Why salads on American tables and in American restaurants should have degenerated, for the most part, into a dispirited leaf of lettuce underlying a slice or two of anemic tomato and topped by a splash of unappetizing-looking dressing I cannot say, unless it be owing to the inertia and "don't-care" of our cooks.

Salads should be the acme of taste thrills in a meal.

The success of your salad lies in two things: (1) the fresh­ness and crispness of the greens, and (2) the kind of dressing you select. Try improving the salads you serve, not only for the sake of better meals, but for the sake of your efforts to build the kind of health that will carry your body youthfully toward a long and active life. When you reach the point in your mealtime planning where to sit down at lunch or dinner without a nourishing salad would be like trying to eat a meal without food on your plate, then you will have attained a high degree of nutritional wisdom!

GREEN SALAD BOWL

Lettuce, escarole, chicory, romaine, Chinese cabbage, endive, watercress and dandelion greens are some of the more commonly used salad greens. Wash them thoroughly and allow to drain. Then tear into bite-size pieces with the fingers (never bruise your salad greens by cutting them with a knife), cover and place in the refrigerator until time to serve. The first secret of a tasty green salad is to have all ingredients crisp and chilled, adding the dressing at the last minute. Otherwise the greens are limp and oil-soaked by the time they reach the table. Another taste trick in successful salad preparation is to salt your greens and add the lemon juice or wine vinegar before the oil, then toss vigorously. A few suggested green salad combinations are:

Lettuce and watercress

Escarole, tomato quarters, or strips of canned red pimentos and anchovy filets Lettuce, watercress, romaine, sliced green peppers and tomatoes Lettuce, sliced cucumbers, radishes, chopped chives, green pepper rings Curly endive, chopped pimento, chopped ripe olives Escarole, chopped fresh dill, and sliced hard-cooked eggs Romaine, watercress, and avocado Mustard greens, watercress, and lettuce, with leaves of fresh summer savory, sweet basil, marjoram and rosemary.

Garlic is the Taste King of a green salad. But so few persons understand the secret of delicacy in the use of garlic seasoning. If you like your salads strongly flavored with garlic, then mince a clove of garlic into the greens. But if you wish to avoid the "social consequences" of a garlic breath, you'll welcome the news that the smell of garlic does not cling to the breath unless the garlic clove is actually swallowed. Therefore, by dropping a peeled clove of garlic into a jar containing about 11/2cups o£ salad oil (olive, peanut or corn) and allowing it to "steep" for several hours, even overnight, you may have your garlic-flavored salads and a sweet breath, too. Keep a jar of this garlic-oil always on hand in the kitchen. Use it for your salads, for sautéeing meats, making stews and flavoring roasts and steaks. If onions do not agree with you, and you still like a pronounced flavor to your salads, soups, meats, gravies and sauces, learn to use garlic without actually eating it, thereby removing the only objection to this splendid cooking herb—its after-effect on the breath. Just remember not to eat the clove itself, and you'll be safe from that unpleasant lingering odor.

FRUIT SALADS

Fresh or canned fruits, berries and melons may be used in numerous combinations to make delicious salads. By omitting the dressing and serving as a dessert instead of on greens, the same combinations make a fruit cup.) Keep an assortment of canned and dried fruits in your cupboard at all times so that you may always have the makings of a fruit salad or fruit cup, even when the supply of fresh fruits in the market is limited, or too costly.

Also keep on hand for salads a good quality of dried apricots, figs, apple rings, pears, peaches and prunes. (Also a few of each of these dried fruits cooked together with a couple of tablespoons of honey and several lemon slices make a delicious breakfast compote.) Honeyed dates (not the pitted, imported variety) blend nicely with most fruit salads, as do nuts, sunflower seed kernels and sesame seed meal.

Recommended fresh fruits for salads are cantaloupe or water­melon balls, berries of all kinds, oranges, tangerine and grape­fruit segments, ripe banana slices, apples, pears, peaches, plums, cranberries, nectarines, avocado, grapes and persimmons. Blend any two or more of these canned, fresh or cooked dried fruits as your fancy suggests. Squeeze a few drops of lemon or lime juice over the fruits as soon as blended. Cover and place in the refrig­erator until time to serve in order to prevent undue loss of vitamin C through exposure to light and air.

VEGETABLE SALAD

This type of salad is usually a combination of fresh cooked vegetables served on a bed of greens. Again the possibilities for variety are unlimited. Moreover, by combining several vegetables in a salad, you eliminate the need for separate servings of vege­tables at a meal. The busy housewife welcomes the two-or-three-dish meal. What's more, she welcomes an opportunity to use up that spoonful or two of this and that vegetable left over from a previous meal. A good combination vegetable salad is the answer, dressed up with one or two fresh vegetables or hard-cooked egg slices.

GOURMET'S SALAD (Serves 6 to 8)

1/2head escarole 1/4 cup chopped chives

1/2head lettuce  1 small cucumber

1/4 head endive  Roquefort cheese dressing

Combine the greens, chives and thinly sliced cucumber (do not peel) in a large salad bowl. Immediately before serving toss with Roquefort cheese dressing. Add a slice of cold roast beef, lamb or fowl, and a fruit pudding to this salad, and you have a high-protein meal fit for a king!

SUNFLOWER SALAD

Allow 1 tablespoon of sunflower seed meal for each portion. Prepare a Russian salad by combining diced celery, cooked peas, finely shredded salad greens, quartered ripe tomatoes, cooked and well-drained beets cut in cubes, and finely chopped sweet onion or chopped chives. Blend the vegetables with 1/2 teaspoon of herb salt and the sunflower seed meal. Add enough Sour Cream Dress­ing to coat the vegetables well when lightly tossed. Arrange a mound of the salad on a salad plate, place strips of raw carrots around it to resemble sunflower petals, garnish the center of the mound with several sunflower seed kernels and crisp green lettuce leaves placed to resemble sunflower leaves. This makes a highly nutritious protein salad that can be made as attractive to the eye as to the taste buds. Serve with a meat soup, a portion of plain cottage cheese and fruit custard for a complete meal.

ALL-IN-ONE PROTEIN SALAD

1  head Bibb lettuce, or  1/4 cup crumbled cheese
romaine  (Roquefort, Gorgonzola,

2  ripe tomatoes, quartered  sharp Cheddar are the 1 stalk of green celery, thinly best, but dry cottage

sliced  cheese may also be used)

1 ripe avocado, cut in crescents  1 sliced hard-cooked egg

s tbsp. chopped sweet or green salt to taste

onion, or chives  Sweet Basil Dressing

1/2 cup shredded cold meat, or

fowl, or flaked cooked fish

Wash the greens, drain well, tear into bite-size pieces, cover and place in the refrigerator until time to serve. Combine the meat and vegetables, and toss well with the Sweet Basil Dressing. Chill. When ready to serve, toss this combination, plus the crumbled cheese, lightly with the greens. This salad is an unusually de­licious high-energy protein entree in itself, and is especially recommended for luncheon. During warm weather, serve it with a jellied consomme and a fruit milk sherbet; in cooler weather add a hot broth and a fruit pudding.

SALAD DRESSINGS

With a wide variety of salad dressings, the same tossed salad ingredients can take on new flavor thrills at each serving. Even plain lettuce, often the only salad green available in some com­munities, may be made into a number of different delicious salads merely by varying the dressing used. Each of the following salad dressing recipes is easy to make, and contains health-build­ing ingredients.

SOUR CREAM DRESSING

1 cup sour cream  1/2. tsp. salt

1 tsp. lemon juice  1 tsp. minced chives

1/4 tsp. honey  1/8 tsp. paprika

Chill cream thoroughly. Whip in the honey, salt and chives, adding the lemon juice and paprika last. This makes a little over 1 cup of a nutritious salad dressing. For variety, the finely chopped or sieved yolks of 2 hard-cooked eggs may be added to this cream dressing. Keep in the refrigerator. To prepare Cream Garlic Dressing for cooked vegetable salads, omit the honey and allow a split clove of garlic to lie in the sour cream for about 1 hour before preparing the dressing.

