[Sca-cooks] Tin Foil and "Salad Cream"

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

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