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Dandelion Salad
Take one quart of white dandelion, pare away the roots and stale leaves and wash thoroughly in two waters; drain on a cloth and place in a salad-bowl. Dilute a pinch of salt, half a pinch of pepper and one tablespoonful of vinegar, adding one tablespoonful and a half of sweet oil. Mix thoroughtly, pour over the salad, and serve.
Dandelion Salad, Contoise Take one quart of white dandelion, pare and wash well using several waters, drain on a cloth, arrange in a salad-bowl and season with salt and pepper. Cut into dice-shaped pieces two ounces of bacon and put in a fryingpan on the fire until they get a good golden color, which will take about five minutes, and add them to the salad. Pour into the pan two tablespoonfuls of vinegar and let it heat for half a minute, then pour it over all, mix well together, and serve.
Two versions of the same salad: a plain vinaigrette dressing and a hot bacon-fat version in the style of Franche-Comté. Both hinge on the greens, and "white dandelion" is the phrase that matters most.
- "White dandelion"This means blanched dandelion — plants grown under cover or banked with soil so the inner leaves stay pale, tender and comparatively mild. Ordinary dark green field dandelion will work but is markedly more bitter; the pale hearts of frisée or Belgian endive are a closer substitute in flavour and texture.
- A quart of greensMeasured loose-packed, a quart of trimmed leaves is only a few ounces — enough for two to four side servings. The dressing quantities are small in proportion, so taste as you go if you scale up.
- Pare away the rootsDandelion is sold and dug as whole rosettes. Trim off the crown so the leaves fall apart, and discard anything with a flower stalk forming — those leaves are the bitterest. Any grit lodged at the base is the reason for the "two waters" and "several waters".
- Drain on a clothA tea towel or a salad spinner. This is not fussiness: water left on the leaves dilutes the dressing and, in the bacon version, spits when the hot fat hits.
- Sweet oilOlive oil, unflavoured by curing or nut roasting — the period term for plain table oil. The ratio here is one and a half oil to one vinegar, sharper than a modern 3:1 vinaigrette, which suits bitter leaves. Cut back the vinegar if your greens are mild.
- A pinch, half a pinchRoughly a scant 1/4 teaspoon salt and a good grind of pepper. The measures are imprecise by design; season the greens, dress, and taste again before serving.
- The Comtoise version's timingGet the bacon dice properly golden and the fat rendered before the vinegar goes in. Half a minute in the pan is all the vinegar needs — long enough to bubble and pick up the fat, short enough that it does not reduce to something harsh.
- Dress at the tableBoth versions want to be tossed and eaten at once. Hot fat wilts dandelion within a minute or two, which is the point, but a salad left standing goes limp and greasy.
Dandelion (pissenlit in French, bluntly named for its diuretic reputation) was a standard early-spring green in both French and German-speaking kitchens long before it reached American restaurant menus, and the wilted-bacon treatment Oscar labels "Contoise" — most likely a misprint for Comtoise, from the Franche-Comté — belongs to a broad family of hot-fat dressings found across eastern France, Alsace, Switzerland and, by way of German immigrants, Pennsylvania. Growers blanched the plants under pots or soil ridges to draw out the bitterness, which is why the recipe specifies white rather than green leaves; Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) was compiled while he was maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf, and its inclusion of a peasant field green dressed with two ounces of bacon shows how comfortably a luxury hotel kitchen of the period drew on rustic French cooking.