‘Sallets’: how to eat healthily in the way of the 1600s

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When we think of the food of the past, images of Henry VIII often come to mind with a groaning table with meat dishes. But in fact, our ancestors knew more about the health benefits of eating salads, which are usually considered a cold dish of herbs or vegetables, than we might think.

Looking back at the sustainable self-sufficiency of the past, we find that we can learn a lot about the variety of the historic salad dish, which costs almost nothing, has no carbon footprint and can even be beneficial to our health.

The journalist, writer and gardener John Evelyn (1620-1706) pursued his interest in salads in the mid to late 17th century. His model defined the dish in a very broad way and showed how one could make a living from salads of one’s own production throughout the year.

For Evelyn, the ideal garden was full of vegetables and fruits that could be grown in a simple and varied way. Evelyn even published a whole guide to growing and preparing salads, Acetaria, A Discourse on Sallets in 1699. The words “sallet” came to the English from the French “salade” in the 1300s and were of common use in the 1600s.

At Acetaria, Evelyn promotes a low-meat diet, insisting that those who live on herbs and roots live to a ripe old age. He cites classical philosophy to support his arguments about “the integrity of the herbaceous diet,” citing Plato and Pythagoras as examples of great thinkers who banished the “flesh” from their tables. Evelyn was not interested in converting people to vegetarianism as such, stating:

But this is not my job, beyond showing how it is possible with so many cases and examples, to live on healthy vegetables, both long and happily.

Over the past year, gardening and vegetable growing have enjoyed a resurgence as a family and outdoor pastime that can also help alleviate food shortage concerns. While it’s unlikely to become completely self-sufficient, Evelyn’s Acetaria has some tips that the green finger grower can use to feed their families and some tips that could help expand their crops in an unlikely way.

The year of the gardener

The centrality of salads in the diet in Evelyn’s manifesto is supported by the verse of Acetaria:

You can buy bread, wine and wholemeal salads.
What nature adds is luxury.

Although the rhyme refers to the purchase of salads, Evelyn points out that these plants are easy to grow, do not need fuel in their preparation, are on hand and, above all, are easy to digest.

John Evelyn promoted a healthy diet and eating salty foods.
Wikimedia

And nature helps with all sorts of things, as highlighted in another of Evelyn’s work, Directions for the Gardener, written about her garden in Sayes Court, south-east London. This book contained useful tips and tricks for growing kitchen table products. However, Evelyn doesn’t just comment on the expected salad items like cucumber and lettuce. It offers daisies, dandelion and springs as part of the reward, as well as cowslips (a type of spring). These and many other plants that even bloom in heaps of compost and waste soil could help the gardener become more self-sufficient, and at no real cost.

Many of the “weeds” need to be picked at the right time, and sometimes the roots and stems are boiled to remove the bitterness. In any case, the early moderns distrusted raw vegetables because it was believed that if eaten in large quantities they could alter the body. But the key point is that it has a much broader definition of what could be included in the salad family, such as the type of food plants that are returning to some high-end restaurants.

Some of the ones Evelyn recommends were new twists on familiar ingredients. So why not pickle the radish seed pods to make an attractive addition to your salad plate instead of just using the root? Or cook the stalks of a turnip (before it sinks into the seed) and eat them boiled and covered in butter, like asparagus.

A salad “adapted to a city party”

This is an extravagant recipe offered to us by Evelyn that changes our view of what a salad can be.

Ingredients

Blanched sliced ​​almonds and soaked in cold water
Pickled cucumbers
Olives
Cornelians (a kind of cherry that Evelyn claims when pickled can go through an olive)
Capers
Berberries (barberries)
Red beets
Capsule shoots
Broom
Stems of verdolaga
Samfir
Ash nails
We
Pickled mushrooms
Raisins of the sun
Lemon and orange peel
Corinth (currants) well cleaned and dried

Method

Chop all these ingredients, add some roasted chestnuts (sweet chestnuts), pistachios, pine nuts, many more almonds, garnish with candied flowers and sprinkle with rose water. Serve with a garnish of pickled pickled flowers.

The message of Evelyn’s book is to use what nature has to offer. The medicinal garden (called apothecary or physical garden) highlighted the beneficial properties of various plants, which were believed to be able to cure all kinds of complaints. Evelyn would have been proud to see a nation of gardeners and cooks today take on this self-sufficiency that was so natural to him in the 1600s. Something to ponder when we enter another new year.

The authors do not work, consult, own shares or receive funding from any company or organization that benefits from this article and have not disclosed any relevant affiliation beyond their academic appointment.

from
https://vegetablesnow.com/sallets-how-to-eat-healthily-in-the-way-of-the-1600s/