What Is a Salad?

          I like nothing better than a good salad—whatever that may mean. I can't figure out what, exactly, a salad is.

        Maybe you would say a salad has to have greens, but think of pasta salad, potato salad, chicken salad, and even jello salad, all of which have no greens at all, unless they are served on a bed of lettuce. But it could hardly be the lettuce that makes them salads because potato salad in a serving bowl, sans lettuce, is still a salad.

          Maybe a salad is a food served cold. But consider the hot potato salad, warm egg salad, or a hot-goat-cheese-over-arugula salad. Nor does the definition mirror itself, for not all cold foods are salads. Cakes and pies are eaten cold, but they're not salads but sweets, and if gelatins can be sweets—puddings and pies—they are salads if they contain vegetables, so maybe the presence of a vegetable is the defining factor of a salad, especially if that vegetable is raw, as in carrot and raisin salad, green salad, and slaw. But now we are back to potato and pasta salads and beets in any salad and those three-bean salads with garbanzos, pintos, and red beans. All cooked.

          Maybe a raw vegetable just has to be present to define a salad. Three-bean salads have peppers; tabouli has tomatoes; pasta salads have bits of raw broccoli or rippled carrots But if I leave the celery out of my potato salad and use only used potatoes, pickles, and mayonnaise, you would still call it a salad.

          Anyway, vegetables can't be the key. What about fruit salads? A piece of fruit by itself is just a

piece of fruit. With anything else, maybe, it is a salad: peaches with cottage cheese served on lettuce; apples, walnuts, and raisins with mayonnaise (the famous Waldorf salad); oranges, grapefruits, pears, bananas, and grapes for a mixed-fruit salad. But bananas with granola and milk would never be called a salad, so this definition doesn't work, either.

          The only thing left is that a salad is a food with a dressing. Everything seems to fit this criterion with the possible exception of jello salads, though even they are often served with a dollop of mayonnaise, and peaches and cottage cheese, unless the cottage cheese is considered a dressing. Many people say, "Hold the dressing" when they order a salad at a restaurant, and what they get is still a salad.

          It fascinates me that we have a word that is never unclear but that cannot be pinned down to definition. The best we can do is a list of "usuallys": a salad is a food or, usually, a combination of foods, that is usually eaten cold, usually with some kind of dressing, and that usually contains a vegetable or fruit, usually raw, that, is usually, dominant in the dish. So here is a word for which the much-maligned adage really works: I may not know what a salad is, but I know it when I see it.

Next week: "Falling from Grace I"
Recipes from this post
     My favorite salad
     A raw food salad: Carrot and raisin
     A salad eaten hot: Goat cheese over arugula
     A salad with cooked food: Layered red potato salad


MY FAVORITE SALAD

Ingredients: Use any of the following

Lots and lots and lots of different kinds of fresh garden greens. All kinds of greens. Arugula, butter lettuce, lambs' quarters, and spring greens are among my favorites.

Lots of fresh herbs

Boiled eggs

Tofu chunks

Tuna or other tinned fish (kippers, anchovies, etc.)

Boiled shrimp

Avocado, perfectly ripe

Carrots

Jicama

Radishes

Grated turnips

Partially steamed broccoli or cauliflower

Green beans

Cabbage, red or white or both

Nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc.

Feta cheese or cheddar or Monterey Jack

Good black olives (not pitted)

Cold cooked rice

Flowers: violets, day lilies, or, especially, nasturtiums

Preparation

Tear (don't cut) the greens. Grate the turnips and carrots, if you aren't using baby carrots. Grate, shred, or thinly slice the cabbage. Cut the tofu into small pieces and soak it in tamari sauce. Steam the broccoli and cauliflower. Slice the avocado in its shell; then peel back the shell to let the avocado pieces tumble into the salad. Snap the ends off the green beans and break the beans into pieces. Open tins of tuna, anchovies, or other tinned fish you might like. Boil the eggs; slice them either into rounds or into halves or quarters. Crumble the feta cheese or cut the hard cheeses into small pieces (don't grate). You should use olives with pits for better flavor, so pit the olives. If you need to cook the rice, do, but let it cool before adding it to the salad. Also, put tamari or salt on it before it goes into the salad.

To make

Assemblage is all. I like to put all the vegetables into a bowl and toss them together before adding whatever else I'm using except for the boiled eggs and flowers, which I put on top for a beautiful garnish: a ring of egg slices and a cover of flowers. Sometimes, though, if I'm serving a lot of people, especially if any of them have particular dietary considerations, I'll put a mound of greens in the middle of my most beautiful large serving platter and surround it with piles of egg, avocado, grated carrots (or carrot strips, for this assemblage), and so on, keeping all ingredients in separate piles so guests can assemble their own salads. This is a very beautiful way to serve a salad. Serve the dressing in a little pitcher.

The dressing

You can choose from a myriad of good, well made, health-conscious salad dressings on the market. Or make one like this:

Ingredients

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons good balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar or raspberry vinegar …)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Salt and fresh black pepper to taste

Yogurt or mayonnaise to make a thicker, creamier dressing

Herbs

To make

Vigorously shake all ingredients in a bottle.

A RAW FOOD SALAD: CARROT AND RAISIN

This is a much maligned salad. I like it.

Ingredients

Carrots

Raisins

Dill or caraway or cumin

Nuts (optional)

Pineapple (optional)

Dressing

Preparation

Grate carrots

To make

Mix raisins with carrots and herbs. Use herbs sparingly. (I prefer cumin.) I like a sprinkling of walnuts mixed in, too. Pineapple is good. Dress heavily or lightly, to taste.

The dressing

Ingredients

Mayonnaise. Or yogurt mixed with lemon juice. Or oil and vinegar. Or any good store-bought dressing that tastes good with carrots and raisins. It's a very versatile salad when you consider the possibilities of dressings.

A SALAD EATEN HOT: GOAT CHEESE OVER ARUGULA

The cheese

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups fresh white bread crumbs

2 tablespoons fresh thyme or 2 teaspoons dried

11 ounces soft fresh goat cheese, Montrachet or similar variety

1 egg

Preparation

Mince the fresh thyme, if that's what you're using. Cut the cheese into 8 rounds. Beat the egg to blend.

To make

Mix bread crumbs and thyme. Season goat cheese with salt and pepper. Dip cheese into beaten egg, then into bread crumbs, coating completely. Cover and keep chilled.

The dressing

Ingredients

2 tablespoons plus 3/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/2 cup olive oil

To make

Blend well.

The salad

Ingredients

Arugula or baby greens

Goat cheese ready to cook

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

3 tablespoons olive oil

Dressing

Preparation

Chop walnuts. Heat olive oil in heavy skillet.

To make

Sauté walnuts on medium-high heat in the olive oil about 2 minutes. Remove from pan. Cooking only as many rounds as your pan can comfortably hold, cook cheese rounds until crips and brown on the outside and creamy soft on the inside, about 2 minutes per side. Toss greens with the dressing. Serve on individual plates with 2 rounds of hot goat cheese per serving placed on a mound of greens. Sprinkle with walnuts.

A SALAD WTH COOKED FOOD: LAYERED RED POTATO SALAD

The potatoes

Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds red potatoes

Preparation

Cut unpeeled potatoes into 1/4-inch-thick rounds.

To make

Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain and cool.

The dressing

6 tablespoons olive oil

1 lemon

2 tablespoons capers

1 tablespoon rosemary

1 1/2 teaspoons garlic

Preparation

Juice the lemon to yield 1/4 cup juice. Drain the capers, chop the rosemary, and mince the garlic.

To make

Make a dressing by whisking the ingredients together in a medium bowl or shaking vigorously in a bottle or jar. Season with salt and pepper

Assemblage

Ingredients

Potatoes

Dressing

8 tablespoons green onions

Preparation

Slice the green onions.

To assemble

Put 1/4 of the potatoes in a serving bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then with 2 tablespoons green onions. Drizzle 3 tablespoons of the dressing over this layer. Continue to layer ingredients in this way, creating 3 more layers.