[Season if the taste demands it, but let it be very little].

Salads, like all food material, may be conducive to health and long life, or through ignorant and careless preparation be rendered useless or injurious. Tender bulbs - onions, radishes, etc. - and simple combinations of green leaves that grow in the sunlight, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil - afford the best results for common use, a small amount serving as a relish for every dinner and occasionally for lunch. More elaborate combinations harmonizing in taste, with richer mayonnaise dressings, may be used for variation and luxuries. As the combinations are infinite only a few of each can be given here.

Hot salads from older roots that grow in the ground - onions, turnips, beets, carrots, potatoes, salsify, etc. - with hot cream dressing are desirable for part of the time, but the fresh green leaves rich in chlorophyll and mineral salts for purifying the blood and aiding in the formation of the digestive juices are essential to health, although not so nutritious as the heavier food vegetables. Many people who aspire to be vegetarians make a great mistake in attempting to subsist upon the non-nutritious and semi-nutritious green products, thus suffering from cell starvation as the tissue building element not supplied by meat must be obtained from cereals, nuts, beans, peas and lentils as well as from the semi-animal products like eggs, milk and cheese.

Salads should be served fresh instead of being allowed to stand and become pickled in the dressing.

Pickles of all kinds are indigestible. They must not be mistaken for food, as when freely used they are very injurious. Besides the preservative effect of vinegar acid upon food, the bacteria of the vinegar, when too much is indulged, overpower the protecting cells, and as Ralston suggests, "consume the red corpuscles of the blood/' producing aenemic diseases. Green leaves dipped in vinegar and shaken retain but very little of it, hence it is a mild stimulant, but lemon juice is a more natural and wholesome acid for all purposes.

Meats should be avoided in salad. Sugar in dressing makes the combination richer in flavor, but it is less readily acted upon by the gastric juice.

French Dressing For Salad

Olive Oil. Lemon Juice.

To the juice of one-half a lemon beat in slowly in a cool place one-half cup of olive oil, or melted butter.

Mayonnaise Dressing With Oil

To the beaten yolks of two eggs add the juice of one-half a lemon. Add drop by drop six table-spoons of olive oil. When it is thick and cool add one-lialf cup of whipped cream.

Mayonnaise Dressing Without Oil

Lemon.

Sugar.

Butter.

Eggs.

Flour.

Whipped Cream.

Heat one-half cup of lemon juice and one-half cup of butter. When simmering add to it one-half cup of sugar into which has been stirred, dry, two tablespoons of flour. Remove from fire as soon as it thickens, adding to it slowly the beaten yolks, then the stiffly beaten whites of two eggs. Whipped cream improves the flavor. Sugar may be omitted and the flour used by moistening with milk, cream or water.

Fruit Salad Dressing

Whipped Cream. White of Eggs. Sugar.

To one cup of whipped cream add the frothed white of one egg. If desired sweet add one tablespoon of sugar. One teaspoon of dissolved gelatine cooled and beaten in adds to the firmness for many fruit salads.

Hot Salad Cream Dressing

Cream. Butter.

Heat in double boiler one cup of cream and one tablespoon of butter. Pour over hot chopped semi-nutritious vegetables . and serve immediately.

Lettuce Salad

Lettuce. Eggs. French Dressing.

Wash fresh leaves of lettuce. Stand in cold water a short time to become crisp. Arrange in salad dish and sprinkle with the chopped whites of two or three eggs. Cut the yolks in halves and place upon the leaves. Dress with French dressing.

Nut Salad

Apples. Onions. Nuts.

Cabbage.

Cellery.

Mayonnaise.

Chop four firm apples. Add to them one cup of chopped cabbage, one of celery, one onion, and one cup of chopped English walnuts, or pecans. Serve with mayonnaise dressing. To keep from turning dark tie chopped apples and vegetables in wet cloth and place on ice until ready for use. Chopped salads should be served on lettuce leaves and be garnished with parsley.

Fruit Salad

Oranges. Malaga Grapes.

Pineapple. Dates.

Whipped Cream. Slice oranges on lettuce leaves. Sprinkle with a layer of grated pineapple, then a layer of chopped dates. Upon this place peeled and seeded malaga grapes. Cover with fruit salad dressing and serve very cold. It may be garnished with rose leaves.

Hot Salad

Onions, cabbage, turnips, potatoes, green peas, corn, etc., may be sliced or chopped, tied in a cloth and dropped into hot water for fifteen minutes then be served hot with hot salad cream dressing. The vegetables may be treated singly or in various combinations that harmonize. Tomatoes add a pleasant semi-acid to hot salads. They should have the seeds removed and be heated only in the cream dressing when ready to serve. A spray of parsley is used for garnishing.

Hot Salad - Greens

Greens of all kinds should be put into cold water until crisp, then dropped into boiling hot water in a double boiler. In about twenty minutes the bitter taste is extracted, leaving the general chemical condition unchanged and the fiber not entirely softened, yet tender. After being drained they can be dressed with French dressing, or with butter. As the leaves are but little broken the whole bunch of greens should be scored with a sharp knife after being put on the platter. They may be garnished with sliced lemon or hard eggs.

Irish Stew

Quarter a head of cabbage and cook for one hour in plenty of hot water to cover it well. It reduces in bulk as it softens, hence before adding other things part of the water must be poured off, leaving just enough to cover the vegetables when pressed down. Add onions, turnips, and potatoes and cook another half-hour or until tender. Season to taste, with butter and lemon juice or tomatoes. Cook in double boiler or fireless cooker.

It is well to know that it requires five hours to digest cooked cabbage, while raw cabbage is digested in two and one-half hours, hence hot or cold salad serves a better purpose in every way. Only a small amount of raw vegetables are required in the system, while it is customary to eat a large amount of soft cooked vegetables, increasing labor and expense, while the nutrition is not so good.