SC - Random excursion in to salad recipes - oop

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Cathy Harding wrote:
> 
> My copy of the Boston cooking school cookbook (original c. 1886 last C.
> 1924) gives a recipe:
> 
> mix equal parts of finely cut apples and celery and moisten with mayonnaise
> dress ing (recipe in  book). Garnish with curled celery and canned pimentos
> cut in stripd or fancy shapes. An attractive way od serving this salad is to
> remove tops from red or green apples, scoop out inside pulp, leaving just
> enough adhering to skin to keep apples in shape. Refill shells thus make
> with the salad, replace tops, and serve on lettuce leaves.

I believe the original Waldorf salad used a sauce mayonnaise mousseline,
which is equal parts mayonnaise and whipped cream, folded together.
Usually on apples and celery, but I've occasionally seen it made with
the addition of chopped walnuts.
 
> This is certainly not a dessert type of salad.  nor is it like the Waldorf
> salad I remember from childhood. That one had celery, raisens, apples,
> grapes, nuts and mayonaisse.

No, it's a first-course salad, as opposed to an entremet salad or
palate-cleanser. In spite of some inherent sweetness, it's not a dessert.

> James Beard says that the jello and mayonaise salads came in to vogue in
> 1905 from a cooking contest."...unleashing a demand for congealed salads
> that has grown alarmingly..."

Actually I think the fashion for jellied salads was a sort of fusion of
various versions of salade a la Russe with some jellied French
garnishes, beginning with an influx of wealthy (or formerly wealthy)
Russians coming to places like Paris beginning in the 1870's and
culminating after the Russian Revolution, in the 1920's. However, those
aren't made with sweet gelatin products. The American lime-jello-mold
dish isn't strictly pan-american: I've never eaten, or even seen, such a
dish in my life. I believe it is mostly a Southern phenomenon. 
 
> So does the Watergate salad have gelatin in it?  That sounds like it fits
> the side or dessert dish more than a Waldorf salad.

Maybe Watergate salad is made with shredded lettuce, and served during
an eighteen-minute gap between courses? Seriously, though, the whole
Watergate thing is named for the Watergate Hotel, so maybe they have a
House Salad, and they may even once have been famous for it before 1972
or so...

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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