Serving and saving salad

[Nick Armstrong]

... tesco's Romaine Lettuce Hearts still seem to be acceptably crunchy even in December. Provenance, however, is Spain - which will be unacceptable to some of our more earnest boardees...

I'm just having a sit down to recover from the shock of hearing you actually deign to set foot in Tesco's...

[Anna]

I'm just having a sit down to recover from the shock of hearing you actually deign to set foot in Tesco's...

Indeed, I had to reach for the sal volatile

[Flosshilde]

Indeed, I had to reach for the sal volatile

I don't think our Sal is at all volatile - very easy-going & placid normally.

Anyway, I don't think it's the temperature of the food that keeps you warm, it's eating it. And salad shouldn't be cold, but room temperature.

[Ferretfancy]

I read somewhere the other day that Tesco's are going to give their staff extra lessons in customer care, so if you faint at the check out, sal volatile will be on hand.
Previously, of course it was out the back and into a wheelie bin for you.

[vinteuil]

I'm just having a sit down to recover from the shock of hearing you actually deign to set foot in Tesco's...

... well, it's a treat for the tweeny-maid, really - to let her nip out to the corner shop. Keeps her out of the clutches of the under-butler, too...

[BBMmk2]

Yuk, Anna! Me no likey salad! Well not lettuce anyway. Cucumbers, tomatoes and the rest ok. Went to some friends of ours, yesterday evening and they had salad and they know I dont like that!! But the rest of the food was very nice!

A few Shepherd Neame Spitfire Ales were quaffed during the evening as well!!

[Nick Armstrong]

Yuk, Anna! Me no likey salad! Well not lettuce anyway. Cucumbers, tomatoes and the rest ok. Went to some friends of ours, yesterday evening and they had salad and they know I dont like that!! But the rest of the food was very nice!

A few Shepherd Neame Spitfire Ales were quaffed during the evening as well!!

At least the Spitfire helped wash down those pesky leaves And blot out the memory too!



(Looking forward to Anna's reply to your 'salad-dodger' post, Bbm! )

[Anna]

(Looking forward to Anna's reply to your 'salad-dodger' post, Bbm! )

You called?
I do know some people whose memories of salad go back to school dinners – they tell me it consisted of limp lettuce, overcooked hardboiled eggs (with that awful dark ring around the yolk), a flabby tomato, thin sliced watery cucumber and beetroot that bled into everything, plus, unbelievably a scoop of mashed potato!

A lettuce can be a wonderful thing,

At the moment I’m eating Romaine (Dolce Verde) which is tightly packed, flavoursome and crisp (they are quite large and keep very well in the fridge for over a week), but next perhaps I’ll have a mix of Lollo Rosso and Oak Leaf, perhaps watercress or Tat-Soi. Little Gem is also good of course for cooking with fresh peas (there is also a Ruby Gem), Radicchio and Batavia some find too bitter but I like them and have only recently embraced Rocket. I think BBM needs to experiment,

As to what else you include with the lettuce – one of my plain and simple no fuss favourites is grated carrot mixed with raisins and salted peanuts plus (homemade) potato salad with lots of chopped chives or spring onions.

A salad (as a mains, not a side) is whatever your imagination can conjure up. I wonder what combination BBM’s friends served him?

Ontopic: It's 25°, a few clouds

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I do know some people whose memories of salad go back to school dinners – they tell me it consisted of limp lettuce, overcooked hardboiled eggs (with that awful dark ring around the yolk), a flabby tomato, thin sliced watery cucumber and beetroot that bled into everything, plus, unbelievably a scoop of mashed potato!

Yep: that was the North-East Lancs school meals service idea of "salad", too - but with the additional garnish of a slice of orange. Incredibly bitter orange: my tooth enamel is trembling at the very memory.

[ahinton]

You called?
I do know some people whose memories of salad go back to school dinners – they tell me it consisted of limp lettuce, overcooked hardboiled eggs (with that awful dark ring around the yolk), a flabby tomato, thin sliced watery cucumber and beetroot that bled into everything, plus, unbelievably a scoop of mashed potato!

A lettuce can be a wonderful thing,

At the moment I’m eating Romaine (Dolce Verde) which is tightly packed, flavoursome and crisp (they are quite large and keep very well in the fridge for over a week), but next perhaps I’ll have a mix of Lollo Rosso and Oak Leaf, perhaps watercress or Tat-Soi. Little Gem is also good of course for cooking with fresh peas (there is also a Ruby Gem), Radicchio and Batavia some find too bitter but I like them and have only recently embraced Rocket. I think BBM needs to experiment,

As to what else you include with the lettuce – one of my plain and simple no fuss favourites is grated carrot mixed with raisins and salted peanuts plus (homemade) potato salad with lots of chopped chives or spring onions.

