What is salad? blog discussion

Former_MSE_Andrea

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's 'What is salad?' blog. Please read the blog first, as the discussion folows it.

Read Martin's "What is Salad?" Blog

mattogier

Why was the plate embarrassed? Because he saw the Salad Dressing! :-)

To me "Salad" generally implies some sort of dressing...

I for example do a warm salad of chargrilled red onion, peppers and courgette dressed in olive oil and balsamic - multi ingredients, all hot, dressed.

Also a "Green Salad" can just be simply lettuce with a simple dressing of oil and raspberry vinegar - single cold ingredients, dressed.

So the resturant was wrong, unless those toms were dressed!

Matt

Gingham_Ribbon

I would say a salad had at least 2 ingredients and should be cold. They could get away with calling tomatos a 'salad' if they were as you said chopped or small enough to eat in one or two bites and had a dressing on them as the second ingredient. But I think it's pushing it. I don't think salad needs to have dressing. I would call chopped cucumber, lettuce and tomato a salad whether or not there was a dollop of mayo on the top for example.

Hmmm. So tempting to google to find out now, but I'll refrain for now!

penrhyn

All you ever wanted to know about salad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad

All I know is its Rabbit food!

RobN_2

So if a plate of "salad" included some whole lettuce leaves that needed to be cut with a knife and fork before eating them, would you say that the lettuce is not a part of the salad because it's not bite sized? The same question would apply to large slices of tomato that need to be cut up.

I once had a salad in a very posh Parisian restaurant that constituted of tomato and mozzarella on a bed of lettuce, where I think every part of the salad needed cutting up smaller before eating, so none of it was bite sized. I certainly considered it to be a salad though. And you'd have to have been braver than me to have complained to the French Chef that his salad wasn't a salad because it wasn't made from bite sized pieces.

MSE_Martin

Hmmm good point RobM, but how would you then define it?

loopy_lass

when my daughter gets a side salad on her plate she says "has someone left a door open, some leaves have blown onto my plate".... she says a salad is something which must have blown onto a plate thro an open door by accident, because no one would ever choose to have it on a plate!

i guess its something to do with being 15!

is it me?

remove this if im way off track!

Nikki

To me a salad is any raw vegetables put together on a plate, but not necessarily in bite sized chunks. Ours usually consists of cucumber, tomato, peppers, grated carrot, tinned sweetcorn, spring onions(lettuce when it's not bitter) and a bit of salad cream.

System

A load of tomatoes bunged together on a plate to me would be just 'tomatoes'.

Edinburghlass_2

Well those tomatoes look bite sized to me, maybe they got the words round the wrong way as you often see salad potatoes on new pots and salad tomatoes on cherry tomatoes or salad onions on spring onions

trafalgar_2

Nikki wrote:

To me a salad is any raw vegetables put together on a plate, but not necessarily in bite sized chunks. Ours usually consists of cucumber, tomato, peppers, grated carrot, tinned sweetcorn, spring onions(lettuce when it's not bitter) and a bit of salad cream.

totally agree,it's raw veg :T