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Perpetual Hotel Salad

Although some of the things just examined into may be out of the regular routine, and occasion an impatient shrug, let us not pass them without some consideration, or rather let us go to the extreme contrast of the perpetual salad that we are used to. Perpetual salad has no dressing and wants no flavoring nor aromatic vinegars--only vinegar, pepper and salt. And--oh, yes, onions--lots of onions--we had nearly forgot. It is said Americans are scarcely more salad-loving than the English, and some have never tasted salad, yet who does not know this one--the perpetual salad made by the frugal cook? It is always made after dinner. Into a deep tin pan--in nice places it may be a bowl--goes all the boiled potatoes that have been left over, and then an onion sliced. Then there will be some beets, beans, peas, butter beans, perhaps corn, then some onions, pepper, salt, vinegar, and it may be some fried bacon and the fat poured over, and this salad has been known to have diluted cooked tomatoes mixed in. Some frugal cooks will make distinctions--will have prejudices. One draws the line at corn, and appeals to authority: "Who ever heard of corn being put in salad?" Another will set his face against peas, and so on, but at any rate there will be potatoes and onions left, and beets, pepper, salt and vinegar. No oil. It would be easy to make fun of this, but wherefore? It is all right, only too crude, too perpetual. It is always for supper, and is at least better than none. It is so good it ought to be made still better and more various. With the potatoes cut in dice all of a size, the string beans cut in lengths diamond-shaped of size to match, the green peas washed from their sauce in warm water, the corn likewise, the onions greatly reduced in quantity and also cut to match; with a little green stuff such as cress or parsley, or a very little green onion tops, or celery, sprinkled in, and with carrots, pickles and capers, as well as beets, cut to correspond and mixed in only at the last minute, this salad will be fine, and need not be always alike. With any one of the easy salad dressings already directed to be made poured over and shaken about in it the salad will be stylish, attractive, enjoyable. Or, without a dressing of the made kind, with a little oil added and some chopped eggs this combination of materials that costs next to nothing will be equal to some of the best salads of the best cooks, with high-sounding names.

We will go on and instance various foreign mixtures of the same class, first taking a lessen from one of the noted French cooks--Jules Gouffe--and as it is not an exact receipt to be proven but rather a general lesson in salad making we copy the following as we find it. He says: