What is a Salad & When is a Salad Not a Salad ?

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Francesca

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According to Wikipedia, a salad is a dish consisting of small pieces of food, usually predominately, vegetables served cold or hot or a combination .. However, there are as many salads as there are people on planet Earth.

Types:

Appetiser salads. ( Caprese, Antipasto, Field Greens such as Rocket & Radicchio & Greek Salad for examples )
Side salads. ( this is relatively rare in Spain )
Main Course Salads ( protein main ingredient): Chicken salad, Shrimp Salad, Tuna Salad, Smoked Salmon Salad, The Olivier Salad, Roast Beef Salad, Niçoise, Chef Salad - some common examples ) ..
Dessert Salads ( fruit )

So, when is a salad, not a salad ? !
 
Its an interesting question - in the West we think of salads as being cold, probably leafy and/or made predominantly from raw vegetables and/or fruit in a dressing. So, if a salad is made from warm ingredients it will be called 'a warm salad' in restaurant terms.

If made from other ingredients such as eggs or cooked potatoes then the word salad is usually prefaced by the main ingredient: i.e. Potato Salad.
 
Some etymology:
Why do we call it salad?
The basis for the word salad is 'sal', meaning salt. This was chosen because in ancient times, salt was often an ingredient in the dressing. Notes here:

"Salad, a term derived from the Latin sal (salt), which yielded the form salata, 'salted things' such as the raw vegetables eaen in classical times with a dressing of oil, vinegar or salt. The word turns up in Old French as salade and then in late 14th century English as salad or sallet."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2nd edition, 2006 (p. 682)

"Etymologically, the key ingredient of salad, and the reason for its getting its name, is the dressing. The Romans were enthusiastic eaters of salads, many of their differing hardly at all from present-day ones--a simple selection of raw vegetables...--and they always used a dressing of some sort: oil, vinegar, and often brine. And hence the name salad, which comes from Vulgar Latin Herba salata, literally 'salted herb'."
---An A-Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 294)
Click to expand...
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodsalads.html
 
To me, a salad is petty much any combination of (usually) raw vegetables put together. It does not have to be chopped and mixed. It does not have to be served in a salad bowl, and it does not have to a dressing/sauce/or anything else. My definition though has been labelled as crudities by some, but so what? I came across this definition as a teenager whilst at school in Germany (for a short period). My hosts would often just ask a restaurant to come up with a vegetarian salad for me because often there wasn't anything on the menu back then. The end result was more often than not a plate of various salad items, some small portions of potato salad, coleslaw, mixed leaves, and raw veg prepared to look good on a plate.

All of the below constitute a salad to me.

5 lentil & black eyed pea salad

5 lentil & black eyed pea salad

5 lentil & black eyed pea salad
8th November 2016

8th November 2016

Lunch today. And immediately after I had eaten it, I got that phone call that said, I will be...
Potato and Red Grape Salad

Potato and Red Grape Salad

Potato and Red Grape Salad served with mixed raw veg, leaves, fresh herbs, fruit and raw onion...

These would often be served with a hummus and senap (Swedish sweet mustard) dip in a small bowel to the side.
Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
To me, a salad is petty much any combination of (usually) raw vegetables put together. It does not have to be chopped and mixed. It does not have to be served in a salad bowl, and it does not have to a dressing/sauce/or anything else. My definition though has been labelled as crudities by some, but so what? I came across this definition as a teenager whilst at school in Germany (for a short period). My hosts would often just ask a restaurant to come up with a vegetarian salad for me because often there wasn't anything on the menu back then. The end result was more often than not a plate of various salad items, some small portions of potato salad, coleslaw, mixed leaves, and raw veg prepared to look good on a plate.

All of the below constitute a salad to me.

5 lentil & black eyed pea salad

5 lentil & black eyed pea salad

5 lentil & black eyed pea salad
8th November 2016

8th November 2016

Lunch today. And immediately after I had eaten it, I got that phone call that said, I will be...
Potato and Red Grape Salad

Potato and Red Grape Salad

Potato and Red Grape Salad served with mixed raw veg, leaves, fresh herbs, fruit and raw onion...

These would often be served with a hummus and senap (Swedish sweet mustard) dip in a small bowel to the side.
Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Salad

Click to expand...


@SatNavSaysStraightOn

Incredibile photographs !

I consider all these salads too ..

Have a lovely weekend ..
 
Duck59 said:
When I lived in Eritrea, many of the words for types of food were either equivalent or close to the Italian word. Salad was salata, which is not too far removed from the Italian and, in fact, equivalent to the Romanian salată.
Click to expand...

@Duck59

It is a Latin Word meaning " Salty " as in Spanish, " salado " ..

Salad in Italian = Insalata ..

( French = Salade .. / Spanish = Ensalada .. )
 
morning glory said:
How do you say 'salad' in Thai, @Yorky? Or perhaps that word doesn't really exist there?
Click to expand...

I don't think there is a specific word for it. Many Thai salads exist but each has a name, e.g. som tam, laarb, yam gai. However, I shall ask my wife later.

[Edit: apparently there is a Thai name for it - "salad" (สลัด).]
 
Last edited:
What about a soup? In Austria we used to have lettuce soup quite a lot. Sometimes it would have other salad vegetables in it, especially tomatoes or onions.
 
Elawin said:
What about a soup? In Austria we used to have lettuce soup quite a lot. Sometimes it would have other salad vegetables in it, especially tomatoes or onions.
Click to expand...

Is this hot lettuce soup? I haven't made a lettuce soup for decades - I think it might have been back in the 70's.
 
morning glory said:
Is this hot lettuce soup? I haven't made a lettuce soup for decades - I think it might have been back in the 70's.
Click to expand...
As far as I can remember. Goodness knows where the recipe is. It was one I wrote down when I was out there. I do have a recipe for cucumber soup, which is definitely hot
 
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