My significant other ate cucumbers and onion with some ranch. I called it a cucumber onion salad. She says there aren’t enough ingredients to call it a salad, because “it takes multiple ingredients”. I pointed out she had three and asked what the minimum is. She refuses to answer so I ask Lemmy.
Lettuce alone is sufficient, but not necessary. As soon as you omit lettuce it takes multiple ingredients.
My nana calls that the “honeymoon salad”, lettuce alone
Ha! You beat me to it. My dad loved that joke.
“Do you have honeymoon salad?”
“What’s honeymoon salad?”
“Lettuce alone, without dressing.”
That’s a terrible honeymoon.
More like, “been married for 30 years salad”, amirite?? /BoomerHumor
I mean, the lettuce might be wilted but as long as you wash it I guess it’s fine. Not like they’ve been feasting, so they’re probably famished.
Also the conditions for a salad grow stronger. If there’s lettuce there’s no worry about adding hot ingredients but if it’s a potato salad you’re only making fancy mashed potatoes if it’s hot.
So teeeeechnically, a salad is a dish composed of mixed ingredients. You could make the argument that you mix any two set of chopped ingredients and bingo bongo, it’s a salad.
However, I like to think that dishes’ ingredients aren’t a taxonomic thing, they’re a probabilistic thing. In other words, there’s no such thing as “not salad” or “salad”, only shades of saladness.
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Serve it cold? Ok it’s saladier
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It’s made up of chopped ingredients? Saladier still
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Those ingredients are mostly vegetables? Getting pretty saladish
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They’re mixed together? Even more salad like
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They’ve got some sort of dressing mixed in? Now it’s very likely a salad!
… and so on. To me, your SO’a dish has a pretty high Salad Probability^tm
TIL salad is a spectrum.
“Saladier” is my new favorite word of the day.
I think this is one of those words / concepts where one needs to invoke Wittgenstein’s “family resemblance” idea. You’re not going to find some exact set of criteria that define what people do and don’t consider a salad. They instead have a “family resemblance”.
Your probably idea is not a bad way of describing how that works.
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lettuce in a bowl is salad.
To me, it has to have dressing. Otherwise it’s just lettuce in a bowl.
Pop a drizzle of oil on it? BOOM SALD
Quick edit: plug for saladguy12, who just hit DAY TWO THOUSAND
Well, the cube rule of food says anything without a starch/bread is a salad, if you want an absurd authority to point to: https://cuberule.com/
Looks at breakdown of the cube rule: Yeah, okay. That all makes perfect sense.
Looks at examples that follow the cube rule: YOU MONSTERS!!
This is hilarious! What a beautiful, pointless discussion! I love it! 🤣
Potato salad is sad now
I think 1 ingredient can be a salad as long as it’s a very salady ingredient.
Lettuce?
Lettuce IS the salad.
It’s literally called salad (Salat) in German.
How about spinach?
Yeah that gives me salad vibes
Raw? Yes. Cooked? Hell no.
I would probably still call dressing on just lettuce a salad, although I would say it’s an unusually basic one. 3 ingredients definitely counts.
Dressing already needs at least 3
By some definitions of ingredient, I see what you’re saying, although it might be a simple vinaigrette with two individually obtainable ingredients. However, OP implied they consider dressing one ingredient in the OP, so I went by identity previous to tossing as opposed to identity at any stage of the process.
Do you make your vinaigrette without salt and pepper and maybe those don’t count? The ingredient science is very complex
Do you make your vinaigrette without salt and pepper
I do, actually. For whatever reason I don’t like most dressings but I enjoy just olive oil and a nice balsamic.
One, if that ingredient is salad.
Removed by mod
Been there and found out that If you dig deep enough almost everything is either a salad or a soup
A soup is just a salad with a lot of dressing.
Soup is just liquid salad.
Fight me.
Soup, salad, or sandwich. In that order.
Soup and salad are the same thing, just with a different ratio of solids to liquids.
I guess it depends on the language, in my native language I think all foods could be defined as either a salad or a soup (even a sandwich is just a kind of soup)
I would argue the minimum number of ingredients is two.
Tuna and mayo?
Tuna and mayo it is.
Ham, cheese, and mayo?
Ham, cheese, and mayo it is.
Ham, cheese, mayo, and some croutons.
Or how about ham, cheese, mayo on some crunchy crusty bread (otherwise known as toast).
Ham and cheese toasted sandwich is now a salad.
All you need is lettuce and salt. “Salad” is derived from the latin for salt: sal
Oh i see… sal ad… ad sal… add salt… That’s pretty neat!
Potato salad is often just potatoes with chives and Mayonnaise. Your SO is chatting shit imho.
Can we first define “salad”?
If it’s cold ingredients, mixed together, then wilted iceberg lettuce and a gas station dressing packet is salad.
So two.
German potato salad is served hot. A salad is literally just any ingredients mixed together.
I‘m German and have eaten a lot of potato salad during my entire life. Not once has it been served hot
Not hot but „lauwarm“ or „lukewarm“ is very typical for same day fresh potato salad
At least down here in the south
Can’t imagine potato salad with either vinegar or mayo tasting good hot
It doesn’t even have to be cold. Look at pasta salad, or anything with grilled chicken or fresh croutons.
I’m not gonna claim a salad can’t be hot, but I think of pasta salads as a cold dish. Maybe it depends where your from.
Potato salad is generally cold too, but there is also hot German potato salad.
it’s a salad, it’s just a terrible one
Cucumber and onion with a vinaigrette though is a delicious salad.
Two ingredients must be present for something to be a salad - a vegetable and a dressing. I make all sorts of salads. Some have lettuce, some don’t. I make salad with just fennel and an oil/vinegar dressing. I make salad with tomatoes & cucumbers with a dressing. What she ate was 100% a salad. This is a weird fight.
Alright buddy. Here’s your “whole carrot dipped in ranch” salad.
But sticks are more crudite than salad
Oh, my favourite!
How do you feel about chicken or tuna salad?
Even fruit salad is out by this definition.
I feel like that’s a grey area because it’s called salad but only in the context a product with dressing (the mayo). but it’s not really a salad, it’s just called chicken salad the way Kraft dinner isn’t really a dinner but it could be a dinner. I say if it only has chicken and mayo, that’s not a salad, that’s a sandwich filling. If it has celery, onion, etc, you could make the argument it was salad.
I feel the same way about cheesecake. It’s really more of a pie if anything.
