A perfect salad is not necessarily acetic.

The presence of vinegar in a dressing, like that of onions and its relatives, on most occasions should be suspected only.

Wyvern and other true epicures consider the advice of Sydney Smith, as expressed in the following couplet, "most pernicious":-- "Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar procured from town." Aromatic vinegars, a few drops of which, used occasionally, lend piquancy and variety to an every-day salad, can be purchased at high-class provision stores; but the true salad-maker is an artist, and prefers to compound her own colors (_i.e._, vinegars); therefore we have given several recipes for the same, which may be easily modified to suit individual tastes.
Indeed, the dressing of a salad, though in the early days of the century considered a special art,--an art that rendered it possible for at least one noted Royalist refugee to amass a considerable fortune,--is entirely a matter of individual taste, or, more properly speaking, of cultivation.

On this account, particularly for a French dressing, no set rules can be given.

By experience and judgment one must decide upon the proportions of the different ingredients, or, more specifically, upon the proportions of the oil and acid to be used.