SALMON SALAD

1 and 1/2 lb. cold boiled or baked salmon
2 heads white lettuce or celery
3 hard-boiled eggs
2 tbs. salad [olive] oil
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. white sugar
1 tsp. Worcestershire or anchovy sauce
1 tsp. made mustard
1 teacupful [1/2 c.] vinegar

Mince three-quarters of the salmon, laying aside four or five pieces half an inch wide and four or five [inches] long; cut smoothly and of uniform size. Prepare the dressing in the usual way, and pour over the minced fish. Shred the lettuce, handling as little as possible, and heap in a separate bowl, with pounded ice. This must accompany the salmon, that the guests may help themselves to their liking. Or you may mix the lettuce with the fish, if it is to be eaten immediately. Celery, of course, is always stirred into the salad, when it is used. The reserved pieces of salmon should be laid in the dressing for five minutes before the latter is added to the minced fish, then dipped in vinegar. When you have transferred your salad to the dish in which it is to be served, round it into a mound, and lay the strips upon it in such a manner as to divide it into triangular sections, the bars all meeting at the top and diverging at the base. Between these have subdivisions of chain-work made of the whites of the boiled eggs, each circle overlapping that next to it.
You can dress halibut the same way.

From Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: This recipe looks as if it could have come out of a cookbook published today. The only difference, perhaps, is in the nature of the vegetables called for. While the style, and advice of nutritionists, nowadays calls for lettuces and celeries of the brightest green available, since they contain more nutrients, in the mid 19th century white was the preference, presumably because of its connotations of purity.

The use of Worcestershire sauce in the dressing is not an anachronism, as the product has been commercially available in the US as well as Britain since the 1840s. Bottled sauces of anchovies, mustards and the like were also starting to come on the market, but pure-food laws had not yet caught up, and most cookbooks recommend making them at home for reasons of both economy and quality control.

Return to Recipe Index