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For Dressing (Tablespoonfuls melted Crisco)
6 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco 1 teaspoonful salt 1/4 teaspoonful paprika Pinch black pepper 1 tablespoonful tarragon vinegar 2 tablespoonfuls cider vinegar 1 tablespoonful chopped cucumber pickles 1 tablespoonful chopped green peppers 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley 1 teaspoonful chopped chives 1 can asparagus or fresh cooked asparagus Drain asparagus and chill. Mix salt with paprika, add pepper, tarragon vinegar, cider vinegar, Crisco, pickles, peppers, parsley, and chives, mix well and pour over the asparagus.
A vinaigrette built on melted shortening rather than oil, written to prove Crisco could do anything. The physics of that choice govern everything else.
- The melted-fat problemCrisco is solid at room temperature and only becomes pourable when well warmed. Poured over chilled asparagus it congeals into white flecks almost at once. If you want the dressing this recipe is actually describing, use 6 tablespoons of a neutral oil, or olive oil, and skip the melting.
- If you do use shorteningServe the asparagus at room temperature, not chilled, dress it at the table, and eat it immediately. Warming the serving dish helps.
- RatioSix tablespoons fat to three of vinegar is 2:1, sharper than the 3:1 most modern vinaigrettes use. Taste and add a little more oil if it bites.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, but easily made: steep a few bruised tarragon sprigs in white wine vinegar for a week. Substituting plain white vinegar loses the point of the dressing.
- Cucumber picklesIn 1913 this means a plain brined or lightly sweet cucumber pickle, closer to a cornichon or a dill gherkin than to modern bread-and-butter slices. Chop fine.
- Canned asparagusThe canned product of the period was soft and salty. If using it, drain well and taste before adding the full teaspoon of salt. Fresh asparagus wants 3 to 5 minutes in boiling salted water, then a cold rinse to stop the cooking.
- YieldRoughly two-thirds of a cup of dressing, enough for 1 to 1.5 lb of asparagus, serving four.
Crisco went on sale in 1911, and The Story of Crisco, with recipes by Marion Harris Neil, followed as Procter & Gamble's argument that a hydrogenated cottonseed shortening could replace both lard and butter in every corner of the kitchen. That ambition explains a dressing like this one: nobody wanting a vinaigrette reaches for a tub of solid white fat, but the book had to demonstrate reach, so Crisco appears in cakes, in frying, and here in the salad chapter where oil plainly belonged. The name is generally traced to a compression of "crystallized cottonseed oil." The dressing itself is a straightforward French dressing dressed up with chopped pickle and herbs, in the general manner of a sauce ravigote. Asparagus served cold under a sharp dressing was a standard first course of the period, and the recipe offers canned asparagus as the equal of fresh.