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Tarragon or Italian Vinegar
For each person allow two slices salami, two sardines, one anchovy, one pimiento, a tablespoon of the chopped cabbage mixture, two olives and two radish roses. Put the cabbage in the center, arrange the other ingredients around it and garnish with the olives and radishes. Make a dressing of the Mazola, Karo and vinegar and pour over.
Dressing for Hors d'Oeuvres Combine one teaspoon Karo, one-half cup Mazola, three tablespoons tarragon or Italian vinegar, one-half teaspoon salt and one-eighth teaspoon pepper. Beat and serve.
A Group of Fruit Cocktails 1-Combine one cup seeded and halved Tokay grapes, one cup shredded pineapple, one-half cup diced banana, the juice of one-half a lemon, one-half cup Karo, Red Label, and one-third cup water. Chill well. 2-Combine one cup cooked, stoned prunes, one cup orange sections, one cup diced apple with one-half cup Karo, Red Label, and one-third cup water. Chill. 3-Combine one cup pitted white cherries, one cup diced peaches, one-half cup shredded apple, one-third cup Karo, Red Label, two tablespoons water. Chill.
Three separate luncheon items run together here: an assembled antipasto plate, its dressing, and three fruit cocktails. The proportions are per person for the plate, so scale by headcount.
- Mazola and KaroMazola is corn oil and Karo is corn syrup, both products of the Corn Products Refining Company, which suggests a promotional book. Any neutral oil works in the dressing; the teaspoon of syrup acts as a sweetener.
- Karo Red LabelKaro was sold in several labels, Red being the darker, more strongly flavored one rather than the crystal-white Blue. Modern dark corn syrup is the nearer descendant, though light corn syrup will give a milder result with the fruit.
- The missing cabbage mixtureThe chopped cabbage mixture is referred to as though already known and is not reproduced on this page; it presumably appears elsewhere in the book. A tablespoon per plate is a garnish-sized mound, not a side salad.
- Italian vinegarProbably a wine vinegar, though the term is not defined here. Tarragon vinegar is white wine vinegar infused with the herb and is the milder of the two choices.
- Dressing ratioHalf a cup of oil to three tablespoons vinegar is roughly 2.7:1, slightly sharper than a standard vinaigrette, and the teaspoon of syrup will not emulsify it. Whisk hard just before pouring and expect it to separate on the plate.
- SaltHalf a teaspoon of salt in the dressing is generous when the plate already carries salami, sardines, anchovy and olives. Taste the dressing against a bite of the fish before salting fully.
- Tokay grapesTokay was a large red table grape once common in American markets and now scarce. Red globe or any firm seedless red grape substitutes directly, and you can skip the seeding.
- Chilling the cocktailsGive the fruit mixtures at least an hour in the refrigerator. The syrup-and-water mixture needs time to draw juice from the fruit and turn into a light syrup; served immediately it tastes like fruit in sweetened water.
- YieldEach fruit cocktail makes roughly three to four cups, or five or six small glasses. The hors d'oeuvre plate is written per person and needs no adjustment.
This page comes from the era when food companies published recipe booklets to teach cooks new uses for their products, and the Corn Products Refining Company was among the most energetic at it: Mazola corn oil and Karo corn syrup recur throughout such books, often in places sugar or butter would traditionally sit. The hors d'oeuvre plate itself reflects the American reading of the Italian antipasto, which arrived with immigration and is generally said to have reached fashionable luncheon tables as tinned sardines, anchovies and imported salami became reliably available. Corn syrup in a salad dressing looks odd now, but it was promoted then as a stabilizer and sweetener that would not crystallize or drop out of suspension, and fruit cocktails macerated in diluted syrup were apparently served as a first course rather than a dessert.