Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume Ii Part 195

=Sa'go Posset.= (For invalids.) Macerate a table-spoonful of sago in a pint of water for two hours on the hob of a stove, then boil for 15 minutes, a.s.siduously stirring. Add sugar, with an aromatic, such as ginger or nutmeg, and a table-spoonful or more of white wine. If white wine be not permitted flavour with lemon juice.

=ST VITUS' DANCE.= See Ch.o.r.eA.

=SAL.= [L.] Salt. A word much used in compound names, handed down to us from the old chemists.

=Sal Absin'thii.= Carbonate of pota.s.sium.

=Sal Acetosel'lae.= Binoxalate and quadroxalate of pota.s.sium.

=Sal Alem'broth.= Ammoniated mercury (white precipitate).

=Sal Ammo"niac.= Chloride of ammonium.

=Sal de Duobus.= Sulphate of pota.s.sium.

=Sal Diure'ticus.= Acetate of pota.s.sium.

=Sal Enix'um.= Crude bisulphate of pota.s.sium.

=Sal Gem'mae.= Rock or fossil salt (chloride of sodium).

=Sal Mar'tis.= Sulphate of iron.

=Sal Mirab'ile.= Sulphate of sodium.

=Sal Perla'tum.= Phosphate of sodium.

=Sal Polycrest'us.= Sulphate of pota.s.sium.

=Sal Prunel'la.= _Syn._ SORE-THROAT SALT, CRYSTAL MINERAL; POTa.s.sae NITRAS FUSA, NITRUM TABULATUM, SAL PRUNELLae, L. From nitre fused in a Hessian crucible, and poured out on a smooth surface, or into moulds, to cool. Its usual form and size is that of an ordinary musket bullet, with the tail, in which state it is known in the drug trade as 'sal prunellae globosum.'

When in cakes it is often called 'sal p. in placentis,' or 's. p.

tabulatum.' A small portion allowed to dissolve slowly in the mouth, the saliva being slowly swallowed, often removes incipient inflammatory sore throat.

=Sal Saturn'i.= Sugar of lead (neutral acetate of lead).

=Sal Seignette'.= Roch.e.l.le salt (tartrate of pota.s.sium and sodium).

=Sal Volat'ile.= Sesquicarbonate of ammonia. The name is commonly used as an abbreviation of aromatic spirit of ammonia. See SPIRITS (Medicinal).

=SAL'ADS= are generally made of esculent vegetables, either singly or mixed, chosen according to taste or time of year, and 'dressed' with oil, vinegar, and salt, and sometimes also with mustard and other condiments.

Sliced boiled egg is a common addition.

Sydney Smith's recipe for salad dressing:--

To make this condiment your poet begs The powdered yellow of two hard-boiled eggs; Two boiled potatoes pa.s.sed through kitchen-sieve Smoothness and softness to the salad give; Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, half suspected, animate the whole; Of mordant mustard add a single spoon (Distrust the condiment that bites too soon); But deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault To add a double quant.i.ty of salt; And, lastly, o'er the flavoured compound toss A magic soupcon of anchovy sauce.

Oh! green and glorious! Oh! herbaceous treat!

'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat; Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, And plunge his finger in the salad bowl; Serenely full the epicure would say, "Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today."[142]

[Footnote 142: The poet has inadvertently ignored the oil and vinegar.]

Another recipe for salad dressing:--Yolk of two eggs; table salt, 1/4 oz.; salad oil, 4 oz.; mustard, 1/2 oz.; best vinegar, 6 oz.; isingla.s.s, 1 dr.; soluble cayenne, 10 grams. ('Phar. Jour.')

Cold meat, poultry, and game, sliced small, with some cuc.u.mber or celery, and a little onion or chopped parsley, or, instead of them, some pickles, make a very relis.h.i.+ng salad. Fish are also employed in the same manner.

Mr C. J. Robinson, writing to 'Nature'[143] on our salad herbs, says:--"There is, perhaps, no country in the world so rich as England in native materials for salad making, and none in which ignorance and prejudice have more restricted their employment. At every season of the year the peasant may cull from the field and hedgerow wholesome herbs which would impart a pleasant variety to his monotonous meal, and save his store of potatoes from premature exhaustion. Besides there can be no question that in hot seasons a judicious admixture of fresh green food is as salutary as it is agreeable. Much has been said lately about the advantage which the labouring man would derive from an accurate acquaintance with the various forms of fungus; he has been gravely told that the _Fistulina hepatica_ is an admirable subst.i.tute for beef-steak, the _Agaricus gambosus_ for the equally unknown veal cutlet.

