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Gascony Salad
(France.) Trim, wash, and cut up a head of endive, dry it, and cover it with a dressing of 2 parts of olive oil to I of tarragon vinegar, salt, pepper, a teaspoonful of anchovy paste, and a pinch of celery seed. Have in the bowl a crust of bread rubbed with garlic, and toss salad and dressing together for 10 minutes, then remove the crust and serve.
A one-bowl salad whose only real technique is the garlic crust, or chapon, which perfumes the leaves without putting raw garlic in the dressing.
- The chapon is the pointA thick crust of stale bread rubbed hard on all sides with a cut clove of garlic goes into the bowl first, and is removed before serving. It flavours the oil rather than the salad directly; leaving it in, or mincing garlic into the dressing instead, gives a much coarser result.
- "Endive" means friséeIn an English recipe of this date endive usually means curly endive or chicory — frisée, or the broader escarole — rather than the pale forced Belgian chicon sold as endive in American markets. Trim the tough outer green before dressing.
- Toss for 10 minutesThis is not a misprint but it is not literal either: the instruction assumes sturdy chicory leaves, and the aim is to work the dressing and garlic through thoroughly. Two or three minutes of steady turning does the job; frisée will not collapse, but softer lettuces would.
- Dressing proportionsTwo parts oil to one vinegar is sharper than the modern three-to-one, which suits the bitterness of chicory and the salt of the anchovy. Taste before adding salt — anchovy paste carries a good deal of its own.
- Anchovy pasteTinned anchovy paste is still sold, and a teaspoon is right for one head. Two or three oil-packed fillets mashed to a purée substitute directly.
- Tarragon vinegarOnce a standard pantry item, now easier to make than to buy: steep a few bruised tarragon sprigs in white wine vinegar for a week. Plain white wine vinegar with a little chopped fresh tarragon in the dressing is a fair stand-in.
- Celery seedA pinch means a pinch. Celery seed is aggressive and bitter in quantity; an eighth of a teaspoon for a whole head is plenty.
- Dry the leavesThe instruction to dry after washing is the difference between a dressed salad and a watery one, particularly with only a small quantity of oil to coat the leaves.
Gascony is in the southwest of France, and the garlic-rubbed bread crust turned through a bowl of chicory is associated with the cooking of the southwest. Recipes of this kind reached English-speaking kitchens largely through travel cookery books like this one, which collected dishes country by country for readers who had eaten them abroad and wanted them at home; the parenthetical "(France.)" heading is the whole editorial method in miniature. Tarragon vinegar was a familiar pantry item in this period.