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American Salad
One head of lettuce, one bunch of cress, a little parsley, cooked or mayonnaise dressing, two apples, beet, two sardines. Wash, pick over and drain the lettuce, cress and parsley. Place in a salad dish, making a hollow in the center. Pour the cooked or mayonnaise dressing over the salad. Cut the apples in thin slices, lay them around the salad, and garnish with beet. Bone six sardines and cut them lengthwise; take each half and roll up in a leaf of lettuce, and stand them in the center of the salad.
A composed salad from the era when a salad was arranged rather than tossed. The ingredient list and the method disagree on the sardines, so read both before shopping.
- Sardine countThe list says two sardines, the method bones six and cuts each in half to make twelve rolls. Six is the workable number for a full head of lettuce; buy a standard tin and use what the arrangement needs.
- CressA bunch of cress here means garden cress or watercress, both sold in bunches at the time. Watercress is the easier substitute; use about two cups of leaves and tender stems, discarding anything thick or woody.
- Cooked dressingThe alternative to mayonnaise is boiled or cooked dressing, an egg-and-vinegar sauce thickened over heat with a little flour and finished with milk or cream. It is tarter and thinner than mayonnaise, and period cookbooks routinely offer it beside mayonnaise as a dressing that needs no oil.
- BeetThe beet is cooked and cooled, then sliced or diced for garnish, not raw. Boil or roast it ahead, and keep it apart from the greens until serving or it will bleed pink through everything.
- ApplesSlice them last and toss with lemon juice, since the cut faces brown within minutes and the recipe leaves them exposed around the rim. A firm tart variety holds its shape better than a soft eating apple.
- Order of assemblyDressing goes on before the apples and rolls are set in place, so use a restrained hand: enough to coat the greens, not enough to pool in the hollow and soak the base of the sardine rolls.
- Lettuce for the rollsReserve the largest outer leaves whole when picking over the head. Small inner leaves will not wrap a half sardine, and torn ones will not stand upright in the center.
- YieldOne head of lettuce and a tin of sardines serves four as a first course or two as a light lunch.
The name signals a period habit rather than a place: through the late nineteenth century American cookbooks are often said to have distinguished a "French salad" of greens with oil and vinegar from an "American salad" built with a thicker dressing, though how firmly that contrast was drawn is uncertain. Canned fish from Maine and from Brittany had become relatively cheap and reliable pantry goods by the closing decades of the century, offering a protein that needed no cooking and looked deliberate when arranged. The apple-and-beet combination belongs to the same logic, supplying color to a dish that would otherwise be entirely green and white on the table.