Construction, Freshness, Flavor, and Appeal, History of Salads, Dressings and Emulsions, History of Salad Dressings, Terminology, Videos, Salad Cookbooks

A salad is a dish consisting of mixed ingredients, frequently vegetables. They are typically served chilled or at room temperature, though some can be served warm. Condiments and salad dressings, which exist in a variety of flavors, are often used to enhance a salad. 

The word "salad" comes to English from the French salade of the same meaning, itself an abbreviated form of the earlier Vulgar Latin herba salata (salted herb), from the Latin salata (salted), from sal (salt). 

Salad dressings are typically grouped into two categories: creamy dressings or vinaigrette dressings. The creamy dressings use mayonnaise, sour cream or yogurt as a base while the vinaigrette dressings use oils and vinegars or fruit juice and condiments or spices for a base. 

Emulsion is a science term for a combination of two liquids that do not usually mix, such as oil and water. In cooking, you can just mix the liquids together really well through whisking, blending, or strong shaking. 

Americans began using basic dressing ingredients (oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and spices) to create an infinite variety of dressings to complement salads.

Prepared dressings were largely unavailable until the turn of the century. Until then, home chefs had to start from scratch. Due to variations in ingredients, partly because of lacking storage conditions and year-round supply sources), results varied significantly. Gradually, restaurants began packaging and selling their consistent dressings product to customers, and the salad dressing industry began.

Coleslaw: Dutch word for cabbage is “kool” which led to the English word for a cabbage-based salad. 

Mayonnaise: Many authorities believe the first batch of this mixture of egg yolks, oil and seasonings was whipped up to celebrate the 1756 French capture of Mahon (accent on the “o”), a city on the Spanish Isle of Minorca, by forces under Louis-Francois-Armad de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu. Besides enjoying a reputation as a skillful military leader, the Duke was also widely known as a bon vivant with the odd habit of inviting his guests to dine in the nude. The Duke, or more likely, his personal chef, is credited with inventing this edible monument to that strategic success. 

Horseradish: (Prepared) Horseradish has nothing to do with horses and it is not a radish (it’s a member of the mustard family). The name may have come from an English adaptation of its German name. In early times the plant grew wild in European coastal areas; the Germans called it meerrettich, or sea radish. The German word meer sounds like mare in English. Perhaps mareradish eventually became horseradish. The word horseradish first appeared in print in 1597 in John Gerarde’s English herbal on medicinal plants. 

Caesar Salad: Honors restaurateur Caesar Cardini, who invented it in Tijuana, Mexico in 1924. Cardini’s original recipe included romaine, garlic, croutons, Parmesan cheese, boiled eggs, olive oil and Worcestershire sauce. He was said to be staunchly against the inclusion of anchovies in this mixture, contending that the Worcestershire sauce was what actually provided that faint fishy flavor. 

Russian Dressing: Got its name because the earliest versions of the mixture of mayonnaise, pimientos, chives, ketchup, and spices included a distinctly Russian ingredient: caviar. 

Thousand Island: Made from bits of green olives, peppers, pickles, onions, hard-boiled eggs and other finely chopped ingredients, this chunky dressing is said to commemorate the Thousand Islands in the Saint Lawrence River. 

Cobb Salad: Was the invention of yet another restaurateur, Bob Cobb, who in 1926 at his Los Angeles restaurant, now known as The Brown Derby, found a way to use up leftovers. The original recipe for Cobb salad: avocado, celery, tomato, chives, watercress, hard-boiled eggs, chicken, bacon and Roquefort cheese. 

Green Goddess Dressing: A mixture of mayonnaise, anchovies, tarragon, vinegar, parsley, scallions, garlic, and other spices was created at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel in the 1920’s for actor George Arliss, who stayed there while performing in The Green Goddess, a play that later became one of the earliest “talkie” movies. 

Salad Days: Refers to a time of youthful inexperience, a term coined by Shakespeare, whose Cleopatra characterizes her long-ago romance with Julius Caesar as one occurring in “my salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood.” 

Salads may be sold in supermarkets, at restaurants and at fast food chains. In the United States, restaurants will often have a salad bar with salad-making ingredients, which the customers will use to put together their salad. Salad restaurants were earning more than $300 million in 2014.   At-home salad consumption in the 2010s was rising but moving away from fresh-chopped lettuce and toward bagged greens and salad kits, with bag sales expected to reach $7 billion per year.

Arguably the most celebrated salad in the world is the Waldorf Salad, originally conceived by Oscar Tschirky, who worked at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel in the 1890s. Tschirky’s original salad contained apples, celery and mayonnaise. The famous walnuts weren’t actually added until three decades later. Today the Waldorf Astoria serves a version that contains sweet and sour apples, candied walnuts, celeriac and truffle. (Bonus fact: Oscar Tschirky also invented Eggs Benedict).  

 Perhaps the most popular salad in the world is The Caesar Salad, and it was invented by restaurateur Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924 in Tijuana, Mexico. It is said that on this busy weekend, Cardini was running low on food and he put together a salad for his guests from what was left over in the kitchen. "Take everything to the table" he said, "and make a ceremony of fixing the salad". His original recipe included romaine, garlic, croutons, and Parmesan cheese, boiled eggs, olive oil and Worcestershire sauce.