a term derived from the Latin sal (salt), which yielded the form salata, ‘salted things’ such as the raw vegetables eaten in classical times with a dressing of oil, vinegar, or salt. The word turns up in Old French as salade and then in late 14th-century English as salad or sallet. At that time, in the medieval period, salads were composed of green leaves, sometimes with flowers. The 14th-century English recipe manuscript the Forme of Cury is quite clear on the specifics of a ‘salat’: several sorts of herbs, chives, green garlic, and onions, all washed and dressed with oil, vinegar, and salt. Later, at least in England, fruits such as orange and lemon were added (at least in a decorative role), and the 17th century was the era of what was called the grand sallet, which could have a multitude of ingredients. Thus Robert May (1685), in the first of no fewer than fourteen grand sallet recipes, instructs as follows:
Take a cold roast capon and cut it into thin slices square and small (or any other roast meat …), mingle with it a little minced taragon and an onion, then mince littice as small as the capon, mingle all together, and lay it in the middle of a clean scoured dish. Then lay capers by themselves, olives by themselves, samphire by it self, broom buds, pickled mushrooms, pickled oysters, lemon, orange, raisins, almonds, blue-fits, Virginia Potato, caperons, crucifix pease, and the like, more or less, as occasion serves, lay them by themselves in the dish round the meat in partitions. Then garnish the dish sides with quarters of oranges, or lemons, or in slices, oyl and vinegar beaten together, poured on it over all.
Of the others, the ‘grand Sallet of Alexander-buds’ is relatively simple—just the named buds ‘laid round about upright’ with capers and currants, carved lemon, sugar scraped over all, oil and vinegar.
The 17th century was evidently ripe for a single-subject book devoted to salads and in 1699, with just a year to spare before the 18th, it came: John Evelyn's Acetaria, the first such book in the English language. Evelyn has evidently given much thought to definitions and categories. He announces that: ‘we are by Sallet to understand a particular Composition of certain Crude and fresh Herbs, such as usually are, or may safely be eaten with some Acetous Juice, Oyl, Salt, &c. to give them a grateful Gust and Vehicle.’ Roots, stalks, leaves, buds, flowers are what he is writing about; fruits, he says, belong to another class. Following him on these lines would deprive us moderns of having the anomalous tomato in our salad, but is yet in line with the clear distinction we make between ‘salads’ and ‘fruit salads’. To compare him with May: the catalogue which he gives of salad ingredients does not include fruits as such, although the grated rind of oranges and lemons is welcome among the herbs; and there is no sign of any meat, unless one counts the small red worm which, he warns his readers, often lurks in the midst of celery stalks, but which is of course to be discarded not eaten.
Evelyn considers the question whether to begin or end the meal with salad. He seems to think that the French begin with it and that this is a good plan (the salad slips down through the system and does not create obstructions for what follows), but creates an atmosphere of puzzlement by quoting the Roman poet Martial:
The Sallet, which of old came in at last,Why now with it begin we our Repast?
Evelyn also gives his attention to salad dressings, but only after giving precise instructions for picking, cleansing, washing, putting in the strainer, swinging, and shaking gently the herbs. These, ‘spread on a clean Napkin before you, are to be mingl'd together in one of the Earthen glaz'd Dishes: Then, for the Oxoleon [his rather precious term for the dressing]; Take of clear, and perfectly good Oyl-Olive, three Parts; of sharpest Vinegar … Limon, or Juice of Orange, one Part; and therein let steep some Slices of Horse-Radish, with a little Salt.’ He has more to say, but this is enough to show that little has changed in the three centuries since he wrote, except that adding horseradish to what we now call a vinaigrette is no longer a common practice, and international hotel cuisine, under American influence, now offers alternative dressings: typically two, Thousand Island and Blue Cheese.
Evelyn's trailblazing was important for the English-speaking world, but he had been anticipated in Italy by Salvatore Massonio's Archidipno, overe dell'insalata (1627). What both these works, and others, underline is the new status of salad in the 17th-century meal. Cooks and theorists viewed it as a linchpin dish in their attempts to separate the sweet from the sour in cookery, and central to their classicizing tendencies (Peterson, 1994).
In the 19th century there is evidence enough in Eliza Acton (1855) and various gastronomic writers in the latter half of the century that salads and their dressing were taken seriously in England. Acton's recipe for ‘French salad dressing’ is a model of its kind:
Stir a saltspoonful of salt and half as much pepper into a large spoonful of oil, and when the salt is dissolved, mix with them four additional spoonsful of oil, and pour the whole over the salad; let it be well turned, and add a couple of spoonsful of tarragon vinegar, mix the whole thoroughly, and serve it without delay. The salad should not be dressed in this way until the instant before it is wanted for table.
However, the liveliest writing on the subject came from the pen of Alexandre Dumas (1873), who quotes at length the diverting anecdote in Brillat-Savarin (1826) about the Chevalier d'Albignac, who made his fortune in London by dressing salads as his profession, but also expressed his own views, with obsessive detail to match that of Evelyn, on the choice of ingredients and describes his own (complex) method—a description which culminates with the lofty words: ‘Finally, I put the salad back into the salad bowl and let my servant toss it. And I let fall on it, from a height, a pinch of paprika.’
The 20th century has seen innovations in the treatment of salads in the western world, including the introduction of ‘warm salads’, an item of nouvelle cuisine, but more lasting significance probably attaches to spreading awareness, for example in Britain, of salads from other countries, continents, and cultures. So-called ‘Russian salad’ (not really Russian—see Lesley Chamberlain, 1983, for a full account of this and of the different Russian perception of salads generally) was already familiar in the 19th century, but it is only more recently that the Middle Eastern salad tabbouleh has begun to verge on ubiquity, while Salade niçoise (an infinitely refreshing and delicious mixture of, usually, lettuce, tomatoes, French beans, anchovy, tuna, olives, hard-boiled eggs with a vinaigrette dressing) is now a standard item hundreds and even thousands of miles away from Nice. American contributions such as Waldorf salad (apple, celery, and mayonnaise from 1896, and with walnuts from the 1920s) and Caesar salad had already become internationally popular in the first half of the century. Mariani (1994) has an exceptionally full entry on Caesar salad, invented at Tijuana in 1924 by Caesar Cardini. He explains among other things that Cardini did not approve adding anchovy to his original list of six ingredients: romaine lettuce, garlic, olive oil, croutons, Parmesan cheese, and Worcestershire sauce; he thought that any faint aroma of anchovy emanating from the Worcestershire sauce would be quite enough.
Later, Asian dishes which have to be counted as salads although they may not bear the name have received a welcome in other continents. Examples are Japanese aemono and sunomono (terms meaning ‘dressed things’—see Japanese culinary terms); yam (yum) from Thailand; and items such as Indonesian vegetable salads of great flexibility such as urap, which has a coconut dressing, and karedok, which has a peanut dressing.
See also fruit salad.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme (1826), La Physiologie du goût, 1st edn, published anonymously by the author.
Chamberlain, Lesley (1983), The Food and Cooking of Russia, London: Penguin.
Dumas, Alexandre (1873), Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, Paris: Lemerre.
Mariani, John (1994), The Dictionary of American Food and Drink, 2nd rev edn, New York: Hearst.
Peterson, T. Sarah (1994), Acquired Taste: The French Origins of Modern Cooking, Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP.
Shapiro, Laura (1986), Perfection Salad, Toronto: Collins.
