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Plain Cold Slaw
Slice cabbage very fine, season with salt, pepper, and a little sugar; pour over vinegar and mix thoroughly. It is nice served in the center of a platter with fried oysters around it.
A four-line dressing-free slaw that depends entirely on how thin the cabbage is cut and how long it sits before serving. The proportions are left to the cook, so a few benchmarks help.
- Proportions to start fromFor one small head (about 1½ lb) shredded, begin with 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, 1 tablespoon sugar and ¼ cup cider vinegar. Taste and adjust; the original expects a sharp, barely sweet dressing rather than a creamy one.
- "Very fine" means very fineThis is the hinge. Coarse shreds stay tough and watery under a plain vinegar dressing. Halve, core, and cut crosswise no thicker than 1/8 inch with a sharp knife or on a mandoline; a food processor shredding disc bruises the leaves and releases too much liquid.
- Salt timingMixing everything at once draws water out of the cabbage and thins the vinegar. Either serve within 15 minutes of dressing, or salt the cabbage alone for 20 minutes, squeeze it dry, then add the pepper, sugar and vinegar.
- Which vinegarCider vinegar was the usual household vinegar of the period, though home-made strengths varied considerably; modern cider vinegar (about 4-5 percent acidity) is the closest ready substitute. Distilled white vinegar works but tastes flatter; balsamic or wine vinegars fight the sugar.
- Cabbage choiceThe recipe does not specify a variety; plain green cabbage suits it best. Savoy is harder to slice fine, and napa collapses quickly in vinegar.
- The oyster serviceFried oysters need only 1½ to 2 minutes in 375°F fat until the crumbs are golden; the interiors should still be plump. Longer and they shrink and toughen, which is the usual fault when they are cooked to match a timer rather than a color.
- YieldOne small head dressed this way serves six as a side, or four if it is the bed for a platter of oysters.
"Cold slaw" and "cole slaw" both go back to the Dutch koolsla (cabbage salad); "cold slaw" is usually treated as a reanalysis of the Dutch word into familiar English, though it is attested early. Nineteenth-century American cookbooks print both "cold slaw" and "hot slaw," the latter dressed with heated vinegar and sometimes egg. The Dixie Cook-Book, first published in the 1880s, files this among salads; American cookbooks of the period often built salads on cabbage, celery or cold cooked meat as well as on lettuce. The pairing with fried oysters points to the same period's oyster economy: Chesapeake and Gulf oysters moved inland by rail and barrel in enormous quantity.