Introduction.
Of uncooked vegetables, cabbage lettuce—called long ago by the Greek physician, Galen, the philosopher's or wise man's herb—stands at the head of salad plants. Ivike all uncooked vegetables, lettuce must be served fresh and crisp, and the more quickly it is grown the more tender it will be. When dressed for the table, each leaf should glisten with oil, yet no perceptible quantity should fall to the salad-bowl. Watercress, being rich in sulphuretted oil, is often served without oil. Cheese or eggs combine well with cress; and such a salad, with a sandwich of coarse bread and butter, together with a cup of sparkling coffee, forms an ideal luncheon for a picnic or for the home piazza. Indeed, all the compound salads, — that is, salads of many ingredients,—more particularly if they are served with a cooked or mayonnaise dressing, are substantial enough for the chief dish of a hearty meal. Their digestibility depends, in large measure, on the tenderness of the different ingredients, as well as upon the freshness of the uncooked vegetables that enter into their composition.
A salad has this superiority over every other production of the culinary art: A salad (but not every salad) is suitable to serve upon any occasion, or to any class or condition of men. Among bon vivants, without a new salad, no matter how recherche the other courses may be, the luncheon, or dinner party, of to-day does not pass as an unqualified success.
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