What defines a “Salad”?

msmofet

🐰 🌹 Still trying to get it right.
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How would you describe what a salad is? So many things can be a salad. Salads - Sweet or Savory?
 
When I was a kid, we had salad every single Saturday for "dinner" (ie, around 6pm).
That was lettuce, tomatoes (when in season), cucumber, spring onions, pickled red cabbage, pickled onions, pickled beetroot, cheese (usually Cheddar, Red Leicester or Double Gloucester), watercress, maybe, M&S coleslaw , boiled potatoes.
When I got to University in 1971, there were wierd things like raw broccoli, raw cauliflower, grated carrots, grated beetroot, sweetcorn, cooked green beans and even bean shoots. I went to the States in 1974 and for the first time saw salads with meat in them. Chef´s Salad - with French, Aye-talian or Thousand Islands dressing.
In the past 20 years or so, I´ve made classic Capressa, tropical Capressa, classic Caesar, classic Nicoise, classic Waldorf: I´ve made salads with lentils, beetroot, goat cheese and balsamic: bacon, pineapple and amaranth: roasted vegetables with harissa: lentil sprouts, smoked catfish, sunflower seeds and who knows what else. Plus there are two East Asian salads that I absolutely love: Thai "Som Tum" and Indonesian "Rudjak".
 
Som Tum? I´d love some, but I´m blowed if I can find hot red Thai chile peppers.
Those have been much easier to get. This is the first time I found green papaya since moving to New York.

I learned this from a Laotian cook, who called it Tum Mak Hoong. Not sure of the distinction between it and the Thai version.
 
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I make my Mother's recipe for Cranberry Salad every Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November here is the USA).
It's a lovely Jell-o Salad.
 
@karadekoolaid , are you still in the UK?
Will be going back at the end of next month (or earlier, if my mum takes a turn for the worse), but currently, Cinci!
I´m on a mission to get my grandson to eat vegetables. At the moment, the answer is pretty straightforward.
"Green, no, grandad!"
 
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