Peel and slice some eggplant into quarter of an inch thick slices, pare it in rounds one and a quarter inches in diameter, lay them in salt for ten minutes, then sponge them off and season with pepper, garlic, oil and vingear; then add the same quantity of water cress and a few hard-boiled eggs.
Ranhofer writes in shorthand for a professional brigade, and this entry leaves out both quantities and, apparently, any cooking. A few decisions have to be made before it works as a salad.
This is No. 2663 of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled from some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York — a book written less for home cooks than as a working reference, which is why so many entries read like notes to a subordinate who already knows the technique. Calling a dish provençale in a nineteenth-century French kitchen was less a claim of regional authorship than a signal of its seasonings: garlic and olive oil, the two things generally taken as the south's signature. Eggplant itself was still a slightly exotic vegetable in American markets at the time, and it appears in The Epicurean far more often fried or stuffed than dressed cold like this. The hard-boiled eggs and watercress are pure period salad convention.