To the mystical German, the potato first revealed virtues undreamed of by the blind who had thought it but a cheap article of food to satisfy hunger, even by the French who had carried it to such sublime heights in their purées and soufflés, their Parisiennes and Lyonnaises. Not until it has been allowed to cool, been cut in thin slices, been dressed as a salad, were its subtlest charms suspected. To the German—to that outer barbarian of the midday dinner—we owe at least this one great debt of gratitude. Like none other, does the potato-salad lend itself to the most fantastic play of fancy. It stimulates imagination, it awakens ambition. A thousand and one ways there be of preparing it, each better than the last. With celery, with carrots, with tomatoes, with radishes, with parsley, with cucumber, with every green thing that grows—in greatest perfection with okras, the vegetable dear to Hungarian and American, unknown to poor Britons—it combines graciously and deliciously, each combination a new ecstasy. And, moreover, it is capable of endless decoration; any woman with a grain of ingenuity can make of it a thing of beauty, to look upon which is to sharpen the dullest appetite. So decorative are its possibilities, that at times it is a struggle to decide between its merits as an ornament and its qualities as a delicacy. For truth is, it becomes all the more palatable if dressed and "fatigued" an hour or so before it is eaten, and the oil and vinegar given time to soak through every slice and fragment. The wise will disdain, for the purpose, the ordinary potato, but procure instead the little, hard "salad potato," which never crumbles; it comes usually from Hamburg, and is to be bought for a trifle in the German delicatessen shops of London.
Poetic in the early spring is the salad of "superb asparagus"—pity it should ever be eaten hot with drawn butter!—or of artichoke, or of cucumber—the latter never fail to sprinkle with parsley, touch with onion, and "fatigue" a good half hour before serving. Later, the French bean, or the scarlet runner should be the lyrical element of the feast. And in winter, when curtains are drawn and lamps lit, and fires burn bright, the substantial Soissons, for all its memories of French commercials, is not to be despised. But, if your soul aspires to more ethereal flights, then create a vegetable salad—cauliflower, and peas, and potatoes, and beans, and carrots in rhythmical proportions and harmonious blending of hues.
THE SALADS OF SPAIN
They are still many and delicious as when Beckford ate them and was glad, a hundred and more years ago. The treasures of the Incas have dwindled and disappeared; the Alhambra has decayed and been restored on its high hill-top; the masterpieces of Velasquez have been torn from palace walls, to hang in convenient rows in public museums; the greatness of Spain has long been waning. But the Spaniard still mixes his salads with the art and distinction that have been his for centuries. Herein, at least, his genius has not been dimmed, nor his success grown less. And so long as this remains true, so long will there be hope of a new Renaissance in the Iberian peninsula. By a nation's salads may you judge of its degree of civilisation; thus tested, Spain is in the van, not the rear, of all European countries.
It is no small achievement to give distinctive character to national salads, to-day that the virtue of vinegar and oil and the infallibility of incomparable onion are universally acknowledged and respected. And yet Spain, in no idle spirit of self-puffery, can boast of this achievement. She has brought to her insalada a new element, not wholly unknown elsewhere—in Hungary, for instance—but one which only by the Spaniard has been fully appreciated, constantly introduced, and turned to purest profit. This element—need it be said?—is the pepper, now red, now green. The basis of the Spanish salad may be—nay, is—the same as in other lands: tomato, cucumber, lettuce, beans, potatoes. But to these is added pepper—not miserably dried and powdered, but fresh and whole, or in generous slices—and behold! a new combination is created, a new flavour evolved. And it is a flavour so strong, yet subtle withal, so aromatic and spicy, so bizarre and picturesque—dream-inspiring as the aroma of green Chartreuse, stimulating as Cognac of ripe years—that the wonder is its praises hitherto have not been more loudly sung, its delights more widely cultivated. The trumpet-note struck by the glowing scarlet is fitting herald of the rapturous thrills that follow in the eating. Not more voluptuous than the salad thus adorned were the beauties of the harem, who doubtless feasted upon it under the cypresses and myrtles of Andalusia.
The tendency of the Spaniard is ever to harmony, intricate and infinite. Is not his dish of dishes his olla cocida? Is not his favourite course of vegetables the pisto? And so likewise with his salads: now he may give you tomato just touched with pepper, cucumber just enlivened by the same stirring presence. But more often he will present you an arrangement which, in its elaboration, may well baffle the first investigation of the student. Peppers, as like as not of both species, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, garlic cut fine as if for a mince of greens—"pepper hash," the American crudely calls an arrangement closely akin in motive—are mingled together so deftly, are steeped in vinegar and oil so effectually, as to seem, not many in one, but the one in many, the crowning glory of the glorious vegetable world of the South. Nothing in common has this delectable salad with the macédoine, which the Spaniard also makes. Peas and carrots, potatoes and tomatoes, beans and cauliflowers meet to new purpose, when peppers, red and ardent, wander hither and thither in their midst waging war upon insipidity, destroying, as if by fire, the tame and the commonplace. Again, lettuce untainted by garlic, resisting the slightest suspicion of complexity, may answer for the foolish foreigner who knows no better. But in lettuce prepared for himself the Spaniard spares not the fragrant garlic; neither does he omit his beloved peppers, while he never rebels, rejoicing rather, if occasional slices of cucumber and tomatoes lie hid between the cool green leaves.
But fish furnishes him with text for still more eloquent flights, still loftier compositions. A mayonnaise he can make such as never yet was eaten under milder suns and duller skies; and a mayonnaise far from exhausts his all but unlimited resources. Sardines he will take, or tunny, or any fish that swims, and that, already cooked, has been either shut up long weeks in protecting tins or left but a few hours to cool. Whatever the fish chosen, he places it neatly and confidently at the bottom of his dish; above it he lays lettuce leaves and garlic and long brilliant slices of scarlet pepper; round about it he weaves a garniture of olives and hard-boiled eggs that reveal their hearts of gold. The unrivalled, if cosmopolitan, sauce of vinegar and oil is poured upon the whole and made doubly welcome. But details are varied in every fish salad served in Spain; only in its perfection does it prove unalterable.