Mr. Smith's recipe for salads
To make this condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boil'd eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen seive,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add but 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 procur'd from town;
Lastly o'er the flavour'd compound toss
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) in 1839 letter to his daughter, Lady Holland. [from: A memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. by his daughter, Lady Holland. With a selection from his letters ... 1855].
History & source of name
How stuff works
Hellmann's Mayo
Miracle Whip
To Dress Salad, Mary Randolph. The Virginia Housewife. Baltimore: 1838
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