Chicken Salad

History

This chicken salad is recorded in "What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking," published in San Francisco in 1881 by Abby Fisher — a cookbook counted among the earliest written by an African American author. Fisher was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in June 1831 to Abbie Clifton; genealogical research in San Francisco records identifies her father as James J. Andrews, an Orangeburg planter who held some seventy people in slavery. Before 1860 she had moved to Mobile, Alabama — an 1869 receipt from the Freedman's Savings and Trust there records her under her mother's name — and she settled in San Francisco after 1877, where by 1882 she was listed independently as a pickle manufacturer. Before 1865, censuses recorded only an enslaver's name with the age and sex of those he held, so no surviving record names Fisher herself; Karen Hess, who rediscovered her book, noted that absence of documentation. She could neither read nor write, having received no schooling, and dictated her recipes to friends and patrons who set them down for her. In her own preface she explains that the book was "frequently asked of me by my lady friends and patrons in San Francisco and Oakland, and also by ladies of Sacramento during the State Fair in 1879," and that "not being able to read or write myself," the writing "would devolve" on others "at my dictation". Her cooking carried real public standing: she took a diploma at the Sacramento State Fair in 1879 and two medals at the San Francisco Mechanics' Institute Fair in 1880.

The recipe itself is Fisher's. She directs the cook to "take all the meat from the bones of a boiled chicken and chop it fine," to "save out some of the breast meat so as to lay over the top of the salad," to add finely chopped white celery, and to season "with pepper and salt, using cayenne pepper to taste," finishing with the oil skimmed from the boiling chicken. The dressing she calls "Milanese Sauce" — egg yolks beaten with a pint of sweet oil "a little sweet oil at a time... so as to have it light," then mustard mixed in strong vinegar with cayenne and black pepper, poured over the salad before it is set in an ice box. "Milanese Sauce" is Fisher's own name for this oil-and-egg dressing as printed in the book; it is her wording, not evidence of a European origin for the dish.

Beyond its appearance in Fisher's 1881 book, the historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular chicken salad. What it documents is the authority behind it: a woman born in slavery who mastered Southern cooking, built a livelihood on it in California, and set this recipe down in her own name.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken
• 0.5 bunch white celery
• pepper and salt
• cayenne pepper
• 3 whole egg yolks
• 1 pint sweet oil
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• strong vinegar
• cayenne and black pepper

Instructions

1. Remove all meat from the bones of a boiled chicken and chop it fine in a tray.
2. Set aside some of the breast meat to lay over the top of the salad when finished.
3. Chop half a bunch of white celery fine and add to the chicken.
4. Season the chicken with pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.
5. Skim the oil from the boiling water of the chicken to use for pouring over the salad.
6. Beat the egg yolks lightly.
7. Add one pint of best sweet oil to the beaten eggs, beating a little oil at a time into the eggs so as to have it light, until the whole pint is added.
8. Mix a teaspoonful of mustard thoroughly in strong vinegar.
9. Put the vinegar mixture into the sauce with cayenne and black pepper to suit the taste.
10. Place the salad on the platter and pour the Milanese sauce all over it.
11. Set the salad in an ice box.