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Cabbage Slaw with Apple
1 or 2 apples 1 medium size head cabbage Grind this in grinder with the three prong knife and add salad dressing.
Signa E. Nelson.
A two-line church-supper slaw that assumes you own a hand-cranked meat grinder and a jar of homemade boiled dressing. Both assumptions need translating.
- The grinderThe "three prong knife" is almost certainly one of the interchangeable cutters supplied with a clamp-on hand-cranked food chopper, and from the context a coarse one that shreds rather than purees. A food processor pulsed a few times, or the coarse side of a box grater, gives the closest result; the slicing disc produces a tidier but less traditional slaw.
- QuantitiesOne medium head of cabbage is about 2 lb and yields roughly 8-10 cups shredded, serving 8 to 10 as a side. Two apples to that much cabbage is a light touch; taste after one and add the second if you want the sweetness forward.
- Which appleA firm tart variety holds up to grinding. Granny Smith or a Jonathan sits closer to the likely intent than Gala or Fuji.
- BrowningGround apple oxidizes fast. Toss the apple with a spoonful of lemon juice as it goes in, or grind it last and dress immediately.
- The salad dressingIn a community cookbook of this kind, "salad dressing" usually meant a cooked boiled dressing, typically thickened with egg and flour and sharpened with vinegar, rather than bottled mayonnaise. Commercial mayonnaise thinned with a little cider vinegar and a pinch of sugar approximates it.
- DrainageGround cabbage releases considerably more liquid than knife-shredded cabbage. Drain it in a colander for 15 minutes before dressing, or the slaw is likely to go watery.
- TimingDress within an hour of serving. This is not a slaw that improves overnight.
Church and grange cookbooks are full of recipes this short, because they were written by women for women who already knew the technique and needed only the proportions. The hand-cranked food chopper, sold with interchangeable plates and clamped to the edge of a kitchen table, was standard equipment in such households, and its coarse plate turned cabbage into slaw far faster than a knife. Apple with cabbage is a pairing found across German and Scandinavian cooking.