Great Salads and Vegetables [antikvár]

Introduction Are we slated to be the last generation to savour the new, fresh tastes of spring? Is modem science, in giving us year-round bounty, robbing us of the taste sensations of the first tender asparagus, the delicate flavour and texture of fresh garden peas and tomatoes sun-ripened on the vine? Are we to forgo the crisp raw delights of tiny radishes, baby cucumbers and little new carrots ? Today, the season of every thing has been stretched, so that if we were to prepare a calendar of when the majority of salads and vegetables were available in the markets, our list would undoubtedly extend from end to end of the year. Gas-stored fruit from all over the world is on sale the year round, vegetables are frozen as soon as they are picked, even game is popped into deep-freeze by amateurs, so that what were delights of a few weeks of the year now rumble on, half unnoticed, from January to December. Of course, the convenience of this year-round bounty is enormous. Today, we could not do without our pereimially present tomatoes, lettuce, celery and green peppers. These year-round stand-bys, together with our frozen and canned foods from all over the world, all help in the daily planning of our menus. But must we - in the first flush of excitement over the immense potential of accelerated freeze-drying - forget the subtle, wistful pleasures of seasonal foods? I am afraid that when it comes to eating, I am a traditionalist; I want my tastes seasonally inspired. I like to feel the months rolUng by. I want to make the most of the tender new spring vegetables: tiny new potatoes of the season's first digging, each one a fragile melting mouthful, served with mint or dill, and lemon butter; fresh garden peas, twice as sweet as the later, fullblown ones, simmered in butter with bacon, tiny white onions and shredded lettuce; carrots and mushrooms so young that a few minutes of gentle cooking in butter, or butter and cream, brings them to the peak of perfection. To Prepare Salads Cos lettuce, endive, chicory, young and tender spinach leaves, watercress and French mâche (Lamb's lettuce) all make wonderful additives to a green salad. For a Httle variation in texture, add sliced or chopped celery, green pepper or fennel; or flavour with finely chopped shallots and chives, especially good with diced or finely shced avocado pear. Epicures hke to eat the avocado pear au naturel with just a touch of simple French dressing to fiU the cavity. Try scoring the meat of the avocado into cubes with a knife before adding the dressing; this allows all the flavour of your dressing to permeate the avocado rather than remaining just on top. The cut squares look attractive too. In Britain, where we often get our avocados unripe, I like to dice the dehcate buttery meat of the fruit: remove it entirely from the shell, and marinate it in French dressing with a hint of finely chopped chives^ Then just before serving, refill the crisp green shells with the diced cubes which have been 'tenderised' and flavoured by the French dressing marinade. I like salads, too, as a complete meal in themselves the perfect answer for summer