A Recipe for Salad
Sydney Smith (1771–1845)

TO make this condiment your poet begs        
The pounded yellow of two hard boiled eggs;        
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,        
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;        
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,              
And, half suspected, animate the whole;        
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,        
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;        
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault        
To add a double quantity of salt;              
Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown,        
And twice with vinegar, procured from town;        
And lastly, o’er the flavored compound toss        
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.        
O green and glorious! O herbaceous treat!              
’T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat;        
Back to the world he ’d turn his fleeting soul,        
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl;        
Serenely full, the epicure would say,        
“Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day.”