Subject: carrot and rasin salad

From: [email-masked] (JOHN BARR (HSLC))
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 02:38:16 GMT

I know it boarders on the trivial, but I'm curious to know
where on earth this combination came from and why it continues.

Carrot and rasin salad strikes me as a left over from a previous
generation of cookbooks.  A dish once considered exotic, or
served as part of an esoteric dish at an exclusive restaurant
that migrated down to the kitchen table (we have a number of these,
Delmonico stakes, beans and rice from cassoulet).
I associate it with the 50s.  Surely Dina Shore severed it to guests
on blond wood trays on her Bel Air patio.  But maybe I'm way off.

I see it regularly in Delis next to the rice pudding.  That it
has reached that level of acceptance (so as to disappear in the glass
case with the beans) may mean it goes farther back.

I've checked Waverly Root and McGee.  Any guesses?

Like I said, it boarders on the trivial.  But most food has a history.
This one bugs me.

John Barr
Health Sciences Libraries Consortium 
Philadelphia, PA
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Jonathan E. Quist)
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 20:14:53 GMT

>that migrated down to the kitchen table (we have a number of these,

Sort of like the Yuletide fruit cake....

The way I heard it, there was only one carrot and raisin salad.
It was for a large banquet in the court of Louis XV.  Somehow, he happened
to sample it shortly before the guests arrived, and ordered it
removed, and the chef responsible for its creation was beheaded
at the gillotine.  The surviving staff distributed the stuff to
the peasants, who, being possessed of great common sense, refused
to serve it to their animals, and it was gradually disseminated
throughout the world.  Some stories claim the introduction to
the New World was through the ballast holds of early colonizing ships,
though supporting evidence is difficult to come by.

Eventually, we can hope that the world supply will dwindle to
insignificant numbers, though the prospect of a centuries-old French
salad finding its way into landfills and leaching into groundwater is
a bit daunting...

What can I say, it's Friday, and I want to go home...
-- 
Jonathan E. Quist        [email-masked]       Lachman Technology, Incorporated
DdD<zero-neuf-quatre>,KdlPP, CL450 "Gleep"                 Naperville, IL
 __       There's nothing quite like the pitter-patter of little feet,
 \/                   followed by the words "Papa!  Je parle en Francais!"

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From: [email-masked] (Jonathan E. Quist)
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 20:18:34 GMT

>where on earth this combination came from and why it continues.

Addenda to my previous followup.

I noticed that your organization is the MIT PLASMA FUSION CENTER....

Perhaps you or your colleagues could devise a safe way to convert
carrot/raisin salad into useable energy, and eliminate it in the process... :')

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From: [email-masked] (Jane Beckman)
Date: 23 Jun 93 00:56:52 GMT

I know that it's a staple of my 1920's cookbooks, and I'm
pretty sure I've seen it in The Boston Cooking School Magazine
(later American Cookery--not sure when they made the
transition of title) ca. 1915.  I'll try to check on it (when
I remember to look up Anne Bolynn's cheesecake -- yep, mind like
a steel sieve, lately).  There was this big "health food"
trend that came in about 1910, when salads became a Big Thing,
so I wouldn't be surprised if that's when it originated.
--
  Jilara   [[email-masked]]

"Every now and then, a big rock falls out of the sky, and everyone has 
a *very bad* day."  --from the PBS "Dinosaurs" special.

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From: [email-masked] (Jane Beckman)
Date: 24 Jun 93 21:18:33 GMT

Well,I checked through my collection of salad books and can
state that an "embryonic" form of carrot and raisin salad
(actually carrot-and-celery salad) with walnuts appeared in
1914 in one of Janet MacKenzie Hill's books, and a similar
version appeared in "Betina's Salad Book" in 1923.  Carrot and
raisin showed up in 1928 in "Salads and Dainties," so it probably 
evolved somewhere in the mid 1920's.  It's in my 1936 version of 
The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, too.
--
  Jilara   [[email-masked]]

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From: [email-masked] ()
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 19:33:48 GMT

>so I wouldn't be surprised if that's when it originated.

	I think that you'll find that carrot and raisin salad
	is a looooooooooooooot older than that.  The two have
	been used in Turkey, the Levant, and Iran for several
	hundred years.  I think you'll find it originating
	in the Ottoman Empire at the latest.

	Alec

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From: [email-masked] (Jane Beckman)
Date: 28 Jun 93 23:32:39 GMT

>>transition of title) ca. 1915.  There was this big "health food"

Not with mayonaise!  I refer to some versions from the 'teens
as "embryonic," because they contained unlikely ingredients
with worstershire sauce, mustard, etc.  If you made carrot and
raisin salad with, say, curry powder, it would not be the
salad we are referring to.  On the other hand, if it was made
with yogurt and honey, it would be awfully close.  (Two
ingredients do not make a dish: the savor does.)  I'm more
likely to bet it originated from some promotional cookbook
than from traditions of the Ottoman Empire.  

On the other hand, I've had a very nice medieval vegetable
dish with carrots and raisins cooked with honey and cinnamon
that probably did originate in the Middle East and were
brought back with the Crusades.  But it's not
carrot-and-raisin salad.

--
  Jilara   [[email-masked]]
That's how freedom will end: not with a bang, but with a rustle of file
folders.  If you love any of your rights, defend all of them!
-Joe Chew, on the net