Sydney Smith was a remarkable observer of manners, and a witty commentator on the same. Here, for a change, he pops up as a cookery adviser. His recipe for a salad:
To make his condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so 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;
And lastly over the flavoured compound toss
A magic soupcon 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."
He doesn't mention whether it's lettuce or shredded cabbage leaves or rocket or other greenery, but the line about "green and glorious" tells us, surely, that this is just the most elaborate salad dressing you have ever come across. He calls it, after all, in the first line "his condiment". Worth trying. This was taken from John Julius Norwich's 1990 edition of Christmas Cracker, with thanks.