Cream Slaw
One gallon cabbage cut very fine, pint vinegar, pint sour cream, half cup sugar, tea-spoon flour, two eggs, and a piece of butter the size of a walnut; put vinegar, sugar and butter in a sauce-pan and let boil; stir eggs, cream and flour, previously well mixed, into the vinegar, boil thoroughly and throw over the cabbage previously sprinkled with one table-spoon salt, one of black pepper and one of mustard.-Mrs. Dr. Skinner, Somerset,
A cooked boiled dressing rather than a mayonnaise slaw, and the sort of recipe that scales for a church supper. The quantities need translating and the seasoning needs restraint.
- A gallon of cabbageShredded cabbage measured loose by volume: one gallon is roughly 2 1/2 to 3 lb of trimmed cabbage, or one large head. It packs down substantially once the hot dressing hits it.
- Butter the size of a walnutAbout 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons. Nineteenth-century books measured butter against nuts and eggs because it came in irregular lumps, not sticks.
- Sour creamIn 1880s farm kitchens this meant cream that had soured naturally and was noticeably thick and tangy. Modern cultured sour cream is the closest thing; heavy cream will give a blander, flatter dressing, though the pint of vinegar supplies most of the sharpness here.
- The hinge: do not let the eggs scramble"Boil thoroughly" is optimistic. Whisk the egg, cream and flour mixture, then temper it with a ladle of the hot vinegar before returning it all to the pan, and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, only until it thickens to coat a spoon. Left to a hard boil it curdles into grainy threads.
- A tablespoon of black pepperThat is a fierce amount even across three pounds of cabbage. Start with a teaspoon and adjust.
- MustardA tablespoon of dry mustard powder is meant, not prepared jarred mustard. Sprinkled dry over the cabbage with the salt and pepper, it blooms when the hot dressing goes on.
- Salt draws waterA tablespoon of salt on raw cabbage will pull out a good deal of liquid within the hour, thinning the dressing. Either serve it soon after dressing or drain the cabbage after salting and before adding the hot mixture.
- YieldEnough for twelve to sixteen as a side dish. It keeps two or three days refrigerated, though it slackens as it sits.
Boiled or "cooked" dressings like this one were the standard American salad sauce through the second half of the nineteenth century, well before commercial mayonnaise made emulsified dressings a pantry item. Vinegar, sugar, egg and a little flour or cream gave a thick tangy sauce from ingredients any farm kitchen had daily, and the same formula turns up under names like boiled dressing, cream slaw and hot slaw across the regional community cookbooks of the period. The Dixie Cook-Book, like its Midwestern sibling Buckeye Cookery, was assembled from contributions signed with the donor's name and town, which is why this one carries Mrs. Dr. Skinner's name and her husband's title along with it. The gallon measure of cabbage is a reminder that these recipes were written for households and gatherings, not for two.