[Footnote 143: August 18th, 1870.]

"But deep-seated suspicion is not easily eradicated, and there will always be a certain amount of hazard in dealing with a cla.s.s of products in which the distinctions between noxious and innocuous are not very clearly marked.

"There is not this difficulty with regard to salad herbs, and we conceive that the diffusion of a little knowledge as to their properties and value would be an unmixed benefit to our rural population.

"The first place must be a.s.signed on the score of antiquity to the sorrel plant (_Rumex acetosa_), which in some districts still preserves the name of 'green sauce,' a.s.signed to it in early times, when it formed almost the only dinner vegetable.

"Its acid is pleasant and wholesome, more delicate in flavour than that of the wood-sorrel (_Oxalis acetosella_), which, however, is used for table purposes in France and Germany. Chervil (_Anthriscus cerefolium_) is often found in a wild state, and is an admirable addition to the salad bowl; and it is unnecessary to enlarge upon the virtues of celery (_Apium graveolens_) when improved by cultivation."

John Ray, writing in 1663, says that "the Italians use several herbs for sallets, which are not yet, or have not been used lately, but in England, viz. _Selleri_, which is nothing else but the sweet smallage; the young shoots whereof, with a little of the head of the root, cut off, they eat raw with oil and pepper," and to this we may add that the alisander (_Smyrnium olusattrum_) is no bad subst.i.tute for its better-known congener. The dandelion, which in France is blanched for the purpose, affords that _amarie aliquid_ which the professed salad maker finds in the leaves of the endive, and the same essential ingredient may be supplied by the avens (_Geum urbanum_), the bladder campion (_Silene inflata_), and the tender shoots of the wild hop. Most people are familiar with the properties of the watercress (_Nasturtium officinale_), garlic hedge mustard (_Erysimum aliaria_), but it may not be generally known that the common shepherd's purse (_Eupsulla Bursa-pastoris_) and the lady's-smock (_Cardamine pratensis_) are pleasant additions, whose merits have long been recognised by our foreign neighbours. In fact, there is scarcely a herb that grows which has not some culinary virtue in a French peasant's eyes. Out of the blanched shoots of the wild chicory (_Cichorium Intybus_) he forms the well-known _barbe de capucius_, and dignifies with the t.i.tle of _Salade de chamoine_ our own neglected corn-salad (_Fedia olitaria_).

It would be very easy to extend the dimensions of our list of native salad herbs, for there are, perhaps, some palates to which the strong flavours of the chives (_Allium schnoprasum_) and stonecrop (_Sedum reflexum_) may commend themselves; but enough has been said to show that nature has not dealt n.i.g.g.ardly with us, and that only knowledge is needful to make the riches she offers available.

If the British peasant can be taught to discover hidden virtues in these plants, with whose outward forms he has had life-long familiarity, we do not despair of his acquiring the one secret of salad-making, viz. the judicious employment of oil, so as to correct the acrid juices of the plants, and yet preserve their several flavours unimpaired.

=Salad, Let'tuce.= _Prep._ Take two large lettuces, remove the faded leaves and the coa.r.s.er green ones; next cut the green tops off, pull each leaf off separately, rinse it in cold water, cut it lengthways, and then into four or ten pieces; put these into a bowl, and sprinkle over them, with your fingers, 1 small teaspoonful of salt, 1/2 do. of pepper, 3 do.

of salad oil, and 2 do. of English or 1 of French vinegar; then with the spoon and fork turn the salad lightly in the bowl until thoroughly mixed; the less it is handled the better. A teaspoonful each of chopped chervil and tarragon is an immense improvement.

_Obs._ The above seasoning is said to be enough for 1/4 lb. of lettuce.

According to Soyer, it is "such as the Italian count used to make some years since, by which he made a fortune in dressing salads for the tables of the aristocracy." The above may be varied by the addition of 2 eggs, boiled hard, and sliced, a little eschalot, or a few chives or young onions. Several other salad herbs, especially endive, water-cresses, and mustard-and-cress, may be 'dressed' in the same manner; always remembering that the excellence of a salad depends chiefly on the vegetables which compose them being recently gathered and carefully cleansed.

