To Dress Salad
Two large potatoes, pressed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon;
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
True flavor needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two boiled eggs;
Let onion’s atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;
And, lastly, in the flavored compound toss
A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.
O great and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat,
Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
Rev. Sidney Smith.
If the herbs be young, fresh-gathered, trimmed neatly, and drained dry and the sauce-maker ponders patiently over the above directions, he cannot fail of obtaining the fame of being a very accomplished salad-dresser.