FRENCH CREAM DRESSING

1/2 cup thick sour cream  1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup tomato ketchup  2 tsp. honey

4 tbsp. lemon juice, or 2 tbsp.  1/4 tsp. paprika

wine vinegar  1/8 tsp. dry mustard (optional)

1/2 cup salad oil (olive, peanut, 1 clove garlic

corn or sunflower seed)

Peel and halve the garlic, allowing it to stand in either the oil or the cream for at least 1 to 2 hours before preparing the dress­ing. Whip the chilled cream, continuing to blend in all the ingredients until thoroughly mixed, starting with the oil, next the tomato ketchup, then the seasonings. Chill before using. Keep in the bottom of the refrigerator as far from the freezing unit as possible otherwise the oil may solidify.

HONEY DRESSING

A delicious dressing for fruit salads is made by using equal parts of olive oil and honey, seasoned with lemon, lime or grape­fruit juice to taste, plus a dash of salt. Mix the oil, salt and citrus juice, then slowly beat in the honey, blending well.

FRUIT SALAD DRESSING

1 avocado  1 tsp. honey

1/4 cup heavy cream  herb salt to taste

1 cup orange juice

Blend the crushed avocado pulp with the cream. Add the orange juice and whip with a rotary egg beater until very smooth. Add the honey and salt, and continue beating until slightly thickened. Chill before using. This makes an extremely delicious and nourishing dressing for fruit salads.

BUTTERMILK DRESSING

¾ cup buttermilk 2 tsp. lemon juice or wine vine-

1 egg, well-beaten  gar

1 tbsp. sunflower or sesame 2 scant tsp. honey or raw sugar

seed meal  1/2 tsp. salt

21/2 tsp. butter  1/8 tsp. dry mustard (optional)

Mix together the meal, salt and mustard (if used) in the top of a double boiler. Moisten with about 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk, then stir in the balance of the buttermilk, honey or sugar and well-beaten egg. Place over the bottom of the double boiler in which the water is boiling rapidly. Cook until the dress­ing thickens, stirring constantly. Remove from the fire, and add the lemon juice or vinegar and the butter. Allow to cool, then chill in the refrigerator before using. This is an inexpensive dressing that is delicious on cole slaw and all the fresh or cooked vegetable salads.

LOW-CALORIE SALAD DRESSING

1/2 cup dry cottage cheese  1 clove garlic

1/2 cup tomato juice  pinch of salt

1 tsp. lemon juice

Beat the tomato juice (in which the split garlic clove has steeped for several hours) into the cottage cheese about 1 teaspoon at a time, adding the salt and lemon juice last. Chill and serve with seafood salads, tossed salads or plain vegetable salads; in fact, with all salads except fruit. For a low-calorie fruit salad dressing, omit the garlic and substitute ½ cup orange juice and 1/4 teaspoon honey for the tomato juice.

HUNGARIAN YOGURT DRESSING

1 cup yogurt  2 tbsp. chopped chives or green

1 tsp. lemon juice  onions

1/2 tsp. celery salt  1 tbsp. chili sauce or tomato

4 tbsp. chopped green or ripe  ketchup

olives  1 finely chopped hard-cooked

Beat the lemon juice into the yogurt, add the other ingredients and blend well. Chill before serving. This salad dressing contains a definite protein value. Try it on seafood, egg and vegetable salads for its distinctive flavoring.

SWEET BASIL DRESSING

1/2 cup salad oil (olive, peanut, 3 tbsp. chopped fresh, or crum-

corn or sunflower) bled dried, sweet basil leaves

3 tbsp. lemon juice or wine  1 clove garlic

vinegar  salt to taste

Whip the lemon juice, sweet basil and salt into the oil, drop in the clove of garlic and place in a bottle or jar with an opening for easy pouring. Keep this dressing in a cool dark place, but do not place in the refrigerator, as the oil will partially solidify if allowed to become too cold. This makes a wonderful dressing for vegetable, egg and fish salads. Omit the sweet basil and substitute 5 tbsp. of crumbled Gorgonzola, Roquefort or Bleu cheese for a dressing that is unbeatable on tossed green salads. But make cer­tain to stir the dressing well before using, since the cheese will settle to the bottom

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