Although there are many salads of different names, there are but two dressings in ordinary use : the simple French dressing, suitable for any salad where there is no meat used, and mayonnaise. There are many others, of course, several varieties of English dressing all more or less bad - American dressings no better.

The French excel in salads, and it is rare, indeed, at a French table to eat one poorly mixed. Yet their method is very simple, so simple, indeed, that many think it cannot matter in mixing oil and vinegar whether one or other goes first, provided the quantities are right; but this is the secret, the oil must be first. The reason is this : if the leaves are wet first with the vinegar, the oil will not adhere and will lay at the bottom of the bowl, and a sharp, crude salad will be the result. This shows, too, why the lettuce must always be well dried before being put in the bowl.