"The dressing of the salad should be saturated with oil, and seasoned with pepper and salt before the vinegar is added. It results from this process that there never can be too much vinegar; for, from the specific gravity of the vinegar compared with oil, what is more than useful will fall to the bottom of the bowl. The salt should not be dissolved in the vinegar, but in the oil, by which means it is more equally distributed throughout the salad." - Chaptal, a French chemist.

The Spanish proverb says, that to make a perfect salad, there should be a miser for oil, a spendthrift for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a madcap to stir the ingredients up and mix them well together."

Sydney Smith's Receipt for Salad Dressing. Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve, Softness and smoothness to the salad give ; Of mordant mustard take a single spoon - Distrust the condiment that bites too soon ; Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, 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 ; True taste requires it, and your poet begs The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs. Let onions atoms lurk within the bowl, And, scarce suspected, animate the whole ; And lastly, in the flavored compound toss A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce. Oh, great and glorious ! oh, herbaceous meat! Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat. Back to the world he'd turn his weary soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.

At least twenty-five years ago I pasted the above doggerel in my scrap-book, and committed it to memory. The first salad I was ever trusted to compound was dressed in strict obedience to the directions of the witty divine, and to this day these seem to me pertinent and worthy of note. The anchovy sauce can be omitted if you like, and a spoonful of Harvey's or Worcestershire substituted. This is best suited for chicken or turkey salad.

Lobster Salad+

Pick out every bit of the meat from the body and claws of a cold boiled lobster. Lay aside the coral for the dressing, and mince the rest. For the dressing you will need -

4 eggs, boiled hard.

2 tablespoonfuls salad oil.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

1 " salt.

2 " white sugar.

1/2 cayenne pepper. Vinegar at discretion.

1 " of Harvey's, "Worcestershire, or anchovy sauce.

Rub the yolks to a smooth paste in a mortar or bowl, with a Wedgewood pestle, a silver or wooden spoon, until perfectly free from lumps. Add gradually, rubbing all the while, the other ingredients, the coral last. This should have been worked well upon a plate with a silver knife or wooden spatula. Proceed slowly and carefully in the work of amalgamating the various ingredients, moistening with vinegar as they stiffen. Increase the quantity of this as the mixture grows smooth, until it is thin enough to pour over the minced lobster. You will need a teacupful at least. Toss with a silver fork and do not break the meat. Some mix chopped lettuce with the salad; but unless it is to be eaten within a few minutes, the vinegar will wither the tender leaves, The better plan is to heap a glass dish with the inner leaves of several lettuce-heads, laying pounded ice among them, and pass with the lobster, that the guests may add the green salad to their taste.

When lettuce is out of season, the following dressing, the receipt for which was given me by a French gourmand, may be used.

Prepare the egg and coral as above, with the condiments there mentioned, but mix with the lobster-meat four tablespoonfuls of fine white cabbage, chopped small, with two small onions, also minced into almost invisible bits, a teaspoonful of anchovy or other sauce, and a tablespoonful of celery vinegar.

All lobster salad should be eaten as soon as possible after the dressing is added, else it becomes unwholesome. If you use canned lobster, open and turn out the contents of the can into a china dish several hours before you mix the dressing, that the close, airless smell may pass away.

Garnish the edges of the dish with cool white leaves of curled lettuce, or with a chain of rings made of the whites of the boiled eggs.