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Artichoke Salad
(For game.) (MRS. E. M. LUCAS, IN BOSTON COOKING-SCHOOL MAGAZINE.) Peel three oranges, remove the pith and white skin and slice lengthwise; use an equal amount of tender blanched celery stalks cut into inch lengths. Mix together lightly with two tablespoonfuls of olive oil, one tablespoonful of lemon juice, half a teaspoonful of salt and a quarter a teaspoonful of paprica. Heap together lightly on a serving-dish and surround with cooked hearts of artichokes cut into quarters; wreathe with blanched celery leaves.
A composed salad rather than a tossed one: the oranges and celery are dressed and heaped, the artichokes arranged around them. The title names the garnish, not the bulk of the dish.
- "For game"The parenthetical marks this as a salad intended to be served with game, roast birds or venison. The sharp citrus dressing plays against the richness of such a course.
- Slicing the oranges"Remove the pith and white skin" means cutting away all the bitter membrane, not just peeling. Cut the top and bottom flat, pare down the sides to the flesh, then slice lengthwise through the segments so you get flat pieces rather than rounds.
- Blanched celeryIn this period the term meant celery grown banked up with soil or boards so the stalks stayed pale and mild, not celery dipped in boiling water. Use the tender inner stalks of a head and keep the pale leaves for the wreath.
- PapricaSimply paprika. A quarter teaspoon of sweet paprika is right; smoked paprika is not what was meant here and will overwhelm the oranges.
- Artichoke heartsFresh globe artichokes trimmed to the heart and boiled until a knife slides in easily, which will take anywhere from about twenty minutes upward depending on size, then quartered. Good-quality artichoke hearts packed in brine, drained and rinsed, are an accepted substitute; oil-marinated ones will fight the dressing.
- The dressing ratioTwo parts oil to one part lemon juice is much sharper than a modern vinaigrette. That is deliberate for a rich game course, but taste it before dressing and add a little more oil if it is serving as a first course on its own.
- Dress at the last momentCut oranges release juice steadily and will thin the dressing. Mix, heap and garnish immediately before the dish goes to the table.
- YieldThree oranges and an equal volume of celery should make about four modest side servings.
The Boston Cooking-School Magazine, published from the mid-1890s into the 1910s, was one of the main channels through which the domestic-science movement reached American home cooks, and compilers of salad books drew on it freely — sometimes, as here, carrying over a recipe under a title that describes only its garnish. The salad itself reflects two fashions of the moment: the growing use of paprika as a genteel seasoning, often said to have been favored for the color it gave without the vulgarity of cayenne, and the vogue for fruit in savory salads, which reached its full flowering in the gelatin-and-mayonnaise salads of the following decades. Artichokes and blanched celery both signal an expensive table; celery in particular was a prestige vegetable in this period, served at formal dinners in tall cut-glass vases.