text by Sydney Smith
SATB quartet or chamber choir
4 min. 20 sec.
Recipe For A Salad takes its text from a poem of the same name, by English writer, Sydney Smith (1771-1845). Its witty, playful imagery and rhythmic meter inspired this work composed for SATB choir, with piano accompaniment.
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“To make this condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boil’d eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
Let the onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt…
And lastly o’er the flavour’d compound toss
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
‘Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
‘Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today.’”
Sydney Smith (1771-1845)
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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.