I recently came across a recipe in a hundred-year-old cookbook for Lettuce with Cucumber Sauce. It is a tasty Wedge Salad recipe with a mayonnaise dressing that contains chopped cucumber, onion, and green pepper.
Lettuce with Cucumber Sauce is an intriguing combination of new and old. Wedge Salad is currently a somewhat trendy way of serving lettuce (and I actually was surprised to see a Wedge Salad-type recipe in the old cookbook), while the mayonnaise with chopped vegetables dressing seemed old-fashioned.
Here’s the original recipe:
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Lettuce with Cucumber Sauce
2 small heads iceberg lettuce or 1 large head iceberg lettuce
1 slice onion, finely chopped
1/2 large cucumber, peeled and then finely chopped
1/3 green pepper, finely chopped
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Cut lettuce into wedges. If the head is small cut into thirds; if large into sixths. Set aside.
In the meantime, put the onion, cucumber, pepper, and mayonnaise into a small bowl. Mix until the vegetables are evenly distributed in the mayonnaise.
To serve: Put each wedge on serving plate. Spoon 1/6th of the mayonnaise and vegetable sauce over each wedge.
I guess clothing is not the only fashion to be cyclically popular!
Food also definitely has trends and fads.
Sounds great and easy to make
It only took me a few minutes to make, which is always nice.
Lovely! I guess everything old is new again!
It’s fascinating how some foods go out of style for awhile, and then later again become popular.
I bet there was some grandmother in 1960 who saw a wedge salad and thought “We used to have this when I was a kid!”
I’m guessing that you’re right. 🙂
I find the phrasing “dip over each a portion of the sauce” interesting.
I also was intrigued by that phrase. Maybe it’s an archaic way of using the word “dip.”
I assumed “spoon over” but the “each a portion” and not over each wedge. But then, I learned ‘with whom’ and now they say ‘who were you with’ so maybe it is not odd at all.
Language it not static. It’s always changing.
I think that looks worth a punt, though in my case I’d leave out the raw onion.
It would be good without the onion – though personally, I like them and thought they gave the sauce a more complex flavor.