The Everything Salad Book (2 page)

Salads are found in cultures around the world and throughout history. The loose definition of a salad, a dish composed of mixed raw ingredients, is easily applicable to a variety of creations. The definition of a salad is “loose” because the versatile dish can contain almost any mix of raw, cooked, cold, and hot ingredients. From warm German potato salad to raw American fruit salad, there are recipes for any meal, season, or ingredient preference.

Salads were one of the first primitive meals created by ancient humans, albeit a culinary accident. Before man discovered pottery or even fire, he knew how to forage for food. A handful of wild leaves, roots, nuts, and berries was not only precious nourishment; it was a crude form of salad. Modern man may have refined the techniques and dressings since those early meals, but the basic principle of mixing fresh ingredients into a healthy and tasty creation still stands at the core of every great salad.

The most popular and recognizable salads contain young and/or leafy plants. Many civilizations recognized the value of fresh spring greens after a long winter subsisting on dried plants and smoked meats. At a primitive level, people understood that vitamins sapped away by the poor winter fare were replenished with the consumption of young and/or leafy spring plants. Thus, salad was not only one of the first meals; it was one of the first popular forms of “health” food.

Many cultural dishes call for some sort of salad and dressing combination, but it was ancient Rome's love of salads and dressing that formed the corner-stone for modern versions of the dish. Like many things, the Romans borrowed their knowledge of salads and healthy food from the Greeks. However, they added the distinct Roman element of indulgence and embellished the simple meals with flavorful sauces and garnishes. In fact, dressing salads with vinegar, oil, and salt was an extremely popular practice during the Roman era.

While salads still existed after the fall of Rome, they did decline in popularity. The medicinal community went back and forth on whether raw fruits and vegetables were healthy or poison. At times people were encouraged to eat fresh produce, and at others, they were warned against it at the risk of their very lives. While modern people may think it silly to avoid eating fresh produce, there was a very serious logic behind the recommendation.

Up until and even into the twenty-first century many civilizations used “nightsoil” to fertilize fields. Nightsoil is simply a polite way of saying human excrement. The ease of disease transmission from excrement to plant to person meant that eating raw produce did carry a significant danger, especially during a time when few people had access to clean water for washing themselves or their food. Thus, it is not surprising that the fall of Rome, and its extensive aqueduct and waste systems, resulted in western cultures turning to safe cooked food instead of potentially dangerous raw food.

Starting during late medieval times and gaining speed during the Renaissance, Mediterranean cultures helped bring salads back into the mainstream. By the late 1800s, salads were back in vogue among Western civilizations. This is due to both the boom in exchanged ideas due to immigration and to a somewhat more sophisticated knowledge of hygiene. It's also worthy to note that salads gaining popularity and the Victorian era seem to coincide. This may be partially due to the Victorian fascination with personal health and any activities, elixirs, or food items reputed to have health benefits.

By 1883, the first American cookbook dedicated solely to salads was published. Along with the wave of new salad enthusiasts came new kinds of salads, especially the new idea of molded gelatin salads. After the turn of the century, fancy salad dressings and salad recipe cookbooks were common items in stores across Europe and America. The early twentieth century saw the creation of such timeless classics as the Waldorf salad at the Waldorf Astoria restaurant, the Cobb salad at the Brown Derby restaurant, and Green Goddess salad dressing at the Palace hotel.

Many Middle and Far Eastern civilizations also enjoy dishes that can be classified as salads. The most noticeable exception to this rule is China. Due to China's ancient history of large populations and big cities, it has long faced problems with disease and distribution, and thus there are very few raw salad-like dishes. The most popular “salad-like” meals usually consist of pickled ingredients as opposed to raw.

Anthropologists note that a need for fertilized land and human waste removal made nightsoil a natural choice for Chinese farmers, so eating raw food was often a bad idea. In addition, the need to prepare harvests for transporting to faraway cities required smoking, drying, pickling, salting, and other preservation methods. The danger of raw food and reliance on preserved items developed into the logical cultural practice of eating only prepared goods.

The wonderfully versatile nature of a salad means it works as any meal, from breakfast to dessert, and with any ingredient combination, from hot or cold to pickled or raw. You can make a salad with vegetables, fruits, meats, cheeses, and beans all in one bowl to guarantee a perfectly balanced main meal or just throw juicy fruits together to make a light summer snack. Winter holiday potlucks, summer picnics, gourmet dinner parties, or school lunches, there's a salad to suit every need.

