A few leaves of rocket, a small pile of varied beans in vinaigrette, slices of knobbly tomatoes and purple-skinned onion, a freshly made potato salad with chives, a spread-out fan of avocado – edible garnish for a luxuriant terrine of coarsely chopped meats in a style VR has evolved over half a century.
There should have been stuffed eggs but these went as bitings-on for a novel form of kir royale: very cheap cava ameliorated with splashes of a boozy (15 proof) peach cordial. The latter purchased speculatively – and, it turned out, rewardingly – by younger daughter Occasional Speeder while we were in France.
What was missing from our salad? Ah, that was what gave it its extra quality.
For years in British caffs salads consisted of a mound with a skimpy decorative carapace: three microtomed slivers of tasteless tomato, two discs of hard-boiled egg, a radish sliced into twelve and, if you were lucky, a sardine. The mound? Lots of that very dark, very limp lettuce that tastes of, and chews like, silage. Because, you see, the lettuce is cheap. A fraudulent disguise.
To add to my woes cucumber may have lurked. I gave up British salads in the early fifties and was to discover that salads were always better in virtually all the countries I subsequently visited. Even, I think, Venezuela.
VR has wooed me back. There is some specious talk about eating healthily but it’s all for show. For me good salads start with an absence of lettuce and thereafter strike out into the Land of Inventiveness. Croutons perhaps, some strands of samphire, a detached mermaid’s ear.
Lettuce, strangely, has its addicts but I am beyond their exhortations. Lettuce is for rabbits, both the literal and metaphorical sort.
There's lettuce as you know it the UK, which sadly is as you describe it. Silage or worse: that cardboardy crunch termed iceberg.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there is the plant family of lettuce of which - and I brag - we currently grow seven different varieties in seven different colours ready for snipping off as needed. Mix these with some impressive blossoms (tansy, borage, calendula) add your freshly made dressing with eight freshly picked herbs from the garden and add at will any cheese, freshly roasted nuts, olives, strawberries, home grown tomatoes (currently only three varieties), grilled peaches etc. and you may begin to have what *we* call salad.
Note: I realise I used the word freshly several times. I don't garden at all, I am married to a gardener.
I trust VR to assemble a salad you will like. I am not in love with lettuce, but it provides a simple base for all sorts of veggie bits and pieces that I do like. Fruits and nuts when I'm feeling brave. Cheese. But what I wouldn't give for a detached mermaid's ear!
ReplyDeleteI have heard lettuce described as 'educated grass' or 'rabbit food' - although I believe it is actually bad for rabbits as it scours them. Nevertheless, I am a fan. The iceberg we get over here is crunchy and strong- the other brands tend yo be limp.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed catching up with your latest French experience and had a few chuckles at your winning over the French witticisms.
All: Tis so sad. I can post about the sublimities of Purcell's An Evening Hymn, viz:
ReplyDelete...and singing praise,
The mercy that prolongs thy days...
and no one gives a toss. But attack that dullest of leaf vegetables and you don your chain mail, unsheath your broadswords, mount your equivalent of Bucephalus. Never has such undeserving garden produce been so eloquently defended. There's talk of lettuce's taste! Good God, suppose the subject had been something that really tasted, say a rollmop. You'd have raised legions and marched on Hereford.
And I would have opened my door, smiled and offered you a NZ sauvignon blanc. Passion plus conversation are what I seek in all things.
In the US I did crunch my way through Iceberg, it seemed all there was in the lettuce line. Granted its texture, but it didn't resolve the question: Why? Couldn't my jaws be engaged in something more rewarding? Alas the answer (Use them to frame the sounds of An die Musik.) has come late in life and I must look back regretfully on all those wasted hours of maxiliary movement.
In six months' time I shall raise another such crowd-enrager: Elvis's primacy (or otherwise) as a pop merchant. Simply to confirm that life exists outside my feverish thinking factory.
Cannot reply for laughing!
DeleteI don't get it, Robbie. If what you seek are conversations on the esoteric, on the subjectively sublime subjects, why post about the mundane if the responses are less than engaging? Oh, wait! I momentarily forgot that more than the sublimities, nothing excites you so well as controversy.
ReplyDeleteI like a bowl of all sorts of greens, sweet and bitter, soft and crisp and chewy. Haven't had iceberg in so many years I can't remember the taste. Ate it for roughage, anyway. The poor plant wasn't all that great at that, either.
On a different note, I came across a print-out of your short-short titled "The Little Black Book." This time, through exposure to BBC's mystery series 'Endeavour' I now have a definitive face and voice for Matron (fairly or not). A good bit of storytelling, that is; the underlying hint of violence and terror, ramping up the reader's expectations, reminds me of the early wind-up to Poe's "The Telltale Heart." Did you ever do anything else with TLBB? Have I missed your saying so?
Crow: By now you should have got it. All I'm looking for is conversation, not just conversation on the esoteric. But there's also style. How I write is as important as what I write. I'd like to write more about my singing lessons but they're a milch cow I can only return to infrequently. They represent a somewhat specialised topic centred on my feverish and very personal attitude towards this late-life discovery. My commenting friends have been been generous in the past but it's asking a lot for them to interest themselves repeatedly in something so ephemeral and ultimately ego-centric.
ReplyDeleteIt's my life and I have to live with it. Writing about music is a technical challenge and I enjoy that but I must try not to bore people, the worst crime of all. As an alternative I pick mundane topics and try to deal with them originally and stylistically, not always successfully. I try too to interpret life as opposed to just recording it, which leads to arguments with Sir Hugh.
Yes I am from time to time contrary. But not just for the sake of argument, rather to shed new light if possible. It's fun to take a cliché subject - patriotism say - and show its darker side. Again this can lead to trouble but at (nearly) 83 I should be capable of taking risks.
I took a big risk in writing The Little Black Book and I fear it got out of control. Far from being a short-short it's pretty long, far too long for posting in Tone Deaf. It's quality seemed in doubt so on September 21 2015 I offered to send a printed-out copy for assessment to anyone interested. Three people asked for it, including you. I can't remember any responses so I took this to be a verb. sap. judgment (File under Drop Dead.)
Following your comment here I re-read half of it. The doubts remain. For one thing I'm dissatisfied with the style. At present it lies dormant with my publisher as part of a collection of 35 short stories which may or may not be published within my lifetime. The Little Black Book comes off worst when compared with the story about the East German lavatory attendant and another about the marine returned from Viet Nam. Plus several others.
Crow: Whoops, my memory failed me. One person did respond and at length. This led to a protracted discussion (via private email) about the factually detailed way certain passages - one in particular - had been handled. My apologies.
ReplyDeleteWith standard restaurant meals one may have a starter and a main. The former is invariably accompanied by a pile of side salad, and the latter by an exact replica, despite the fact that the starter may have been scallops and the main steak tartare. That demonstrates that the chef has no inclination or skill for matching a salad to what it is accompanying. And this often happens in supposedly fairly high class establishments.
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: Occasionally I pick out the just-edible bits out of a side salad. As to matching, the traditional salad is so bland it either matches everything or nothing.
DeleteBy the way, the type on your posts is very small. I am conscious of needing a long overdue appointment at the opticians, but I am finding it a bit difficult to read.
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: 10 pt has been upped to 12 pt which is what it always was.
DeleteEye tests become more important with age, especially when you have to renew your driving licence. I left my test for years and got a bit antsy about the info I was providing to the DVLA. Had my eyes checked a week ago (post holiday) and was delighted to discover there'd been minimal deterioration. To the point where I wasn't even sure I needed new glasses - ordered them anyway out of a state of euphoria. Book your test now.