Kitchen Garden Forum

We were having salad for lunch today and reminiscing how the concept of "salad"has changed over the years.
As a child salad a typical salad would consist of a leaf or two of butternut lettuce, a slice of tomato and a couple of slices of cucumber. If you were lucky there might be a slice of beetroot.

Today we had a red cabbage, carrot & apple coleslaw with a baby sorrel & frisée endive leaf salad and it didn,t seem at all unusual. I,m sure others can reflect how their menus have changed over the years as we,ve become a more cosmopolitan nation and left our wartime menus behind us.

And this summer we,ve been feasting on Home grown tomato, green bean & cucumber salads, My parents grew beans & tomatoes during the war and when I was a child but I never recall them being served mixed in a salad. My dad had very conservative tastes so perhaps it was just our household which never experimented much with what was available. I,ve read that it was Elizabeth David who encouraged the British to leave their culinary straitjackets behind them. We certainly never ate anything my dad would classify as "queer gear" in our household. Even mushrooms were regarded with the deepest suspicion!

That indeed might be so Primrose, but I do crave the typical salad I had as a child which was lettuce, cucumber, tomato & red onion, all nicely presented with the fork marks in the cucumber skin. Of course the home made salad cream was essential & made it perfect & I still make it today. (Just condensed milk, mustard powder & vinegar with a bit of S & P - don't tell Heinz but you can adjust the flavour to suit your palate so their one taste suits all is now redundant)!

I like the sound of your homemade salad cream Westi. Please may I have the recipe as I have salad cream on most meals, whether deemed appropriate or not....

I will give my eldest daughter your recipe westi ,she runs the laboratory at heinz

Oops Robo! In my defence it was outback Aussie & we didn't have Heinz or even a supermarket as such but cool shop that sold anything for man or beast!

There is no recipe just the ingredients that you mix & dip your finger in until you are happy. If I throw any ham in I up the mustard, hard leaf lettuce gets a bit more acid with the vinegar as they can take it, soft leave get a touch more condensed milk. It is personal taste (or suck it & see to be more accurate) - only hint I have is to buy the condensed milk in the tube not the can as you will have too much waste otherwise.

Haven,t had condensed milk since I was a kid. Used to love it and didn't,t know you could buy it in a tube. Must try one. Sound great for secret snacking, like digging a spoon in a jar of Horlicks powder, or carving a chunk off a block of marzipan for a sweet snack !