Salad ingredients are also versatile. While it's true that every ingredient provides a special taste, there are ways to substitute a similar item if you need to change a recipe. As long as the ingredients have the same texture and relative flavor, there's a chance you can substitute one for the other. For example, if a recipe calls for Pink Lady apples, you can try different kinds of sweet apples or pears instead.

The easiest salad ingredients to switch around and play with are leafy greens. Lettuce greens break into four categories; Romaine, butterhead, crisphead, and looseleaf. Romaine lettuce, also known as Cos, is crisp with a strong and slightly sweet flavor. Butterhead lettuces, including Bibb and Boston, are soft with a mild flavor. Crisphead lettuces, including iceberg, are extremely crisp with a light and refreshing flavor. Looseleaf lettuces, including red leaf and green leaf, are delicate and crisp with a mild to medium flavor.

Other leafy greens break into three general categories; bitter, sweet, or peppery. Bitter greens include chicory, endives, mustard greens, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, and kale. Sweet greens include green cabbage, red cabbage, lamb's lettuce, baby spinach, baby greens, and baby lettuces. Peppery greens include arugula, watercress, red mustard, and radicchio. Generally, baby greens are slightly sweeter than the adult version. Micro greens are tender, sweet, newly sprouted greens only a few inches big.

While many salad items are highly versatile, some ingredients are far from versatile and cannot be replicated fully. If a recipe calls for baby carrots, for example, you can only replicate the texture and not the taste. However, some ingredients you never want to switch or substitute. Red, yellow, and orange bell peppers have a similar sweet flavor and are easily switchable. When it comes to green bell peppers, though, their flavor is much sharper than the others and it will significantly change the taste of the recipe. Red, green, and white onions have relatively similar sweet undertones, but yellow onion is much stronger and may overpower the recipe if used.

With obesity and poor eating habits turning to epidemic levels, eating a salad every day may seem like a weak solution. However, people who eat one salad a day are much more likely to meet the recommended daily intake of nutrients, regardless of what else they eat that day. Raw vegetables provide an array of vital nutrients, including vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, beta-carotene, and iron. Raw produce also has a hidden benefit — hydration. Due to the high water content in raw produce, it can contribute to your daily water intake and help keep you well hydrated.

Another huge benefit to eating salad is the presence of fiber, also known as roughage. Fiber does not break down in your digestive system the way fats or sugars do. Instead, it stays relatively whole to help scrub out your insides and remove general toxins from your system. It also helps keep you regular, reduces intestinal blockage, regulates weight, lowers bad cholesterol, lowers glucose levels, and staves off hunger. High-fiber produce includes peas, beans, carrots, spinach, apples, bananas, oranges, pears, and strawberries.

Of course, salad health benefits can be limited to dishes with fresh ingredients, such as vegetables and fruits. When you start getting into salads with prepared pastas, meats, cheeses, dressings, and other ingredients, the health benefits may remain high or plummet to junk food levels. The difference usually comes down to whether you're using whole grain pastas, fresh meats, and real cheeses. If the ingredient is highly processed and heavy in artificial additives, you lose most of the healthy aspects. Nevertheless, even a sugar-filled salad with fresh fruit is a healthier dessert than a sugar-filled pie with artificially flavored fruit syrup.

If you choose to grow your own produce or buy locally grown items, eating salads can also have a positive environmental impact. Growing or buying organic produce eliminates the need for pesticides and chemical fertilizers, which in turn reduces contamination, waste, and energy consumption due to production. Even if you don't grow your own or go organic, you can buy locally grown items. Purchasing local produce reduces an item's carbon footprint by cutting out the majority of transportation and preservation required to get the food to your table.

The key to using salad dressing is to add just enough to highlight the salad flavors without overwhelming them. In addition to killing the flavor, excess salad dressing weighs down delicate ingredients and makes everything soggy. For the best results, always use less dressing than called for in a recipe. See what the salad tastes like with the minimum amount of dressing, and then add more as needed to balance the flavors to your liking. Remember, salad dressings are easy to pour onto a salad, but hard to remove if you use too much.

Vinaigrette and creamy are the two main types of salad dressing. Vinaigrette dressings, such as Catalina and Italian, are an emulsion of oil and vinegar. Creamy dressings, such as ranch and Thousand Island, contain dairy products and/or mayonnaise, which is an emulsion of eggs and oil. The third type of dressing is a general category that covers fermentation items, such as soy sauce, and infused items, such as garlic-soaked olive oil.