50 Fun Facts About Salad

The word 'salad' ultimately derives from the Latin for what?

Romans seasoned their vegetables with brine or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings, so herba salata, salted herb, became salade in French and sallet in 14th-century English.

Which writer first recorded the phrase 'salad days', meaning youthful inexperience, in 1606?

Cleopatra uses it in Antony and Cleopatra about being 'green in judgment'. The term 'salad bar' did not appear until 1937, in American English.

John Evelyn's 1699 Acetaria, often called the first book on salads, tried to get whom to eat fresh greens?

He had little success. Its subtitle was A Discourse of Sallets, and it catalogued some 70 salad plants.

In which city was the Caesar salad created in 1924?

Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini ran his restaurant across the border to serve Americans dodging Prohibition. A Fourth of July rush had emptied his kitchen.

Which lettuce is the traditional base of a Caesar salad?

It is still tossed tableside at the original Tijuana restaurant. The anchovies many consider essential were not in Cardini's recipe; columnist Dorothy Kilgallen described them in 1946.

Julia Child's Caesar recipe in the 1970s was based on an interview with whom?

Rosa said her father tossed the ingredients in one at a time with whole lettuce leaves. Child had eaten the salad in Tijuana as a child.

The Cobb salad is named after the owner of which Hollywood restaurant?

Robert Howard Cobb supposedly raided the kitchen for a midnight snack in 1937. Another story credits chef Robert Kreis in 1929, the year the Hollywood branch opened.

Which blue cheese is traditional in a Cobb salad?

The ingredients, including bacon, chicken, egg, avocado and tomato, are laid out in neat rows rather than tossed.

The original 1890s Waldorf salad was just mayonnaise plus which two ingredients?

Walnuts and grapes were later additions. Maître d'hôtel Oscar Tschirky published it in 1896 as 'Oscar of the Waldorf'.

Oscar Tschirky, credited with the Waldorf salad, held what job at the hotel?

He was not a cook at all, yet he inspired many of the Waldorf-Astoria's signature dishes and is also linked to eggs Benedict and Thousand Island dressing.

What distinguishes an authentic Greek horiatiki from most 'Greek salads' served abroad?

Horiatiki means 'village' or 'peasant' salad: tomatoes, cucumber, onion, feta and Kalamata olives with oregano and olive oil.

Salade niçoise originated in which French city?

Purists like former mayor Jacques Médecin insisted it be mostly tomatoes, in a garlic-rubbed wooden bowl, with 'never, never' a boiled potato.

Which three ingredients make up a Caprese salad?

Red, white and green echo the Italian flag. It is named for the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples.

The word 'coleslaw' is an 18th-century anglicisation of a term from which language?

Koolsla simply means 'cabbage salad'. A 1667 Dutch cookbook already had a recipe mixing cabbage strips with melted butter, vinegar and oil.

Austrian and south German potato salad is traditionally dressed with what, and served warm?

North German versions are cold and often use mayonnaise. The earliest American recipes, from the mid-1800s, came from German settlers.

Tabbouleh is a Levantine salad built around soaked bulgur and which herb?

Tomatoes, mint and onion follow, with olive oil and lemon. Some versions swap bulgur for semolina or add lettuce.

Fattoush gets its crunch from toasted or fried pieces of what?

It is the Levant's answer to stale bread, mixed with greens, radishes, cucumber and tomatoes and often dusted with sumac.

Panzanella, the summer bread salad, comes from which region of Italy?

The name is thought to combine 'pane', bread, with 'zanella', the deep plate it was served in. The 16th-century painter Bronzino wrote a poem praising it.

Olivier salad, a Russian New Year staple, was invented in the 1860s by the chef of which Moscow restaurant?

Lucien Olivier was of French and Belgian origin and took his exact dressing recipe to the grave. Abroad it is simply called Russian salad.

Green papaya salad, known as tam mak hoong, is considered a national dish of which country?

Thais know it as som tam, and it is hugely popular in Isan, the north-eastern region whose people are mostly ethnic Lao.

Laab, the minced-meat salad seasoned with lime, fish sauce and roasted ground rice, comes from which cuisine?

Pork, chicken, beef, duck or fish can all be used, with mint and chilli. It is central to Lao celebratory meals.

Gado-gado, an Indonesian salad of vegetables, egg, tofu and tempeh, is served with which sauce?

In 2018 Indonesia named it one of five national dishes alongside soto, sate, nasi goreng and rendang.

Israeli salad, also called salat katzutz, is a finely diced mix of cucumber, onion, peppers and what?

Jewish immigrants adopted it from the local Arab salad in the late 19th century, using the small Kirby cucumbers grown in the Levant.

Lettuce belongs to the same plant family as which of these?

Lactuca sativa is an aster, related to daisies and dandelions; its milky sap gives the genus its name. Rocket, by contrast, is a brassica.

Which ancient civilisation first farmed lettuce, originally for the oil in its seeds?

