[Sca-cooks] Tin Foil and "Salad Cream"
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Mon Nov 29 10:03:43 PST 2004
Also sprach Elise Fleming:
>Greetings! A comment and a question... Bear mentioned the use of tin foil
>prior to aluminum foil. I inherited a 9.5 lb ball of wadded/compressed
>tinfoil when my parents died. I have no idea of what to do with it other
>than to leave it on the display stand where they kept it. Someone had a
>lot of time on his/her hands to wad up all that tin!
>
>Question: Exactly what is "salad cream"? I found the reference in Terry
>Pratchett's _Thief of Time_ so it exists in the UK. A character in the
>book asks "What, what, what is this nonsense of 'salad cream'?" The
>footnote says "If you live in a country where the tradition calls for
>mayonnaise, just don't ask. Just don't." Okay, so I couldn't resist
>asking. It must be a British substitution for mayo. Is it like American
>salad dressing? Is it yukky? And, should I look up this taste treat when
>I go to England next spring???
Based on having it in bottled form once or twice, and looking at the
occasional recipe, I'd say it's a little like a somewhat more
pourable form of Miracle Whip. A bit like a boiled salad dressing, I
suspect, if people still make that these days.
It seems to be made from egg yolks, either boiled or raw, sometimes
cream, always vinegar and seasonings, but not always with oil, and
when there is oil, there's less of it than there is in mayonnaise or
boiled salad dressing. The reason I think of boiled dressing is that
some recipes thicken it with flour, and some boiled dressing recipes
do that, too.
But basically it is a thickish, vaguely rich, sweet-and-sour,
occasionally sour and not sweet, whitish goop. If you do a Web
search, a lot of the references seem to be to bottled stuff from
Heinz, of all people (evil liberals destroying the great English
cuisine Mrs. Beeton worked so hard to produce ;-) ) Yes, Mrs. Beeton
does have a recipe for it...
Adamantius
--
"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils mangent de la
brioche!" / "If they have no bread, you have to say, let them eat
brioche."
-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, "Confessions", pub 1782
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry
Holt, 07/29/04
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