ng and make
people younger." Whether this be strictly true or not may be an open
question, but certainly in the assertion a grain of truth is visible;
for it is a well-known fact that "salad plants are better tonics and
blood purifiers than druggists' compounds." There is, also, an old
proverb: "Eat onions in May, and all the year after physicians may
play." What is health but youth?

Vegetables, fish and meats, "left over,"--all may be transformed, by
artistic treatment, into salads delectable to the eye and taste.
Potatoes are subject to endless combinations. First of all in this
connection, before dressing the potatoes allow them to stand in
bouillon, meat broth, or even in the liquor in which corned beef has
been cooked; then drain carefully before adding the oil and other
seasonings.

Of uncooked vegetables, cabbage lettuce--called long ago by the Greek
physician, Galen, the philosopher's or wise man's herb--stands at the
head of salad plants. Like all uncooked vegetables, lettuce must be
served fresh and crisp, and the more quickly it is grown the more tender
it will be. When dressed for the table, each leaf should glisten with
oil, yet no perceptible quantity should fall to the salad-bowl.
Watercress, being rich in sulphuretted oil, is often served without oil.
Cheese or eggs combine well with cress; and such a salad, with a
sandwich of coarse bread and butter, together with a cup of sparkling
coffee, forms an ideal luncheon for a picnic or for the home piazza.
Indeed, all the compound salads,--that is, salads of many
ingredients,--more particularly if they are served with a cooked or
mayonnaise dressing, are substantial enough for the chief dish of a
hearty meal. Their digestibility depends, in large measure, on the
tenderness of the different ingredients, as well as upon the freshness
of the uncooked vegetables that enter into their composition.

A salad has this superiority over every other production of the culinary
art: A salad (but not every salad) is suitable to serve upon any
occasion, or to any class or condition of men. Among _bon vivants_,
without a _new_ salad, no matter how _recherche_ the other courses may
be, the luncheon, or dinner party, of to-day does not pass as an
unqualified success.

While salads may be compounded of all kinds of delicate meats, fish,
shellfish, eggs, nuts, fruit, cheese and vegetables, cooked or uncooked,
two things are indispensable to every kind and grade of salad, v