knowing more now

When I was a kid, salads only meant one thing: iceberg lettuce torn into shreds, chopped-up tomatoes, croutons from a Marie Callender’s bag, and a glug of dressing from a bottle. Mostly, we liked ranch dressing, but sometimes there was a bottle of Italian dressing with viscous bits floating in it. A few times, there was overly sweet French dressing.

(I know folks who grew up in Italy and France. They must have been so confused to come to the States for the first time and find these plastic bottles ascribing these abominations to their countries.)

I don’t blame my parents. That’s what everyone ate as salads in Southern California in the 70s and 80s. As soon as I write that, I know it’s not true. There must have been some families eating artichoke hearts, butter lettuce, and homemade vinaigrette. My dear friend Sharon, who grew up in South Dakota, ate curries and unusual casseroles, thanks to the recipes her mom ripped out of the pages of Gourmet. So I know that quite a few people must have been eating interesting salads in the 1970s. It just wasn’t me.

For years I had this feeling of obligation about salads, based on the paltry selections offered me and the lack of taste in those pale tomatoes and watery lettuce. Salads are healthy. Salads are what you eat when you want to lose weight. Sharon and I used to convince ourselves, in our late teens, that bowls of lettuce without any dressing actually tasted good. We were lying to ourselves. We ate those salads out of desperation to change our bodies by denying ourselves flavor.

Thankfully, I’m not in my late teens anymore. Flavor is my first consideration when it comes to food now. And I eat a salad for lunch nearly every day.

What I didn’t know thirty years ago is that “salad” can mean warm brown rice, sauteed chard, sunflower seeds, goat cheese, and green goddess dressing made with yogurt and fresh herbs. Salad can also mean tomatoes so ripe they yield to the fork easily and ooze juice you must sop up with bread. Salad can be endive, radicchio, and sliced pears, tumbled on top of roasted sweet potato. Salad can mean burrata or buckwheat groats or red leaf lettuce or roasted chickpeas or collard greens or pickled ginger or mustard greens or warm tahini or dollops of yogurt or bright red pomegranate seeds.

I certainly didn’t know, until I met Danny, that a salad could be warm quinoa, slices of hard-boiled eggs, ribbons of kale, pine nuts, and carrot-coriander vinaigrette.

I’m so glad I know more now than I did in 1972.


sumber dari: glutenfreegirl.com