Food mixture, served chilled or at room temperature
This article is about the type of culinary dish. For other uses, see Salad (disambiguation).
A salad is a dish consisting of mixed ingredients, frequently vegetables. They are typically served chilled or at room temperature, though some can be served warm. Condiments and salad dressings, which exist in a variety of flavors, are often used to enhance a salad.
When a sauce is used to flavor a salad, it is generally called a dressing; most salad dressings are based on either a mixture of oil and vinegar or a creamy dairy base.
Etymology
The word "salad" comes to English from the Frenchsalade of the same meaning, itself an abbreviated form of the earlier Vulgar Latinherba salata (salted herb), from the Latinsalata (salted), from sal (salt). In English, the word first appears as "salad" or "sallet" in the 14th century. Salt is associated with salad because vegetables were seasoned with brine (a solution of salt in water) or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings during Roman times.[1]
The phrase "salad days", meaning a "time of youthful inexperience" (based on the notion of "green"), is first recorded by Shakespeare in 1606,[1] while the use of salad bar, referring to a buffet-style serving of salad ingredients, first appeared in American English in 1937.[2]
History
The Romans and ancient Greeks ate mixed greens with dressing, a type of mixed salad.[3][4] Salads, including layered and dressed salads, have been popular in Europe since the Greek and Roman imperial expansions. In his 1699 book, Acetaria: A Discourse on Sallets,[5]John Evelyn attempted with little success to encourage his fellow Britons to eat fresh salad greens.[6]Mary, Queen of Scots, ate boiled celery root over greens covered with creamy mustard dressing, truffles, chervil, and slices of hard-boiled eggs.[citation needed]
Oil used on salads can be found in the 17th-century colony of New Netherland (later called New York, New Jersey and Delaware). A list of common items arriving on ships and their designated prices when appraising cargo included "a can of salad oil at 1.10 florins" and "an anker of wine vinegar at 16 florins".[7] In a 1665 letter to the Director of New Netherland from the Island of Curaçao there is a request to send greens: "I request most amicably that your honors be pleased to send me seed of every sort, such as cabbage, carrots, lettuce, parsley, etc. for none can be acquired here and I know that your honor has plenty,...".[8]
Salads may be sold in supermarkets, at restaurants and at fast food chains. In the United States, restaurants may have a salad bar with salad-making ingredients, which the customers will use to put together their salad.[9] Salad restaurants were earning more than $300 million in 2014.[10] At-home salad consumption in the 2010s was rising but moving away from fresh-chopped lettuce and toward bagged greens and salad kits, with bag sales expected to reach $7 billion per year.[11]
Types
A salad can be a composed salad (with the ingredients specifically arranged on the serving dish) or a tossed salad (with the ingredients placed in a bowl and mixed, often with salad dressing). An antipasto plate, the first dish of a formal Italian meal, is similar to a composed salad, and has vegetables, cheese, and meat.[citation needed]
A wide variety of cheeses are used in dinner salads, including Roquefort blue cheese (traditional for a Cobb salad), and Swiss, Cheddar, Jack, and Provolone (for chef and Cobb salads).[citation needed]
Dessert salads rarely include leafy greens and are often sweet. Common variants are made with gelatin or whipped cream; e.g. jello salad, pistachio salad, and ambrosia. Other forms of dessert salads include regional dishes such as Midwestern America's ambrosia-like glorified rice and cookie salad, which contains crumbled cookies as an ingredient.[13]
"Birth of the salad bar; Local restaurant owners may have invented the common buffet," The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL), 28 December 2001, Magazine section (p. 10A)
Melissa Barlow, Stephanie Ashcraft. Things to Do with a Salad: One Hundred One Things to Do With a Salad. Gibbs Smith, 2006. ISBN1-4236-0013-4. 128 pages, page 7.
Further reading
Frances Barber Harris (1918), Florida Salads: a collection of dainty, wholesome salad recipes that will appeal to the most fastidious, Jacksonville, Fla: Jacksonville Printing Co., OCLC509840, OL6612631M
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Salads, and is written by contributors.
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