Salads

A salad is a food item generally served either before or after the main dish as a separate course, as a main course in itself, or as a side dish accompanying the main dish. The word "salad" comes from the French salade of the same meaning, from the Latin salata, "salty", from sal, "salt". (See also sauce, salsa, sausage.)

Salad also commonly refers to a blended food item— often meat, seafood or eggs blended with mayonnaise, finely chopped vegetables and seasonings— which can be served as part of a green salad, but is often used as a sandwich filling. Salads of this kind include egg, chicken, tuna, shrimp, and ham salad.

In Denmark salad also refers to a blend of vegetables in a dressing used as a condiment on top of the famous Danish open sandwich, smørrebrød, and with meats. Examples include cucumber salad, horseradish salad, Italian salad (a mixture of vegetables in a creme fraiche/mayonnaise dressing, served on ham), and Russian salad (a red beet salad).

The green salad

The "green salad" is most often composed of a mixture of uncooked vegetables, built up on a base of leaf vegetables such as one or more lettuce varieties, dandelion, spinach, or arugula.

Other common vegetables in a green salad include tomato, cucumber, peppers, mushroom, onion, spring onion, carrot and radish. Other food items such as pasta, olives, cooked potatoes, rice, beans, croutons, meat (e.g. bacon, chicken), cheese, or fish (e.g. tuna) are sometimes added to salads.

Types of green salad

• Caesar salad
• Chef salad
• Cobb salad
• Greek salad
• Italian salad
• Mesclun salad
• Niçoise salad

Salad dressings

A green salad is often served with a dressing. Some examples include:

• Mayonnaise
  • Louis dressing
  • Ranch dressing
  • Russian dressing
  • Thousand Island dressing
• Olive oil
  • French dressing
• Vinaigrette
• Tahini

Conception of salad dressing vary across culture. Common salad dressings in North American tend to be very broad. Traditional dressings in southern Europe were vinaigrettes. In China, where Western salad is a recent adoption from Western cuisine, the term salad dressing (沙拉酱, shalajiang) tends to refer predominantly to mayonnaise or mayonnaise-based dressings.

Other types of salads

A Watergate salad

Some salads are based on food items other than fresh vegetables:

• Various Bean salads like green bean salad, seven bean salad
• Chicken salad
• Egg salad
• Fruit salad—sliced, peeled fruits served in their own juices or with a dressing.
• Larb—the national dish of Laos, made from raw or cooked meat with herbs, spices and lime juice
• Pasta salad
• Potato salad
• Shopska salad—named after Sofia, Bulgaria, made with vegetables and feta cheese
• Somen salad—Japanese somen noodles, garnish, and a vinegar-based sauce; served cold
• Som tam—Thai salad made with raw papaya and fish sauce
• Tabouli—wheat bulgur, parsley, tomatoes, cucumber, lemon juice, oil, served cold
• Waldorf salad—apples, celery, walnuts, and a creamy dressing
• Watergate salad—pistachio pudding, crushed pineapple, marshmallows, mandarin oranges, and whipped cream

History

In the Middle Ages, after a long winter of salted meats and pickled vegetables, people would be "salt-sick" and starving for spring greens. A pregnant wife's yearning for rapunzel growing in the garden next door inspired the fairy tale of Rapunzel. Popular history asserts that peasants ate more salads than lords, and were the healthier for it, and in fact salads, cooked and raw, included many ingredients that would be "gourmet" today: lovage, burnet, sorrel.

The diarist John Evelyn wrote a book on salads, Acetaria: A Discourse on Sallets (1699), that describes the new salad greens like "sellery" (celery), coming out of Italy and the Netherlands.

There is also a Canadian rock/ska/regae band, called The Salads, who are known for their hit songs 'Get Loose', 'The Roth Kung Fu', and 'Today Is Your Lucky Day'.

External links

Wikibooks Cookbook has more about this subject:

Salad Recipes

• Alice Roth, "Sallets"
• Complete Recipes - Salads
• Lettuces for the home gardener
• Salad Greens for the home gardener