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Cold Slaw
Wash cabbage; cut into quarters, and then into very thin pieces; allow to stand in cold water 30 minutes; drain well, and cover with boiled or French dressing.
A bare-bones slaw from an era when every cook was assumed to know two standard dressings by heart. Almost all the work is in the shredding and the soak.
- The hinge: the cold-water soakThirty minutes in cold water crisps the shredded cabbage and mellows its sulphurous edge. Ice water works faster and better; drain hard and spin or towel it dry, since water left clinging will thin the dressing into a puddle.
- "Cold slaw"Not a misprint. English "cole slaw" comes from Dutch koolsla, cabbage salad; "cold slaw" is a folk-etymological respelling of it that stayed common in American books into the 1920s.
- QuantityNo head size is given. One medium green cabbage, about 2 lb, shredded, gives roughly 8-10 cups and serves six to eight as a side.
- "Very thin pieces"Cut out the core first, then shred each quarter crosswise about 1/8 inch thick with a chef's knife or the thin blade of a mandoline. A food processor's slicing disc is acceptable; its shredding disc gives ragged threads that go limp.
- Boiled dressingThe default cooked dressing of the period: eggs or egg yolks, flour or cornstarch, milk or cream, vinegar, sugar, mustard and salt, cooked over water until thick, then cooled. It is tangier and less rich than mayonnaise, and it must be fully cold before it meets the cabbage.
- French dressingIn this period that generally meant oil and vinegar, roughly three to one, with salt, pepper and often paprika, beaten until cloudy just before use. It bears no relation to the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under the name today.
- Dress lateSalt and acid pull water out of cabbage within the hour. Toss just before serving if you want the slaw crisp; if you prefer it softened and slumped, dress it and refrigerate an hour, but expect to pour off liquid.
The New Royal Cook Book was one of a long series of promotional cookbooks issued by the Royal Baking Powder Company, and its vegetable chapter reads like a checklist of things a home cook was expected to produce without being told twice. Cold slaw itself is generally traced to Dutch settlement in New York, and "cole slaw" — from kool, cabbage — is the older, direct form, with "cold slaw" the folk alteration of it. What dates the recipe most clearly is its confidence that a reader knows both boiled dressing and French dressing by name alone: boiled dressing was the older, thriftier choice, made from pantry staples and a couple of eggs, and it held its place in American households long after commercial mayonnaise became widely available in the 1910s and 1920s.