To improve the appearance of the above and other salads, when on the table or sideboard, before being used, the gay flower of the nasturtium or marigold, with a little sliced beet-root or radish, and sliced cuc.u.mber, may be tastefully intermixed with them.

=Salad, Lobs'ter.= _Prep._ (Soyer.) "Have the bowl half filled with any kind of salad herb you like, as endive, lettuce, &c.; then break a lobster in two, open the tail, extract the meat in one piece, break the claws, cut the meat of both in small slices, about a quarter of an inch thick, and arrange these tastefully on the salad; next take out all the soft part from the belly, mix it in a basin with 1 teaspoonful of salt, half do. of pepper, 4 do. of vinegar, and 4 do. of oil; stir these well together, and pour the mixture on the salad; lastly, cover it with 2 hard eggs, cut into slices, and a few slices of cuc.u.mber." "To vary this, a few capers and some fillets of anchovy may be added, stirred lightly, and then served either with or without some salad sauce. If for a dinner ornament it with some flowers of the nasturtium and marigold."

=SAL'EP.= _Syn._ SALOP, SALOOP. The tuberous roots of _Orchis mascula_, and other allied species, washed, dried, and afterwards reduced to coa.r.s.e powder. That imported from Persia and Asia Minor occurs in small oval grains, of a whitish-yellow colour, often semitranslucent, with a faint, peculiar smell, and a taste somewhat resembling gum tragacanth. It consists, chiefly, of ba.s.sorin and starch, is very nutritious, and is reputed aphrodisiac. It is employed in the same way as sago. A decoction of about 1 oz. of this substance in a pint of water was formerly sold at street-stalls. A tea made of sa.s.safras chips, flavoured with milk and coa.r.s.e brown sugar or treacle, was also sold in the same way, and under the same name.

FRENCH SALEP is prepared from the potato. Dr Ure says that the _Orchis mascula_ of our own country, properly treated, would afford an article of salep equal to the Turkey, and at a vastly lower price.

=SAL'ICIN.= C_{13}H_{18}O_{7}. A white, crystalline substance discovered by Le Roux and Buchner in the bark and leaves of several species of _Salix_ and _Populus_. It occurs most abundantly in the white willow (_Salix alba_) and the aspen (_Salix helix_), but is also found in all the bitter poplars and willows. From willow bark which is fresh, and rich in salicin, it may be obtained by the cautious evaporation of the cold aqueous infusion.

_Prep._ 1. (Merck.) Exhaust willow bark by repeated coction with water, concentrate the mixed liquors, and, while boiling, add litharge until the liquid is nearly decoloured; filter, remove the dissolved oxide of lead, first by sulphuric acid, and afterwards by sulphuret of barium; filter, and evaporate, that crystals may form; the crystals must be purified by re-solution and recrystallisation.

2. As No 1, but using a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen, to free the solution from lead.

3. (P. Codex.) To a strong filtered decoction of willow bark add milk of lime, to throw down the colour; filter, evaporate the liquor to a syrupy consistence, add alcohol (sp. gr. 847), to separate the gummy matter, filter, distil off the spirit, evaporate the residuum, and set it aside in a cool place to crystallise; the crystals are purified by solution in boiling water, agitation with a little animal charcoal, and recrystallisation.

_Prop., &c._ Salicin forms white, silky needles and plates; it is intensely bitter; inodorous; neutral; non-basic; fuses at 230 Fahr., with decomposition; burns with a bright flame; is soluble in 5-1/2 parts of water at 60, and in much less at 212; dissolves readily in alcohol, but is insoluble in ether. It is tonic, like sulphate of quinine, but less liable to irritate the stomach. It is given in indigestion and intermittent diseases, in from 5- to 10-gr. doses.

Salicin has lately been used with considerable advantage in acute rheumatism.

Dr Maclagan[144] states that he found when administered in doses of 10 gr.

to 1/2 dr., every 2 to 4 hours, the pain and fever ceased in the course of 48 hours. The results are stated to have been quite as favorable as those following the employment of salicylic acid. It was found to effect with certainty a great reduction in the bodily temperature.