Ethelind Fearon's Salad

Ethelind Fearon was writing soon after World War II. This salad is from The Reluctant Cook. The Reluctant Hostess is good too.

Possible inclusions are:

Spring onions
Hard-boiled eggs
Sliced dates
Sliced olives
Sultanas
Apples
Oranges
Bananas
Beetroot
Tomatoes
Celery
Cucumber
Cold vegetable marrow
Radishes
Cold French beans
Cold peas
Watercress
Small strawberries

The most unorthodox salad of my life had all of these and a bit of chopped cold ham as well. All the ingredients were chopped, for ease of handling, to about 1/2-inch lengths and bound with a good [salad] cream...

1 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp olive oil
3 teasp sugar
1 teasp salt
1/2 teasp pepper
1 egg
1/2 pint milk
1/2 pint vinegar

Mix dry ingredients, then add well-beaten egg, oil, milk and vinegar in that order. Put in double saucepan and stir until it thickens. On no account let it boil.

You could probably make a decent salad out of three of those ingredients. But perhaps not cold marrow, radishes and dates...

The vicar and writer Sidney Smith once wrote a recipe for salad dressing in the form of a poem. I've always wanted to try making it. Coming up...