ESCAROLE, TOMATOES, ARTICHOKES, ALLIGATOR PEARS.
In nineteen cases out of twenty the salad served in our country is lettuce, and in nine cases out of ten the diner is insulted with huge green leaves fit only for boiled greens or the stock-pot.
Green lettuce is good to eat raw only in its infancy (when two or three inches high) or when it has shot up higher in a few weeks on very rich, moist soil. Much better, however, is head lettuce, with the white inside leaves, crisp and succulent. Even those, unfortunately, are somewhat indigestible to many, unless very carefully chewed.
Those who find lettuce troublesome should by all means try the bleached white hearts of the variety of endive known as escarole (the French call it scarole).
Until a few years ago it was very difficult to find escarole in any American market, and it is not abundant now. In the catalogues of seedsmen who give several pages to the different varieties of lettuce, escarole is disposed of in four or five lines of small type. One catalogue, of the year 1912, referred to it as "unsurpassed for salads;" the others made no comment at all, or spoke of it as "good for soups or greens." As there has been practically no demand for escarole seed, it was lucky to be listed at all.
Some seedsmen, however, when they know of a good thing, try to create a demand for it. Prominent among those is W. Atlee Burpee, of Philadelphia. To him I confided my sorrows over the difficulty of getting good escarole—or often any escarole at all. I called attention to the fact that it is, to say the least, equal in flavor to the best head lettuce, and much easier to assimilate, one member of my household being able to eat it by the bowlful, whereas lettuce invariably gives her indigestion.
It is much easier to raise, also, than lettuce, which is extremely "cranky" in summer. Even in cool Maine lettuce sometimes is wilted by a single hot day, unless cared for like a tender hot-house orchid; whereas escarole has as many lives as a cat. I have often, in thinning out my plants, thrown them away by the dozen, to be roasted by the sun; but if a rain came along in a day or two, they revived, took root unaided, and grew into healthy plants!
A further advantage is that, in rich soil and with plenty of water, a single plant will yield two or three hearts if those of the outside leaves which are not needed for bleaching the center are left on; whereas head lettuce is never of the "cut-and-come-again" kind.
The only trouble with escarole is that it has not been educated. Lettuce has been trained by dozens of experts, the result being a large number of excellent varieties, some with heads as solid as cabbages. My object in writing to Mr. Burpee was to persuade him to give escarole a "college education"—to teach it how to head, and bleach itself, like lettuce.
He promptly replied that he would get seeds abroad of all the different varieties and experiment with them in his Fordhook trial grounds; also, that he would write to Luther Burbank and try to get him interested. Unfortunately Mr. Burbank was too busy with other reforms to take up this plant too; but Mr. Burpee forged ahead, and in November, 1912, he sent me copies of the notes on the varieties of escarole he had sowed—seventeen in all. "One or two of these," he wrote, "seemed to be much better than the Broad Leaved Batavian, but none of them are really self-folding." There seems to be hope in a variety numbered 5131 on his schedule, which is thus described: "Foliage pale yellowish-green, a robust strong grower, averaging twenty inches in diameter, leaves eight inches long by four inches in breadth, plain leaved, but slightly curved, inner leaves being much incurved, giving the impression of its being an excellent strain for bleaching."
Along those lines I have no doubt that a head-escarole will be evolved in a few years, and that the world will be indebted to Mr. Burpee for one more gastronomic delicacy as welcome as his improved head-lettuces, his limas, his stringless pod beans, and his improved melons, cucumbers, squashes, tomatoes, cabbages, and other vegetables. Mr. Burbank wrote to me under date of December 18, 1912: "It is so natural for escarole to spread flat on the ground, that it will take some time and a little pains to make it form a head." Mr. Burpee will take the time and the pains.
The bitter taste of escarole—a mere trace where the plant is well grown—is welcomed by epicures and hardly noticed by others.
The dressing is the same as for lettuce. A combination that cannot be too highly commended is tomatoes with escarole. This mixture is, I think, my favorite of all salads.
