Sticking with the “everything old is new again” for 2022 here is a salad classic from the 1830’s, with method included in verse by social reformist and author Reverend Sydney Smith.
Recipe for a Salad and its Dressing
To make this condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half suspected, animate the whole;
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt;
Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar, procured from town;
And lastly, o’er the flavoured compound toss
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
O green and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
’T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he ’d turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl;
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
“Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day.
This classic salad dressing recipe was included in a letter sent by Smith to Elizabeth Vassall Fox, in 1839. The Reverend Sydney Smith’s salad dressing recipe was reproduced by Eliza Acton in the book “Modern Cookery”, but it was Marion Harland who popularized it in America, reproducing it in “Common Sense in The Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery”. (The most successful American cookbook by the end of the 19th century.)
We love, treasure and respect our old recipes here at Olive Envy. Through years of seasonal practice of our traditions our range of products has grown, just like our family. Come and join Olive Envy in the great south east of Queensland where our family can be found at the weekly Noosa Farmers Markets, Kawana Waters Markets and Yandina Country Markets each weekend.
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