Salad Days

Today

A debate was sparked off on Facebook recently, when 2 bowls of chopped up veg were displayed. Both salad-type veg, one with the items in large chunks and separate, the other more finely chopped and mixed up. Were they both salads?

The answer seemed to be "yes" with much of the discussion centring on whether a salad needs to be mixed up or not.

In My Day

When I was a child, salads took two forms. In summer time plates of entirely separate items were arranged on the table and you took what you wanted. Included would be: round or cos lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions, cooked, pickled beetroot. There might also be a potato salad. made with salad cream, or taken out of a Heinz tin. To accompany this would be ham or pork pie, tinned salmon or luncheon meat. In no way were these items mixed up until they reached your plate, but was always referred to a salad.

In winter Mamma would make "winter salad". This was most definitely mixed. The groundwork always included celery, onions, beetroot, grated carrot and white cabbage. To this Mamma would add a range of other veg and fruit. Sometimes apple or oranges, maybe nuts; she often would add a mystery ingredient which might be raisins or some other vegetable. Everything was strictly seasonal. The whole salad was put into the big mixing bowl, then thoroughly mixed with salad cream, making the whole thing slightly pink on account of the beetroot. This would be served with corned beef and, on occasion, a baked potato. I think we used to wolf this down,

It seems that the word salad has a variety of meanings, depending on your standpoint; the main criteria these days seeming to include raw vegetables of some kind.