So far as tomatoes are concerned, we have nothing to learn from the French. As it is an American plant—its original home being Peru—it is proper that Americans should have a greater number of varieties and improvements than any other country.
The Germans are only just learning to like tomatoes; the English have made more progress in this important branch of gastronomic education; the French revel in the tomato; and in Italian cookery it is an important ingredient; but in the United States tomato-eating amounts to a passion, a frenzy.
In New York every corner grocery, even in the poorer quarters, has its constant supply. Apparently, all classes, rich and poor alike, are bound to have their tomatoes daily, be their price five cents a pound or twenty-five or more. For this astonishing appetite there must be good reasons. The tomato, with its delicate acid flavor is unquestionably most wholesome. Often I walk a mile to bring home the best specimens of this grand appetizer I can find; and in my vegetable garden the patch most carefully enriched and hoed and watered is that where the tomato grows.
To get it at its best you must pick it off the vine and eat it on the spot, without any condiment. It is good in a score of ways—stewed, grilled, as a catsup, even canned—but for table use it is most desirable in the salad bowl, alone or in combination with escarole or lettuce.
It ought to be needless to add that it is much pleasanter to eat, and more digestible, if it is peeled (which is easily done after soaking it a moment in hot water) before slicing; but few cooks will take this extra trouble, slight though it is, unless specially requested.
If we can perhaps give even the French points on tomatoes, they have much to teach us regarding another vegetable which is among salads what diamond-back terrapin and canvasback duck are among meats—the globe artichoke.
Fortunately, unlike turtles and wild ducks, this noble plant is yearly becoming more abundant in our markets. It would be as much in demand as tomatoes were its flavor equally known and the samples on sale as tempting as those served in Paris and London. It is for the consumer to insist on having the best varieties sent from abroad and cultivated at home; but the dealers on their part ought to be alive to the fact that the way to increase sales is to offer the best at the lowest price.
The French artichoke makes a savory vegetable, served hot; but how any one can eat it—or asparagus—hot, when he might have it cold as a salad, with French dressing, is a mystery to me. Of course, it must be boiled, except when very young and tender.
To get the artichoke at its best one must ask for it in a first-class Paris restaurant. The waiter brings a huge specimen in a large plate, removes the inedible "choke" in the center with a movement like that of a dextrous carver (French waiters receive prizes for skill in carving), and there it lies in all its fragrant magnificence.
Rossini objected to the turkey as being a bird too large for one and not large enough for two. Time and again in Paris I have had placed before me an artichoke big enough for two; and since my partner prefers the scales and I the fond, we were both happy though married.
As the scaly leaves of the artichoke must be dipped into the dressing and sucked, it is not for persons who object to using their fingers except to hold knife and fork, any more than are crawfish, or olives, or peaches.
The Moors of Morocco prefer to use their hands for conveying food to the mouth, because, as they sensibly maintain, they know that their hands have been thoroughly cleaned, whereas knife and fork may have been washed carelessly.
The merits of the French artichoke were known in New Orleans long before they were in any of our other cities. In various forms and combinations, it helped to give distinction to the famous local cuisine.
The Frenchman who first ate an artichoke was as bold as the man who ate the first oyster, for the plant looks like a thistle and he ran the risk of being classed with thistle-eating quadrupeds. Compared with the succulent globe of to-day it must have been thin, dry, and tough. Yet, even now, the artichoke is capable of much further improvement. Burbank, if he had time, might put as much meat into the base of each scale as there is now in the bottom, and make the bottom as big as a full-sized turnip.
This suggests one of the many ways in which the study of gastronomy serves as a guide to wealth. A rich harvest is sure to be reaped by those gardeners who will introduce to American markets the best French artichokes, and by the dealers who will encourage their purchase by asking reasonable prices for them. In December, 1912, I asked a dealer in Washington Market, New York, why there were so few artichokes offered for sale. "They are so cheap—we can't get more than 15 cents apiece for them," he replied. That's the American way—at present.
