My Journey of Discovery

The Summer is upon us and I've been eating my fair share of salad in the last few weeks and I found myself questioning exactly what a salad is.

According to the dictionary it is "A food made primarily of a mixture of raw or cold ingredients, typically vegetables, usually served with a dressing such as vinegar or mayonnaise".

So how many "Raw ingredients" do you need in order for it to be a bonifide salad? Why is it that pubs advertise a "Side Salad" when in fact it is just a pile of wet lettuce? Why is it that Supermarkets can sell "Salad Bags" which are just bags of wet lettuce.

Surely these should be called Lettuce Bags, not Salad Bags. Imagine, if they were to add a new Lettuce to the range. Imagine if they had a selection that included not only Cos, Little Gem and Iceberg, but an Italian Lettuce called Feelur. I wouldn't want to be asking a kind shop assistant... "Lettuce Feelur Bags?" That's a long way to go for a poor punch line, I apologise.

As I have said above, there is no vegetable called "Salad", its a name given to a certain selection of vegetables as a whole. What if they did that in other areas of the supermarket?

Maybe they would have a "Hang Over" section which consists of paracetemol, toilet roll, bacon, eggs, red bull, throat sweets and the morning after pill. Maybe even a "Students section" packed full of happy shopper items, pasta and white lightening or a "Single Mums" section consisting of Nappies, Rothmans, Woman's Own and a selection of Shell Suits. Just a thought.

I've been told that Watercress falls into the realms of salad. I've never really got to grips with watercress. It's not cress as I know it and it's not water, although the taste is pretty similar to the latter.

There is a Watercress Soup! A soup which tastes of peppered water. Now, pepper makes you sneeze, which is ironic, as that is exactly what watercress soup looks like. If it tasted like it too, it would be an improvement.

I'm of the opinion that Cabbage, Spinach and Watercress are all too similar and there should only be space for a maximum of two. The only fair way to decide would be alphabetically, so that's Cabbage and Spinach saved and Watercress out.

My journey of discovery has seen me stumble across many definitions, but also many different types of salads. I'd like to quickly go through three of my favourites.

Waldorf Salad. Created in New York in 1893 by Oscar Tschirky, the Maitre D' of the hotel Waldorf Astoria. It consists of celery, apples, mayonnaise and walnuts.

Now, obviously this salad was named after the hotel it was first made in. I think that was a sensible choice on the Maitre D's part as I can't see the Tschirky salad catching on. I can see a lot of drunk people ending up with a Turkey Salad, although in fairness the only time drunk people eat salad is when it's sandwiched between donna meat and a pita bread.

So now we have the interesting question of whether Walnuts and Apples are Salad ingredients. I have to say they fit quite snuggly into the Fruit and Nut sections and should pretty much stay there.

The Ploughman's. (See picture) Where do I start? We have cheese (3 Varieties!), apple, pickle's a "Mixed Salad", bread, egg, pork pie and the list goes on.

This isn't really a salad is it! The salads over there in the corner somewhere, the rest is a fat mans dream. This is someone (Probably a ploughman) who has raided the fridge. The salad on the side is an afterthought surely.

The fat ploughman who invented this beast was working his way down the fridge, got to the bottom draw, grabbed a handful of whatever it was, and then popped it on the plate.

Lastly, we have the most confusing of all, the potato Salad. I am in no doubt that the title suggests that this is a Salad.

If you take a look at the picture to the right, apart from the potato itself, you won’t notice any other salad. Granted, some versions have the odd sprinkling of spring onion or chive, but let’s not kid ourselves into classing this as a true salad.

This is a potato that has been crushed up and mixed with mayonnaise. If you got an egg, mashed it up and mixed it with mayonnaise, what would you have? No, not egg mayonnaise, it would be Egg salad, according to the principle above.

This is all too confusing. I went on a journey of discovery and the only things I have discovered is that Ploughmen are fat for a reason and I'm not very good at writing lettuce based gags.