Salad Dressing?

stickywicket

RECIPE FOR A SALAD DRESSING
To make this condiment, your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed 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 so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca brown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
And, lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
O, green and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
T'would tempt the dying anchorite to eat:
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
"Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day."
Sydney Smith. (1771–1845)

I've only just come across this. I love the idea of 'onion atoms lurking', the 'unPCness' of 'a double quantity of salt' and the image of the anchorite plunging his fingers into the salad bowl.

P.S. Mods - it's OK. It's way out of copyright.)

stickywicket

Ah, I must have missed out a couplet.

(If the onion atom market hits a downturn
Ask the nice cleaning lady over at CERN)

mellman01

Isn't that a small west African rodent that's got ears the size of it's body?, or is it a small Scottish sausage??.