This, my friends, is a story of disappointment.
A few weeks ago, while I was out around Bassett Street, I decided I was in need of nourishment and rather than prolong that feeling by 20 minutes (the time it would have taken me to walk home) I decided to stop at a nearby gas station to procure victuals. After extensive deliberation, I decided upon an egg salad sandwich. Reader, I erred profoundly.
Huddled in some plastic husk, it was indeed a sandwich, but only in name perhaps. When one thinks of a sandwich, one at least thinks of satisfaction, of food, of—I don’t know, grade school or something. The “salad” portion was tasteless, a little chalky and above all dissatisfying. The bread was a crusted white lie, but that’s another matter.
Which is a shame, because (and maybe I am one of the only people who feels this way)I actually love a good egg salad. I go all Special Agent Dale Cooper over a damn good plate of egg salad.
Granted, egg salad is one of the simplest dishes. In fact, most of the “salad” you find in your egg salad sandwiches is basically eggs and mayo. It’s hard to mess up. It doesn’t take eggs hand-boiled by God or some heavenly emulsion to make a good lunch. Maybe a slice of lettuce if you’re feeling fancy.
So maybe I shouldn’t have been so disappointed in that gas station sandwich. Sure, there was no lettuce, but at least it was filling. And, as with most things, it got me to thinking.
Imagine the last mayo based salad you had. Besides egg salad I guess. I don’t want to assume. Maybe a potato salad from the dorm, or a tuna salad you whipped up in your kitchen with a bit of relish squeezed from a plastic bottle. Maybe you picked up one of those fancy person lobster salads from the supermarket. But you see what I’m getting at: after a certain point, mayo-based salads are, in fact, just salads. Simple agglomerations of congealed foodbits. Nothing to lose one’s cool over. Right?
Wrong, actually. Completely, utterly wrong. What if I were to tell you—once upon a time, in mid-century Russia—there was a mayo-based salad people lost their cool over. Lost their shit over rather, just lost it all over the place.
It begins with Lucien Olivier, a Belgian man who came to own the Hermitage, a Moscow point of renown in the 1860s. He pioneered a mayo-based salad that is the stuff of dreams: grouse, veal tongue, crayfish, capers, smoked duck and even caviar, all dolled up in a type of French wine vinegar mayonnaise. It was known as the Olivier salad, and it quickly became the Hermitage’s staple dish. Think about that: at the very same time Dostoevsky’s Underground Man was peeking out in seething resentment at the world, people were going caca over… goddamn gourmet salad.
You may wonder why you’ve never heard of this salad before (maybe you have, it’s sometimes called “Russian salad” here in the states). You’d think this recipe would be a smash at all the Russian-themed parties happening (I hear it’s big among the youth right now) but guess what: you can’t. You know why? Cause Olivier took it to his grave.
What kind of salad is so good, whose quality is so inviolate, whose composition is akin to a state secret jealously sought after by enterprising restaurateurs and conniving sous-chefs, that someone would take it to their grave rather than divulge it? The frigging, goddamn Olivier salad, that’s what.
So remember that next time you’re fussing over what to eat for lunch, loath to make a quick egg salad sandwich. Just remember: somewhere in the annals of history sits a perfect plate of Olivier salad in its initial incarnation, and it may be the best damn tasting thing to ever grace this paltry earth.
Do you have any classified information regarding the Olivier salad recipe? Email Sean at sreichard@wisc.edu.