For years importers and dealers have done their best to discourage the growing interest in another delicious basis for salad—the alligator-pear—by charging the most outrageous prices for it—usually twenty to fifty cents apiece, though it can be bought in the West Indies for a penny or two and brought to New York for a cent a pound. Even at such extortionate prices the demand usually exceeds the supply. I often hunt for some all over town and usually end by saying, "What fools these dealers be."
The alligator-pear—or let us call it avocado, please—is one of the Creator's masterpieces—what we would call a stroke of genius had a mortal originated it. But, like other works of genius, it is not appreciated by all—or at once. An American, writing from the West Indies, declared that there the avocado is "ever present and always welcomed." But, he proceeds, it is "a pitfall and a snare, and many a green foreigner has been taken in by the name and afterwards by the pear itself. Such a magnificent specimen of this luscious fruit, the 'pear,' as the one seen in the Jamaica markets causes the hand of the new arrival to go down promptly into his pocket for a penny with which the coveted fruit is secured. Yum, yum! A pear weighing three or four pounds! What a feast! The knife appears, a generous slice is cut out, but when it touches the palate! Yah! It is a flat, flabby, tasteless vegetable (although it grows on a tree), but sliced and eaten with salt at the table it forms a pleasant relish."
Had this man eaten it with French dressing he would have found it a food fit for gods. The avocado was undoubtedly created to serve as a salad. If you cut it in two, lengthwise, and take out the big stone, you have two halves like those of a small melon. The flesh, firm though soft and custardy, has a most exquisite flavor—a faint flavor which, with oil and vinegar makes a symphony of fragrance.
Until a few years ago I myself, misled by poor specimens, groped in utter darkness as to the enchantments of the avocado. It was Hildegarde Hawthorne who, returning from Jamaica, brought us some choice samples. There was joy in the mansion thereat. It was like the discovery of a new song by Schubert or Grieg, or a new painting by Titian.
After writing the above remarks I came across a clipping in which an evident epicure objected to "desecrating" the avocado pear by oil or mayonnaise dressing when served. "Eat it with a spoon slowly," he advises, "to give time for the pleasure it imparts to permeate the very soul, and let who will rail at fate. There are those who give it a slight sprinkling of salt, others who dust it over with a little white pepper, but personally I would as soon think of flavoring my currant jelly with garlic or my chateau Yquem with Trinidad rum."
This sounds plausible, and I admit that a perfect avocado is better without than with vinegar and oil. An imperfect one isn't; and in most cases we have found in our dining-room that the avocado is rather too rich to be eaten without a little acid dressing. It contains seventeen per cent. of oil, and is known in some regions as the "butter fruit."
To return to France. Next to the artichoke and the escarole—which is the better of the two I don't know—the most desirable thing it has given us in the way of salads is the romaine—but how much whiter, crisper and tenderer it is in Paris than what is offered for sale under that name in New York!
Another chance to coin good money, messieurs gardeners! Americans must have the best, and if you don't supply it, a rival will.
The American lobster and shrimp salads cannot be beaten; but we have much to learn of the French and other Europeans as to the endless varieties of green, vegetable, fish and meat salads by way of multiplying the pleasures of the table, and banishing intestinal dyspepsia, for which salads are more remedial than Fletcherizing.
When once the importance of this subject is fully understood, salads will become the principal lunch dishes in American homes and restaurants, especially during the hot months when to be "three miles from a lemon"—or something else that is refreshingly sour—is a hygienic tragedy.
"Fruit salads," when not sour, make desirable desserts. When not sour, such combinations should not be called salads. As a rule sour fruit mixtures seem incongruous to a trained palate.
In these days of Debussyan influences one must be prepared for all sorts of anarchistic combinations of flavors. Personally, I draw the line at the compound of Roquefort cheese and sour salad now placed unblushingly on some American tables. The mixture of these two delicacies is awful. One can easily see how the illegitimate union was suggested by the illogical custom of serving cheese with salad, dressed or undressed—the usual English way.