A salad (as a mains, not a side) is whatever your imagination can conjure up. I wonder what combination BBM’s friends served him?

Ontopic: It's 25°, a few clouds

Mercifully I never experienced some of these awful sounding "salads" mentioned around here but the real thing can be wonderful! - and, for me, not just for that rarest of things, the kind of high summer that most of us are experiencing in Britain right now. There's quite a variety of lettuces including those that you mention - and radishes, watercress, cucumber, or shredded peppers or carrots, or avocados - I cannot imagine how a real salad could be boring!

[amateur51]

Mercifully I never experienced some of these awful sounding "salads" mentioned around here but the real thing can be wonderful! - and, for me, not just for that rarest of things, the kind of high summer that most of us are experiencing in Britain right now. There's quite a variety of lettuces including those that you mention - and radishes, watercress, cucumber, or shredded peppers or carrots, or avocados - I cannot imagine how a real salad could be boring!

Let's not forget a few tasty flavour-bomb additions - home-made garlicky chivey (perhaps cheesy too) croutons, anchovies, toasted pine nuts, ditto walnuts, crumbled blue cheese .. oh the permutations are almost endless

Has anyone mentioned chicory with slice orange?

Any favourite dressing recipes?

[mangerton]

You called?
I do know some people whose memories of salad go back to school dinners – they tell me it consisted of limp lettuce, overcooked hardboiled eggs (with that awful dark ring around the yolk), a flabby tomato, thin sliced watery cucumber and beetroot that bled into everything, plus, unbelievably a scoop of mashed potato!


Ontopic: It's 25°, a few clouds

Thank you for reminding me. We had these horrors inflicted upon us, usually at teatime on Sundays, with the addition of pale pink pork "luncheon meat", and an unspeakable tinned "vegetable salad".

I also remember going out for tea in the 60s to a family friend's and getting salad. For some reason this included strawberry jelly containing tinned fruit. Has anyone any comparable experience?

Ontopic, the sun is out, there is a light breeze, and the temp is in the high teens.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thank you for reminding me. We had these horrors inflicted upon us, usually at teatime on Sundays, with the addition of pale pink pork "luncheon meat", and an unspeakable tinned "vegetable salad".

I also remember going out for tea in the 60s to a family friend's and getting salad. For some reason this included strawberry jelly containing tinned fruit. Has anyone any comparable experience?

Oh yes... visits to the grandmother on a Sunday featured just that sort of combo. For clarity, I take it you mean that the meal (not the salad itself) included the jelly...

To be fair to my late grandmother, we did not have luncheon meat, but ham... I think the latter was sometimes out of a tin, with accompanying jelly... Cold chicken slices also featured. And a Pork Farms pork pie Sometimes, on a bad day: brawn. Urghhh: bits of fatty ham in a wobbly gelatinous moulded translucent horror

As to salad: simple lettuce leaves, spring onions to be dipped in salt on the edge of one's plate, the ghastly vinegary pickled beetroot, quarters of tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs. Heinz Salad Cream available as garnish.

A major innovation came when I announced I liked coleslaw - a bowl of that would appear too.

Buttered white milk loaf from Marks and hot sweet tea accompanied (in many ways, my favourite thing, along with the pork pie and coleslaw)

And then as you say, fruit jelly containing tinned fruit - or sometimes just the tinned strawberries themselves, in their sugary syrup. With 'condensed milk' rather than cream (though sometimes the latter). But the jelly was better than the ghastly tinned fruit salad with slimy sickly juice and cubes of slippery apricot or peach and the odd cherry Put me off for life.


Afterthought: I've never encountered the bizarre 'scoop of mashed potato in a salad' recounted by Anna!

[mercia]

"buttered white milk loaf" - what's that ?

my dad could quite happily consume a tin of condensed milk, neat, unaccompanied

I still occasionally buy a tin of "fruit cocktail"

[Nick Armstrong]

"buttered white milk loaf" - what's that ?

It's a kind of soft white bread (made with milk rather than water I think) that my grandmother always bought. Still available it seems, from certain places http://www.warburtons.co.uk/products...milk-roll-400g

And she cut very thin slices and buttered them (we only had margerine at home ...so that was a bit special!)

my dad could quite happily consume a tin of condensed milk, neat, unaccompanied

Mine too! (One sometimes heard surreptitious slurpings from the kitchen as he was "clearing the table")

And I didn't say I didn't like it!

I still occasionally buy a tin of "fruit cocktail"

A shocking admission!