Salads

The creolces have always been famous for the excellent Salads which grace their tables. Salad, like soup, or gumbo, is the daily accompaniment of dinner in even the most humble Creole homes. They hold, one and all, that a good Salad is a most delightful dish, but a poor one is worse than none at all.

The old Spanish proverb that “to make a perfect Salad there should be a miser for vinegar, a spendthrift for oil, a wise man for salt and a madcap to stir all these ingredients, and mix them well together, ” still holds as the unfailing Creole rule in making a good Salad. The reason is clear. For the Dressing of the Salad should be saturated with the oil, before the salt, pepper and vinegar are added. Results have proven, however, where the Salad is dressed in the bowl, that there can really never be too much vinegar, for, from the specific gravity of vinegar, compared to the oil, what is useless will fall to the bottom of the bowl. By dissolving the salt in the vinegar, instead of the oil, too, it becomes more thoroughly distributed throughout the Salad. But this will not hold where each makes his own Salad Dressing at table, as is common in Creole families.