They bred it into a leafy crop; it appears in tomb paintings as a symbol of the fertility god Min. Lettuce reached China only around the 5th to 7th century CE.

Which country grew more than half the world's lettuce in 2023?

World production of lettuce and chicory hit 28 million tonnes, with China alone accounting for 53 percent.

Iceberg lettuce was created in 1894 by which American seed company?

Its catalogue boasted 'there is no handsomer or more solid cabbage lettuce in cultivation'. The crisphead's toughness made it the first lettuce to ship nationwide.

British cooks call the long-leaved Caesar-salad lettuce by what name, taken from a Greek island?

Dictionaries trace 'cos' to the island from which the lettuce was supposedly introduced. The American name recalls its popularity in Rome.

Arugula, or rocket, belongs to the same plant family as which vegetable?

Eruca sativa is a brassica native to the Mediterranean and Asia, which explains its peppery mustard bite.

Kale is a cultivar group of which species?

That makes it the same species as cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Its central leaves never form a head, hence 'leaf cabbage'.

Ranch dressing was first concocted in the early 1950s by a plumbing contractor working where?

Steve Henson cooked it for his work crews near Anchorage, then bought a guest ranch in California in 1956 and named it Hidden Valley.

Ranch became America's best-selling salad dressing in 1992 by overtaking which rival?

By 2017, 40 percent of Americans named ranch as their favourite. Hidden Valley sued repeatedly over the use of the word 'ranch' for food styles.

Thousand Island dressing takes its name from a region on which river?

One story credits Sophia LaLonde, a fishing guide's wife in Clayton, New York, who served it at her husband's shore dinners.

What is the classic proportion of oil to acid in a vinaigrette?

Whisked hard enough it forms a brief emulsion; left alone it separates back into layers, which is why you shake the jar.

The word 'crouton' comes from a French diminutive meaning what?

Croûton is a diminutive of croûte. Almost any bread, with or without its crust, can be cubed and toasted into them.

The chef salad is most popularly attributed to Victor Seydoux of a Statler hotel in which city?

Louis Diat of New York's Ritz-Carlton published a recipe in the 1940s, but food historians doubt he invented it.

Ambrosia, the Southern US fruit salad of oranges, pineapple and marshmallows, is named after what?

Shredded coconut is the other essential. It appears on holiday tables across the South, often bound with whipped cream or sour cream.

Perfection Salad, one of the earliest jello salads, was created in 1904 in which US state?

Mrs John E. Cook of New Castle won third prize in a recipe contest with her gelatin-set cabbage and celery, and a mid-century craze was born.

One of the first American chicken salads was served in 1863 by Town Meats in which state?

The Wakefield shop mixed leftover chicken with mayonnaise, tarragon and grapes, and the dish proved so popular the owner turned his meat market into a deli.

Macaroni salad made with very soft pasta and grated onion is a plate-lunch staple where?

It sits beside two scoops of rice and a protein. Puerto Rican versions may add tuna, Spam, pimentos and mustard.

The taco salad, served in a fried flour tortilla shell, originated in which decade in Texas?

It is Tex-Mex through and through: iceberg lettuce, cheddar, sour cream, guacamole and salsa piled into an edible bowl.

Which restaurateur added salad bars to his Steak and Ale chain in the late 1960s?

Brinker later built Chili's and Bennigan's. The phrase 'salad bar' had entered American English in 1937.

A salad spinner dries washed leaves using what?

Dry leaves let dressing cling without dilution. Mouli brought a crank-operated model to the US market in 1974.

Green papaya salad is especially popular in which Thai region, home to many ethnic Lao?

Thais call it som tam and pound it in a clay mortar with chillies, lime, fish sauce and palm sugar. In Laos itself it is tam mak hoong.

Which US city gives its name to a dinner salad listed alongside Caesar, chef and Cobb?

A Pittsburgh salad is topped with grilled meat and a pile of French fries. Chinese chicken salad and Michigan salad also make the list.

Which peoples of antiquity are recorded eating mixed greens with dressing?

Layered and dressed salads spread across Europe with the Greek and Roman empires, long before John Evelyn tried to sell them to the English.

Which local crop, with Kirby cucumbers, drew Jewish immigrants to the Levant's chopped salad?

They found both already in the local Arab salad. In Israel the dish is also called salat aravi or salat yerakot.

Which Greek olive is typical in a horiatiki?

Named for the city in the Peloponnese, the almond-shaped purple olive is dressed with salt, Greek oregano, lemon and olive oil in the salad.

Cardini ran his restaurant across the Mexican border to attract Americans avoiding what?

He lived in San Diego but served drinks legally across the border. Tijuana's Avenida Revolución boomed on thirsty Californians in the 1920s.

In Puerto Rico, macaroni salad may contain bits of which canned meat?

Along with tuna, mustard, Cubanelle peppers and pimentos. Spam is equally beloved in Hawaii, home of the other famous mac salad.