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Salad, Interlacken
Carefully cut in lozenge shape and the thickness of a fifty-cent piece one good-sized, peeled, pickled beetroot, two stalks tender, crisp, white celery, one sound, rather green apple, one peeled and seeded sound cucumber, one small, peeled, sound apple and two cold, boiled, peeled medium potatoes. Place these articles in a bowl. Season with three tablespoons of dressing. Mix well, then add leaves of a small, fresh bunch watercress, lightly mix, and just a moment before going to table add two tablespoons mayonnaise dressing, rapidly and gently mix again and immediately serve.
A cold composed salad of diced roots, fruit and cress, dressed twice — once early to season, once at the table to bind. The doubled dressing is the whole point of the method.
- Two dressings, two jobsThe three tablespoons of unspecified "dressing" added first is most likely a plain oil-and-vinegar French dressing, seasoning the vegetables and drawing a little moisture from them. The mayonnaise goes in at the last second so it coats rather than slackens; added early it is liable to thin and take colour from the beet.
- Lozenge shape, and how thickA lozenge is a diamond: cut each item into thin slabs, then into strips, then across on the bias. A US fifty-cent piece is a little over 2 mm, well under an eighth of an inch — thick enough to hold its edges, thin enough to eat with a fork.
- The apple countThe list names an apple twice, "one sound, rather green apple" and "one small, peeled, sound apple." This may be a typesetting duplication; if so, one firm tart apple, peeled, is the sensible reading, and two will push the salad sweet.
- Pickled beetrootJarred pickled beets work directly. Drain them well and pat dry, or the vinegar in the brine will overpower the French dressing and stain everything before the mayonnaise arrives.
- PotatoesBoil waxy potatoes whole in their skins, peel while warm, then chill before cutting. Cooked and cooled this way they hold a clean diamond; floury baking potatoes crumble under the mixing.
- CucumberThe recipe specifies seeding, and it matters: the seed bed is where the water is, and free water will slacken the mayonnaise coating in the bowl.
- WatercressLeaves only, picked off the stems, and folded in — not stirred. It is there for pepper and for green against the beet, and it wilts within minutes of meeting salt and acid.
- YieldAs written this fills a medium bowl and serves four as a side salad, two as a light lunch course.
The name points to Interlaken, the Bernese Oberland resort town that by the 1900s was one of the fixed stops on the Alpine tourist circuit, its grand hotels feeding English and American visitors. Cookbooks of this period routinely borrowed hotel and city names for garnishes and salads — Salade Russe, Salade Waldorf, Salade Nicoise — and the label usually signals a house version served somewhere fashionable rather than any documented local tradition. The construction itself is squarely in the family of the composed salade russe: cooked potato and beet cut to uniform shapes, bound with mayonnaise, with raw fruit and celery for crunch.