Salad Days

I'm not a salad person, really. I'm not sure I understand the phenomenon. My early childhood mostly spanned the 1970s, and I have to feel, though I have no evidence to support it, that salads became popular in the 70s (is it much older? there are salad forks and such). This was, I figure, a response to the health kick in the 70s. One man, perhaps, more than any other, Jim Fixx, inspired the health movement (OK, there was Jack LaLanne, who was around for much longer than that), by running. Diets were prevalent thoughout this decade as well. The first incarnation of Atkins was in the 1970s (as early as 1972!).

I figure people ate salad because it was a way to be healthier. There's only one problem. Salads taste awful. Which is to say, it tastes so bland, you feel like you're eating grass. Solution? Salad dressing. You could get French dressing, or Thousand Island, or, well, I don't know what.

But literally, adding salad dressing was like adding fat. There's some irony that people ate salad to be healthier, but put something bad for you on it because they didn't like the taste of healthy veggies. Over time, low-fat dressings were introduced, and vinaigrettes, which were tasty without being so fattening.

A few days ago, we had a huge farewell lunch for a coworker. This was a "party" lunch, meaning we were ordering off a limited menu (it wasn't bad---there were maybe 10 entrees to pick from). The meal, alas, started off with salad. Your choice of garden or Caesar. I picked Caeser. I don't even know what goes in a Caeser's salad. I just have fewer things to think about when I order such a salad.

The kind of salads I like don't qualify as "salads" per se. Egg salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, tuna salad, and chicken salad have the word salad in it, but when people think of salad, they think of something green, typically, lettuce. These salads are basically mayonnaise with stuff. I've learned most people don't like these salads, because of the mayonnaise.

I used to think my favorite salads were spinach salads. Baby spinach has a mild, possibly, no taste, and doesn't have the cruch of lettuce that I don't particularly care for. But honestly, it has no taste either.

My favorite salad is an Asian salad. Go to Mandalay's. It's a Burmese restaurant. I know. They're officially called Myanmar, but I don't think I can bring myself to say "Myanmarese". They have ginger salad, papaya salad, mango salad. They're made with shredded cabbage (much like cole slaw) and some kind of dressing that's tasty, plus shredded nuts (don't care for that). But those salads I enjoy eating.

Now, why devote a whole entry to salad, of all things? I was sitting by Lance whose blog I had been reading, and as we were ordering, he asked for ranch dressing. This is not the kind of thing I commit to memory, but the memory cells were refreshed on by reading that he used to get ranch dressing at home, and for a long time, it was hard to get at restaurants, but now it's rather widely availble, and I was thinking, yes, he did order ranch!

It's a silly observation, but these are the kinds of things that happen when you read a blog. What passes for something as irrelevant as "do you want fries with that" might pose more significance if you knew the context. But then, people are creatures of habit. People like the same cereals all the time for breakfast even if, in general, they don't want to eat the same lunch and dinner all the time. Jay likes Product 19. Dave likes shredded wheat.

Maybe I'll skip salad next time.