The Spanish proverb says, that to make a perfect salad, there should be a miser for oil, a spendthrift for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a madcap to stir the ingredients up and mix them well together. The proverb is perfect with the exception of the last member of the sentence. A patient and discreet man, a painstaking and careful man or woman should be entrusted with the duty of mixing the salad with its seasoning.
The French say, “Il faut bien fatiguer la salade.” It is said by a dramatic writer,
“Toute française à ce que j’imagine,
Sait bien ou mal faire un peu de cuisine;”
and the same may be said of every Frenchman. Some of the emigrants, who fled to England and other countries between 1790 and 1804, gained their livelihood by giving lessons in cookery; and Brillat Savarin tells us, in one of his chapters, that when in emigration at Boston, in America, he taught the restaurateur Julien to make œufs brouilles au fromage. Captain Collet, also, he tells, made a great deal of money at New York in 1794 and 1795, in making ices and sorbets. In my earlier days there were two Frenchmen in London who made good incomes by dressing salads, and each of them kept his cabriolet. One took as a fee 10s. 6d., but the other charged a guinea.
In an article, headed “Industrie gastronomique des Emigrés,” Brillat Savarin thus speaks of a famous salad-dresser:—
“In passing through Cologne I met a Breton gentleman who made a good thing of it by becoming a traiteur. I might multiply examples of this kind to an indefinite extent, but I prefer relating, as more singular, the history of a Frenchman who acquired a fortune in London by his cleverness in making a salad. He was a Limousin, and, if my memory serve me rightly, called himself d’Aubignac, or d’Albignac. Though his means were very small subsequent to his emigration, he happened to dine one day at one of the most famous taverns of London. Whilst he was in the act of finishing a slice of juicy roast beef, five or six young men of the first families were regaling themselves at a neighbouring table. One among them stood up, and, addressing the Frenchman in a polite tone, said, ‘Sir, it is a general opinion that your nation excels in the art of making a salad, would you have the goodness to favour us by mixing one for us?’ D’Albignac, after some hesitation, consented, asked for the necessary materials, and having taken pains to mix a perfect salad, had the good fortune to succeed. While the salad was in process of mixing, he candidly answered all questions addressed to him on his situation and prospects; stated he was an emigrant, and confessed, not without a slight blush, that he received pecuniary aid from the British government. It was this avowal, doubtless, which induced one of the young men to slip into his hand a five-pound note, which, after a slight resistance, he accepted. He gave the young man his address, and some time afterwards was not a little surprised to receive a letter, in which he was asked in the politest terms to come and dress a salad in one of the best houses in Grosvenor Square. D’Albignac, who began to have a distant glimmering of durable advantage, did not hesitate an instant, and arrived punctually, fortified with some new ingredients destined to add new relish to his mixture. He had the good fortune to succeed a second time, and received on this occasion such a sum as he could not have refused without injuring himself in more ways than one.
“This second success made more noise than the first, so that the reputation of the emigrant quickly extended. He soon became known as the fashionable salad-maker; and in a country so much led by fashion, all that was elegant in the capital of the three kingdoms would have a salad made by him. D’Albignac, like a man of sense, profited by his popularity. He soon sported a vehicle, in order the more readily to transport him from place to place, together with a livery servant carrying in a mahogany case everything necessary, such as differently perfumed vinegars, oils with or without the taste of fruit, soy, caviare, truffles, anchovies, ketchup gravy, some yolks of eggs. Subsequently he caused similar cases to be manufactured, which he furnished and sold by hundreds. By degrees the salad-dresser realised a fortune of 80,000 francs, with which he ultimately returned to France.”
Three centuries ago, we learn from Champier, who wrote in 1560, that many materials were used for salads which are not thought of now; among others, fennel, marshmallow-tops, hops, wild marjoram, elder-flowers, and a species of nettle. Tomatas and asparagus were also at this period used as salads.
In a “Mémoire pour faire un Ecriteau pour un Banquet,” published in the sixteenth century, I find in the list of salads the following:—