Koolsla Coleslawness

Coleslaw from the Roman Empire with a Dutch Name…ok so it’s not quite from Russia with love, what do you expect I’m a hack!

It is however true, some sort of shredded cabbage with dressing either cooked or uncooked has been flopping around in the bassinet of food history since at least the time of the Roman empire. Apicius mentions some similar items in his cookbook of the 4^th century C.E. He also has an short article in there about how to eat lettuce without getting indigestion. Lettuce? Oh right lettuce. I am sure that it was the lettuce that was giving everyone indigestion and not the wild boar bollocks stuffed with peppered nightingales tongues stewed in honey wine, Definitely not the camel hump in squid jelly, or the dormice stuffed with stuff. (There really is a recipe for stuffed mice in Apicius, I had a hamster once, it was possessed by the devil, we let it go in a field behind our house, it probably got stepped on by a highland cow. I can’t imagine why you would want to eat one.). So no couldn’t have been any of that, definitely the lettuce, very bad for the digestion lettuce, you should wash it down with some bottled fish guts that have been left to rot in the sun for a few weeks then mixed with wine vinegar and honey…oh wait, we still do that it’s called Worcestershire sauce.

Coleslaw, right, supposedly it is a corruption of some Dutch word, which I could believe because the Dutch language seems to be a corruption of everything under the sun. Seriously I grew up with the Royal Dutch Shell travelling expatriates, some of the nicest people I have met on this festering gobstopper of a planet, but every time someone offered you a cookie you were washing spit out of your hair for a week. How can a language have so many vowels and still sound like the cat is about to have rather a messy accident on the carpet?

I like coleslaw, in a Rachel sandwich (the sister to Rueben, Turkey and coleslaw instead of corned beef and sauerkraut), as a side to fried chicken, part of a Russian salad bar, with or without mayonnaise, as an excellent side to fried or seared seafood and fish, and even as a topping for fresh baked potatoes (It’s good you should try it sometime).

Here is a recipe that has a few “Secret ingredients” and tastes remarkably like coleslaw used to taste at an American fast food place before they went downhill and abbreviated their name.

Ingredients:

1 Head of cabbage

1 Large carrot grated

2 Tablespoons of finely minced onion

¼ Cup of Buttermilk

¼ Cup of Milk

½ Cup of mayonnaise

1 Teaspoon of celery seed

3 Tablespoons of sugar

1 Tablespoon of white wine vinegar or cider vinegar

1 Teaspoon of lemon juice

½ Teaspoon of salt

3-4 Drops of Tabasco™

A pinch of black pepper

How you do this? I tell you now:

Finely mince the cabbage by hand or by pulsing 3-4 times in a food processor, mix with carrots in a bowl. In another bowl beat the remaining ingredients until smooth and pour over cabbage. Refrigerate overnight. Serve with a slotted spoon because this gets juicy as it sits, though better the longer it sits.