Egg Salad
Arrange sliced or quartered hardboiled eggs on lettuce, sprinkle with minced onion and parsley, and serve with French dressing or mayonnaise. The onion may be omitted. Ф 3. for 3ф
A three-line assembly recipe of the kind promotional oil booklets favored: the dressing is the point, and the eggs are the vehicle. What it leaves unsaid is the egg cookery and the dressing proportions.
- The eggs are the hingeBring the eggs to a boil, cover, and take them off the heat for about 10 minutes, then chill in cold water. Eggs held at a hard boil for the longer times some older books gave turn rubbery in the white and green at the yolk.
- French dressing, period senseIn an American book of this period this means a shaken vinaigrette, not the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under the name today. Proportions varied, but roughly three parts olive oil to one part vinegar or lemon juice, with salt and pepper, is typical.
- SlicingAn egg slicer or a thin blade wiped clean between cuts keeps the yolks intact. Quartering lengthwise is more forgiving and holds the shape better under dressing.
- OnionMinced raw onion this fine turns sharp and watery within an hour. Mince it just before serving, or use scallion or shallot, which are milder.
- If you make the mayonnaiseHomemade mayonnaise in this period was raw yolk emulsified with oil. Pasteurized eggs or a commercial mayonnaise avoid the issue if the salad will sit out or be served to anyone vulnerable.
- Dress at the tableLettuce under sliced egg collapses quickly once dressed. Arrange the plates, then pour, and expect the salad to be eaten within a few minutes.
- YieldFigure two eggs per person as a light lunch course, one as a side salad. Four to six eggs serves three or four alongside something else.
Booklets like this one were published by olive oil importers, chiefly to persuade American cooks that olive oil belonged in the pantry at all. Around 1900 much of the olive oil sold in the United States came through Italian import houses serving immigrant communities, and the wider market still associated the oil with medicine or with lamp fuel rather than with food. A recipe collection built entirely around salads was the natural sales pitch: French dressing is essentially oil with a splash of acid, so every page argues for the product. Egg salad in this arrangement, sliced egg on lettuce rather than the chopped mayonnaise-bound spread the name now suggests, was the plainest possible demonstration, and the note that the onion may be omitted marks it as a dish meant for invalids and children as much as for the luncheon table.