cores and pips, not a single stone, and their flesh does not scrape from the skin. This is the alligator pear, whose name was sometimes shortened to "pear". Use two ripe avocados, halved and scooped.
- The ingredient list is truncatedThe printed list gives only onion juice, salt and vinegar, while the method calls for tomatoes, red pepper and lemon juice. Reckon on two avocados, two medium tomatoes, a pinch of cayenne, and a tablespoon of lemon juice alongside the listed teaspoon of onion juice and teaspoon of salt.
- Red pepper means cayenneIn cookbooks of this period "red pepper" is ground cayenne, not a sweet bell pepper or a pimiento. A pinch is enough for two avocados.
- Onion juiceMade by halving an onion and pressing the cut face against a grater or reamer, then straining. A teaspoon is roughly what half a small onion yields. Grated onion pressed through a sieve gives the same thing.
- Pounding versus a machineA mortar was the tool assumed here. A fork gives a coarser, better texture; a food processor will turn the mixture watery and slack in a few seconds.
- Draining the liquidPeeled tomatoes shed a good deal of water when crushed, and this step is what keeps the salad from being a sauce. Seed the tomatoes first and the draining is quicker.
- DiscolourationThe lemon juice is doing more than seasoning. Add it as soon as the avocado is mashed rather than at the end, and press cling film onto the surface if it must wait.
- Yield and servingTwo avocados fill four small ramekins as a first course. It is best made within an hour of serving; it does not keep overnight.
The alligator pear was still unfamiliar in many Anglo-American kitchens around this period, and the name was sometimes shortened to "pear", which would account for a salad close to guacamole in all but name sitting under a misleading heading. The avocado reached British and Northern US tables largely through trade with the Caribbean and Central America, and early recipes tend to treat it as a salad fruit to be dressed with vinegar, lemon and cayenne rather than as an ingredient with a cuisine of its own.