Growing salad is an art of the kitchen-garden, in which soil, selection of varieties, watering, shading, blanching, and protection have their part. But with a little space and care, salads may be had by almost every one during the greater portion of the year. For late autumn and winter use, the different varieties of endive, corn-salad, and chicory are easily raised: corn-salad requiring no other trouble than two or three sowings in August, a little attention in watering and shading, and the gathering of the hardy green tufts beneath the snow. Late endive calls for a dry, well-protected root-house, while chicory needs to be taken up by the roots and forced in boxes in the cellar, due attention being paid to excluding the light. Of this excellent winter salad, the comparatively new variety "Witloof," largely grown in Belgium for the Paris market, is an improvement on the old "Barbe de Capucin." Of late years the useful and easily grown, broad-leaved Batavian endive has deteriorated, having become coarser-grained and often recalling the cabbage in flavour. Cos is the most difficult of all salads to grow under our tropical summer sun, and unless well grown—brittle, blanched, and free from bitterness—it is next to worthless. Many good varieties of lettuce have a tendency to run out, and these should be carefully watched by the gardener.
On the restaurant cards salads usually appear with their French appellations, which are sometimes confusing. In France, for instance, chicory is generally termed endive, and endive is termed chicory. Lettuce is naturally laitue, cos being known as romaine, broad-leaved Batavian endive as escarolle—the curled-leaved varieties of endive being familiar as chicorée frisée. Corn-salad is the mâche or doucette, chicory is the "Barbe de Capucin," though the variety "Witloof" passes current as endive. There is nothing mysterious, therefore, as some suppose, in French salads and French names of salads beyond the fact that in restaurants of the higher class special attention is paid to procure the best possible material from skilled market-gardeners, and the dressing is supposed to be performed by a competent practitioner who has the best of condiments at command.
"The field is never wholly void of cypress and tulip," saith a ghazel of Hafiz; "one goeth, but another yet appeareth in its place." It is much the same with the successive profusion of sallets. By way of variety, a salad of raw celery-root with a mayonnaise dressing, somewhat thinned, in which a generous amount of mustard has been blended, affords a pleasing distinction from celery in the usual form and the green material which constantly offers itself; as does also an occasional salad of the scarcer celery-turnip, beloved by Europeans. Sliced radishes, and young green onions from the garden, as an accompaniment to the first trout or shad, need no apology. The appetising but indigestible and flatulent German black radish is not to be recommended, although one may retain the most grateful recollections of the potato, cucumber, and herring salads of the Fatherland.
Spain has always borne a reputation for its salads in inverse ratio to that of its cookery; and if one is fond of pepper and peppers, green or red, as well as garlic, the Spanish salad, whether of tomato, cucumber, beans, potato, or lettuce, is to be commended. The Italian may be relied upon never to neglect garlic wherever any excuse for utilising it is presented; but the Spaniard, in addition, deems it a heresy if the live pepper does not sting, stimulate, and permeate.
For the highest expression of the potato-salad—and the cucumber-salad should be equally included—we must go to the Germans, masters of sausage-and cake-making and everything appertaining to "Compots." However one may regard the Pumpernickel and the Maitrank, the specialties just enumerated must challenge our respect and admiration. Potato-salad is particularly appropriate with beer; and it is, therefore, natural that the home of Münchner and Nürnberger should excel in its preparation. In making a potato-salad, the Teuton for once forgets the caraway seed and substitutes the onion. In all the restaurants, Wirthschafts, and beer-gardens where the hungry and the thirsty throng, great bowls of it, dusted with the fresh greens of finely minced herbs, always stand ready for immediate use. It is served separately and employed with many other dishes—a chain of russet sausages may surround it, or it may inclose a mound of cheese, ham, or caviare. In some form it is ever present. Like Montgomery's daisy,—
"It smiles upon the lap of May,
To sultry August spreads its charm,
Lights pale October on his way,
And twines December's arm."
To attain the best results, young potatoes of a firm kind, with no tendency to mealiness, known as "salad-potatoes," are chosen, boiled in salt water, allowed to cool, and then sliced and seasoned while they are fresh. Potato-salad may be combined with numerous esculents; and of its complementary adjuncts, none blend better with it than corn-salad and watercress.