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Olive and Celery Salad
Pour boiling water over two dozen large olives, let stand for ten minutes, then drain and drop in cold water for a few minutes to chill; dry on a cloth and cut into strips, mix them with one pint of blanched celery cut into half inch pieces, and one cupful of mayonnaise dressing, and arrange on lettuce leaves.
A three-ingredient salad that depends entirely on the quality of the olives and the crispness of the celery. Two terms in it mean something different now than they did in 1900.
- "Blanched celery" is not boiled celeryBlanching meant banking soil or boards against the growing plant so the stalks stayed pale, tender and mild. Use the inner heart of a head of celery, raw; the outer ribs are stringier and sharper than what the recipe assumes.
- Why scald the olivesBarrel and jar olives of the period were held in heavy brine and could be aggressively salty and bitter. Ten minutes in boiling water pulls out some of that salt and softens the skin. With modern jarred olives, taste one first — if it is pleasant on its own, a rinse in cold water is enough.
- Two dozen large olivesRoughly 6-8 oz of large green olives, Queen or Sevillano type. If they are unpitted, cut the flesh away from the stone in strips as you would peel an apple, which is most likely what "cut into strips" means here.
- A pint of celeryA volume measure of cut pieces, not a weight: about 2 cups of half-inch lengths, which is one large head of celery trimmed to the pale ribs.
- A cupful of mayonnaise is generousPeriod mayonnaise recipes vary, but many produced a softer, less sharp dressing than commercial jarred mayonnaise. A cup will drown 2 cups of celery today; start with half and add more. A little lemon juice loosens modern mayonnaise.
- Dress it lateSalt from the olives draws water out of the celery within the hour and thins the dressing. Cut and chill the components separately, combine just before serving.
- YieldFour to six as a side salad, arranged on whole lettuce leaves; a crisp cup from a head lettuce or a Boston lettuce leaf works well.
Celery was still a semi-luxury when this book appeared: it was labour-intensive to blanch, difficult to keep, and grand enough that households owned dedicated cut-glass celery vases to stand the ribs upright on the table. Michigan and New York muckland growers had made it a reliable market crop in America, and cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s show it turning up everywhere, and above all raw in salads, where its cost was most visible. Green olives were a Spanish import sold from brine barrels by the grocer, which is why the recipe opens by soaking them rather than simply opening a jar. The pairing of the two is straightforwardly a display of two fashionable, faintly expensive things, bound with mayonnaise, which was itself widely used as an American salad dressing by the turn of the century.