Dear Abbé

La postérité a droit aux œuvres du génie; et, en temps de révolution, un peu de cuisine, ça repose.

Cette salade est calculée pour quinze personnes. Elle est encore meilleure le lendemain, mais il est rare qu'il en reste. Prenez une balance et la pose majestueuse de la Justice telle qu'on la voit sur le papier timbré; et, pénétré de la gravité de votre mission, pesez sans partialité ni erreur les espèces suivantes:

Tout se met dans le saladier, par couches dans l'ordre ci-dessus, excepté les câpres, les betteraves et la fourniture qui se mettent dessus.

ASSAISONNEMENT

Cet assaisonnement se fait dans un bol à part; on mêle bien le tout et on le verse sur la salade, bien également, religieusement, avec une cuiller, mais sans remuer. On laisse le tout reposer et s'imbiber trois heures, sans y toucher, ayant bien soin de le recouvrir d'un grand plat. On ne le remue qu'au moment de servir.

Et maintenant, si on trouve plus tard cette recette dans mes mémoires, et qu on en plaisante, je m'en console: une salade pareille, c'est une partition, et on ne doit reculer devant rien quand on peut rendre service au pays.

                    —Gustave Roger, Le Carnet d'un tenor (Paris, 1880), pp. 186-88.

as found in the Food Journal, 1 August 1872:

Cooking is a fine art in Paris, and has its crowds of connoisseurs and amateurs, and, consequently, its exaggerations, its fantacies, in short, its dilettanteism. The following is the receipt given for a salad by the famous tenor Roger, who had it served at a dinner given by him in 1848 to his friend Meyerbeer:-- "Take a balance," says M. Roger, who has just published the receipt, "assume the majestic attitude of justice, and mindful of the gravity of your mission, weigh without partiality or error the following ingredients:-- Reponce, the root cut into pieces, an inch long, and the leaves cut small, 57 grammes; celery, 115 gram.; pickled gherkins, 65 gram.; capers, 60 gram.; pickled onions, 42 gram.; white cooked beetroot, 70 gram.; red cooked beetroot, 70 gram.; truffles cooked, white and black, 100 gram.; endive, heart only, 85 gram.; Escarole, 150 gram.; cabbage lettuce, heart, 30 gram.; white haricot beans cooked, 130 gram.; green French beans cooked, 85 gram.; anchovy, 90 gram.; turkey wheat, estragon, or capucines, 35 gram.; one long pepper pickled, "as big as a nut" (a capsicum); cauliflour, boiled, 70 gram.; potatoes, boiled 150 gram.; herbs,-- tarragon, cerfeuil, and pimpreuelle, chopped fine, 25 gram." The above was calculated for fifteen persons. The ingredients are to be placed in a bowl in the order given in the above receipt, the capers, beetroot, and herbs, are to be laid on the top. The mixture for the salad is given as follows:-- 2 teaspoonfuls of Bordin mustard; 1 tablespoonful of pepper; 1 dessertspoonful of salt; 9 tablespoonfuls of tarragon vinegar; 11 tablespoonfuls of olive oil of Aix. This is to be carefully mixed and finally sprinkled equally over the salad with a spoon; the whole is then to be covered with a plate, and left to stand for three hours, the salad to be turned over and mixed at the moment of serving only. This salad is better even on the second day than the first, says M. Roger, only none of it is ever left! "A salad like this," adds M. Roger, "is a grand harmony, and one should hesitate at nothing which can render service to our country. Posterity has a right to the works of genius." Now this has certainly more the air of an elaborate joke than anything else, but it is not so. The salad in question is known as La Salade Boursault, it has received the high enconiums of the late Alexandre Dumas, a famous gourmet, and it was only in honour of his celebrated guest that M. Roger called it La Salade Meyerbeer.

Gustave Roger (1815-79)