THE LORE AND DELIGHTS OF A TOSSED SALAD

“Put into a mortar: savoury, mint, rue, coriander, parsley, chives, or, if you have no chives, a green onion, leaves of lettuce, and of colewort, green thyme or cat mint. Also green flea bean and fresh and salted cheese: pound them all together and mix a little peppered vinegar with them. When you have put this mixture in a bowl, pour oil over it.”
(The above is called “COLUMELLA’S SALAD” and typical of classic Roman recipes.)
Always fascinated with what the ancients were eating, I did some more research, going further back into antiquity, and found that there is considerable proof that the Sumerians in Babylon (3500-2100 BC) cultivated cress, leeks, cucumbers, onions, and certain kinds of lettuce. It seems credible that they made salads out of these greens. The Egyptians loved their onions and leeks and the ones they cultivated must have been particularly succulent as several travellers from that era make it a point of mentioning their merits, including the grumbling Israelites on their way to the promised land when they were tired of the poor cuisine Moses supplied to them. We may assume that these vegetables were not only used in Egyptian cooking but also raw or blanched made into a kind of salad. In France, blanched leeks with a vinaigrette dressing are still called the “Asparagus of the Poor” and poor or not, it is absolutely delicious as an appetiser in its own right.
I just finished reading a simplified edition of the Odyssey. It is meant for the less educated among us and the advantage is that it is written in plain understandable English. If one would judge from the story, Odyssey and the personalities he met on his peregrinations were constantly feasting on enormous sacrificial roasts while washing it down with a deluge of wine. We have to realise that these people were demi-gods and it would be wrong to surmise that the ordinary Greeks ate such extravagant meals even at special occasions. It seems that the common people hardly ever had meat on the table but lived mainly on barley made into porridge, gruel or bread. Goat’s milk and cheese were also daily foods. The wealthy class ate more elaborately, but no mention of salads is made.
Columella’s salad, which seems to be more like a kind of herbal sauce or an early version of Gazpacho, is actually the first recipe for what we would call a “salad”. Once the Roman empire had collapsed, European civilisation went into a recess and entered the dark ages. People considered vegetables and fruit as bland, insipid and especially unhealthy. This may have been because of intestinal problems after eating them raw, as they were fertilised by night soil while diseases like cholera, dysentery and typhoid were endemic as well as epidemic. The only vegetables generally cultivated were onions, leeks, beets, peas, beans and cabbages. The latter was of course made into sauerkraut for the winter months. Salads were out until they reappeared in the 13th and 14th centuries. The reason that apples, pears, peaches and other fruits and vegetables survived those centuries of despair and ignorance was that the monks in their cloisters and monasteries kept cultivating them in their nurseries and orchards.
The earliest cookbook in English which survived the ages (medieval English that is), is called “Forme of Cury” which is not an early book on Indian curries as some of the readers may assume. The word “Curry”, which originated in the fourteenth century, relates to “cure” meaning restore or prepare. The ancient manuscript features 196 recipes and was probably compiled by the master chef at the court of Richard II. There are a few “Sallet” or “Sallat” recipes and one of them is made with an astonishing collection of herbs like parsley, leeks, sage, onions, fennel, mint, coriander, purslain, borage and garlic.
The English have probably written more cookbooks than anybody else and what they lacked in actual culinary expertise in the kitchen was abundantly made up for in the literary department. “Sallets” became more common in cookbooks published afterwards but in the “Compleat Housewife or Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion”- a hefty work published in 1753, of which I have a facsimile edition which is a combination of the early version and an update of 1773 - instructions are given on how to cook several vegetables, which is called dressing but all I can find is one salad, a lemon salad, and this is actually a pickle or chutney.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the English Colonials, in what is now the USA, developed a keen taste for vegetables and visitors of those days often commented on the excellent quality of the vegetables they were served while there. It was in the US that the modern salad was born and in a book called “Colonial Virginia Cookery” (Williamsburg Research Studies) I found a recipe for a salad dating from the beginning of the nineteenth century which proved that the Americans were already as salad conscious as they are now. The author, for instance, calls for an early morning rise to pick the right chervil, lettuce, cress and pepper grass for the salad she is going to serve (for lunch I presume).
No other people in the western world do so much with salads as the Americans and it is probably - with tomato ketchup - their main contribution to Western cuisine (I will not dwell on “Whoppers”, hot dogs, “Finger licking good” chicken and plastic cheeses this time) but it is sad to know that so many Americans resort to bottled salad dressing instead of making their own, and it is even more alarming that they have exported the habit.
But talking of salads we should actually go no further and stay right at home in Thailand were salads are - although of a spicy nature - at least as important, if not more so, on the daily menu as in the U.S. and other western countries. And here I talk about the plain greens collected around the house and in the nearby forest to be eaten with Nam Prik, as well as the elaborate “Yams” and the ever popular “Som Tam” or unripe papaya salad the Isarn (North-Easterner) people can not do without for one single day, without getting fidgety and morose. Somebody once said: “A day without wine (read ‘a bottle’ if you must) is a day without the sun” and Isarn people may say “A day without Som Tam is like a day without joy” (No, not sunshine, because they have plenty of that up in the “Weeping Plains”).
Of the Yams - which I consider uniquely Thai - one of my favourites is made of toasted eggplant or “Makreue”. There are literally dozens and dozens of Yam varieties and they are usually eaten as snacks with or without a glass of local whiskey or beer. You can make them as hot and spicy as you want, but genuine Thai food is hot, often very hot, and there is no getting around it.