Sugar Turned On Me

If there were a benchmark for culinary dread, it would be the salad. In American cuisine, the salad is usually an appetizer. In most restaurants, it’s little more than a few shreds of iceberg lettuce and a bucket of ranch dressing. In fast food restaurants, salads are a token attempt at health food that it seems they intentionally try to make bad for you.

I started eating salads at buffets. I was in my 20’s and a friend of mine noticed that I didn’t eat green things. He more or less demanded I do so before I consumed anything else. I relented and tried my first one, but I took pains to make it taste like anything besides salad.

Some people have a taste for vegetables from birth. I’m not one of them. So salad was a thing to be endured, not enjoyed. It wasn’t until recently that I found there were ways to have your greenery and still enjoy it. It’s all about structure:

• Greens - The Foundation: While salad more or less means anything cut up in a bowl, the ingredient most of us associate with salads are greens. The default is iceberg lettuce, and while it can be a valuable ingredient when trying to lose weight, I personally prefer romaine and spinach. Both provied the texture and bulk of a salad, but have more flavor and much more vitamin A, calcium and iron.
• Other Vegetables - The Features: This is one of the places can I can play to taste in a good salad. Tomatoes and cucumber are always good here. Fresh, raw broccoli florets, carrots and cauliflower are choice as well. I don’t put a ton of each, just enough to have a taste. Variety and balance keep a salad from being boring.
• Croutons and Cheese - The Padding: These items are a balancing act: A little, and you have good contrast of flavor and texture. Too much and what was once the paragon of low carb foods just became a green cheese sandwich. As with any ingredient, I always want to know what’s in them so I know if this is what I want in my food.
• Meat and Nuts - The Ooomph: Salads don’t have to be protien exclusive. A chicken breast turns a salad from side dish to main course. I usually prefer to have meats on my salad diced fine into strips and usually just a few ounces. Nuts, in addition to protien are good for both flavor and texture.
• Dressing - The Finishing touch: The mistake I used to make with salads was to drown them. If I’ve put good things into the bowl up to this point, I shouldn’t have to float them in ranch to enjoy them. Like with croutons and cheese, this is a place where I can kill the benefit of the salad I’m trying to build.

  My preferences are towards Asian Sesame or Green Goddess. I buy Newman’s Own or Annie’s, still reading the labels to make sure there’s nothing in my dressing I don’t want in me. And I stick to a couple of tablespoons. If I need more, I should buy tastier vegetables.

A properly built salad is a good side dish, main course, or appetizer. They are not just for rabbits and supermodels and they don’t have to taste like green paper. Just start with food you’re willing to eat and then compliment it with other food you’re willing to eat.

I look forward to salads now. At buffets, I build salads so that after having them, if were to I lose my appetite and want nothing else, I don’t feel cheated. If you haven’t had one in a while, I recommend revisiting them.

If you do, you might find out that there’s something worth having at the salad bar. Besides the fruit.

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