Spanish Salad
Stone and cut fine one cupful of Spanish olives (stuffed olives may be used), drain and chop fine one-half cupful of gherkins, mix with one cupful of diced stale bread, dress with one-half cupful of mayonnaise thinned with a little lemon juice, turn into the salad bowl and spread with thick mayonnaise; over the top sprinkle a couple of tablespoonfuls of chopped red peppers.
A pantry salad built on olives, pickles and bread rather than greens — closer to a relish or a spread than a modern side salad. It goes together in ten minutes, but the bread is the part that decides whether it works.
- The bread is the hinge"Stale" here means dry and firm, not merely a day old and soft. Cut the bread into small dice (crusts trimmed if you like) and let it dry uncovered for several hours, or toast it lightly; fresh bread absorbs the dressing instantly and collapses into paste.
- Dress at the last minuteMix the thinned mayonnaise into the olive, gherkin and bread mixture just before serving; even dry bread softens quickly once coated.
- Spanish olivesGreen olives in brine — Manzanilla or Sevillano. The recipe assumes unpitted ones, hence "stone and cut fine"; pitted or pimiento-stuffed olives are the obvious modern substitute, as the original already allows.
- GherkinsPeriod gherkins are small sour cucumbers pickled in vinegar, not the sweetened "sweet gherkins" now sold under that name. Sweet pickles will throw the balance; use a sour dill or a cornichon.
- Chopped red peppersThis means sweet red pepper — most likely canned pimiento, which was standard garnish material in American cookbooks of the period — not chilli or dried red pepper flakes.
- SaltNone is called for, and none is needed. Olives, gherkins and mayonnaise together carry plenty; taste before adding anything.
- YieldAbout three cups of finished salad, enough for four to six as an accompaniment. It is salty and acidic, so serve it in small portions, on lettuce leaves or with cold meats.
"Spanish" in turn-of-the-century American cookbooks rarely signalled anything Iberian in technique; it usually meant olives, pimientos or paprika, the three ingredients most associated with Spain in the imported-goods trade. Cookbook writers put them to work as flavour and colour in an otherwise plain repertoire. The salad's structure — diced bread bound with dressing — belongs to the older tradition of using stale bread rather than discarding it, the same impulse behind panzanella and bread stuffings, here dressed with mayonnaise. Its place in the salad chapter reflects how loosely that word was used: anything cold, chopped and bound with a dressing could claim the name.