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French Salad Dressing Made at Table
Five tablespoonfuls of oil, one or more of vingear, one saltspoonful of salt, a speck of cayenne or a dash of tabasco sauce, and add one tablespoonful of the oil; when thoroughly mixed, add the remainder of the oil and the vinegar. If you like the flavor of onion, add two drops of onion juice. This is dressing enough for a salad for six persons.
A table-side vinaigrette in the classic French proportion, mixed in the bowl just before serving. The text as printed has dropped a phrase — the seasonings are meant to be combined first with a single tablespoonful of oil, then let down with the rest of the oil and the vinegar.
- Order of operationsPut the salt and cayenne or Tabasco in the bowl with one tablespoonful of oil and work them until the salt dissolves. Only then add the remaining four tablespoonfuls of oil and the vinegar. Salt will not dissolve in oil alone, so this step is really about grinding it fine against the bowl before the acid goes in.
- A saltspoonfulA quarter teaspoon. The saltspoon was a small pierced or plain spoon that sat in the open salt cellar; the measure is standard across cookbooks of the period.
- The ratioFive parts oil to one of vinegar is sharper-sounding than it eats, and it is drier than the 3:1 most modern recipes give. "One or more" of vinegar is the author leaving room for taste — start at one and add a second only after tasting on a leaf of the actual lettuce.
- Which oil"Oil" in an American cookbook of this period would generally mean olive oil, though other salad oils were also sold. A grassy, peppery modern extra-virgin will dominate a delicate salad at these proportions; a gentler oil is closer to the intent.
- Onion juiceTwo drops is not a mistake. Grate a peeled onion on a fine rasp and press the pulp in a cloth, or scrape a cut face with a spoon. Chopped onion is not a substitute here — the point is perfume without texture.
- No emulsionThis is not whisked to a mayonnaise-like body; it is stirred and used at once, and it will separate within a minute or two. Toss the greens immediately and thoroughly rather than trying to hold the dressing.
- YieldAbout six tablespoonfuls, which the book calls enough for six. That is a light dressing by current habit — assume a modest bowl of greens rather than a composed salad with heavy additions.
Dressing the salad at the table was a point of some pride in late-Victorian and Edwardian dining: the greens were brought in dry, and the host or a practised guest built the vinaigrette in the bowl so that nothing wilted between kitchen and plate. Cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s routinely distinguish "French dressing" — oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, made fresh — from "mayonnaise dressing" and from the cooked, flour-thickened "boiled dressing" that many American households actually used, since it kept and did not demand good olive oil. That imported oil was the expensive part, which is one reason the plain French version reads as a mark of sophistication in a book like this one. The instruction to dissolve the seasoning before adding the bulk of the oil, and the two drops of onion juice rather than a spoonful of onion, both belong to the same fastidious school of table service.