With apologies for life getting busy and missing a week, we forge ahead with more summery historical thoughts on salad. Last entry, I mentioned that salads were regular inclusions in seventeenth century banquets and bills of fare. However, in most cookery books, greens were an afterthought and actual recipes were pretty rare.
There are exceptions: Sugar merchant Thomas Tryon, had religious experiences in the 1650s that prompted him to become an animal rights advocate and vegetarian. He later wrote several self-help books, the most read being The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness (1683). Amongst those writings were a lot of instructions for preparing vegetables and even salads. Another appreciator of greens from later in the century was John Evelyn, a courtier who helped found the scientific Royal Society while being a regular diarist and prolific gardener along the way. The last activity partially prompted him to write his most famous work - Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber (1664) but also Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets (1699). Acetaria is a Latin word for salad coming from acetum – vinegar - and this text is probably the first English book wholly devoted to the topic.
My recipe for this week is not a recipe adaption per se. In Acetaria, Evelyn gives nine steps for making excellent salads. I adapt those steps with ingredients he mentions, trying to create a salad that would be period accurate. After presenting the recipe for that salad, I will give some notes on the ingredients and the steps.
A Sallet with Two Dressings
(Mostly) Following John Evelyn’s Nine Rules and Ingredients
Ingredients
- 7 or 8 inner leaves of Romaine lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
- ½ bulb of fennel, cored and cut into bite-size pieces
- 2 large handfuls of spinach, large leaves chopped
- 1 large handful of radish tops
- ¼ cup of loose packed tarragon leaves
- 6 green onions, green parts only, cut in 1cm pieces on the diagonal
- 1 small handful of English parsley, chopped
- 4 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
 |
| Farmer's market eggs |
 |
| Fresh grown parsley |
 |
| Tops from radishes |
Instructions
In a large pot of boiling water, blanch the lettuce and fennel for 30 seconds.
Refresh under cold running water, drain, and dry with paper towels or a salad spinner.
In a large bowl, toss all ingredients up to the eggs.
 |
| Not in a bowl but greens presented for easier viewing |
Quarter the eggs reserving two of the yolks for the dressings (below).
Dress a salad portion with one of the two dressings, add some egg quarters as well as some remaining egg whites and serve.
 |
| Ingredients for the dressings: English mustard powder, sea salt, and black pepper |
 |
| Olive oil, and orange and rosemary vinegars (with infusions) |
Rosemary Vinegar Dressing
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp rosemary vinegar (see Notes)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 hard-boiled egg yolk
- ½ tsp mustard powder
- Good sea salt and cracked black pepper to taste
Instructions
Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl until emulsified.
Orange Vinegar Dressing
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp orange vinegar (see Notes)
- 1 hard-boiled egg yolk
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- Pinch of sugar
- Good sea salt and cracked black pepper to taste
Instructions
Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl until emulsified.
Notes
The dressing components come from the various rules John Evelyn set out. Rule II makes it clear that the oil should be olive oil, preferably from green or unripe or “Omphacine” olives. Most olive oil today comes from a mix of black and green olives; I used the best extra virgin olive oil I had.
The use of rosemary and orange vinegars are based on rule III, where he says to use “the best Wine Vinegar…Aromatiz'd, and impregnated” with various ingredients. I steeped a rosemary sprig and orange peel in two small jars of white wine vinegar for 24 hours to make mine, but they could be bought as well, in theory.
Evelyn, knowing Latin, would therefore understand that the word “sallet,” ultimately comes from sal – salt. This seems to be reflected in the lengthy explanation in rule IV, the one that demands the highest quality of “Bay grey-Salt.” Bay salt in this context just means evaporated sea salt as opposed to mined rock salt. I did not have time to access flakey sel gris or similar Malden salt, so I used Sicilian sea salt, which worked fine as I just whisked it in with the dressing. As part of this rule, he also says sugar can be added, it is after all “by some call'd Indian-Salt.”
Rule V is about “another notable ingredient” – mustard. He is very particular about its preparation and the location in which it is grown but also says that better than any mustard is ground nasturtium seeds. I again could not source those in time, so I used good quality English mustard powder.
“The Pepper (white or black) be not bruis'd to too small a Dust” states rule VI, hence my call for it being coarsely ground in the recipe. Pimpinella saxifrage, a plant native to Europe, Evelyn considers a preferred substitute, and he also mentions other seasonings like juniper berries and Jamaica-pepper (allspice). This is also from where I got the use of orange peel in one of my dressings. He ends by warning against the use of saffron, despite the fact that “those of Spain and Italy…generally make use of this Flower, mingling its golden Tincture with almost every thing they eat.” He says: “its being so apt to prevail above every thing with which 'tis blended, we little incourage its admittance into our Sallet.” This is an interesting departure from medieval recipes or even those of someone like Robert May who would include saffron, probably because it showed how wealthy the noble serving it was.
The use of eggs, both in the dressing and quartered in the salad comes from rule VII.
The remaining three rules are not about ingredients but the method and tools for their preparation. Rule I states that your greens be picked, cleaned and then washed by sprinkling with spring water rather than being “over-much sob’d” or soaked. He also knew that salad leaves need to be well drained and dried to allow the flavour of the dressing to come out.
Rule VII is less applicable today when knives are made of stainless steel and other modern materials. He says your knife must be silver to avoid it rusting and leaving a metallic taste on your ingredients.
Similarly, “Ninthly and Lastly,” your salad dishes must be made of porcelain or the relatively new tin-glazed Delftware from Holland. Again, this is to prevent metal dishes from leaving a taste on your salad.
In summary. the nine rules for John Evelyn’s perfect salads are:
I. Clean, wash and dry well your leaves
II. Dress with the best olive oil
III. Mix that with infused wine vinegar
IV. Season it with fine flaky sea salt
V. Add good mustard powder
VI. And coarse ground pepper
VII. Use hard-boiled egg yolk in the dressing to thicken and add quartered eggs to the salad.
VIII. Cut your ingredients with a silver knife.
IX. Serve your salad in porcelain dishes.
The rules that are still applicable are not surprising to us as modern readers, that is probably because Evelyn was well on his way towards thinking of salads as we do today. As I said earlier, this was probably the first English book devoted to what is an important component of a modern meal or in many cases, makes up its entirety. It was therefore quite forward thinking to treat these ingredients with the detail that he does in Acetaria, his discourse on salads.
My salad was wonderfully fresh and bright with a variety of tastes and even textures. I like fennel a lot and the short blanch on it and the lettuce brought out some additional flavour while the other greens kept up the crispy texture. The egg yolk in the dressing helps it cling to the greens and the infused vinegars added another dimension.
Since things are starting to finally grow a bit around here, I might stay green and vegetative for next week’s entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment