Salads are so healthy, and I am lucky to have had them throughout my life as a regular part of the dinner meal, whether at my childhood home or my grandparents’ house.
It’s a tradition that my husband and I have kept going and one that I hope lives on as our kids make their own homes.
🥗
It was one of the first things I helped with as a child (one step up from setting the table). My Mom would tell me that a “true chef would never cut lettuce leaves with a knife” and would instead tear them gently. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it sounds right.
I’m sure she just didn’t want any little kids wielding a knife in her kitchen, lol.
Those salads usually included iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and celery with a simple vinegar and oil dressing. Sometimes, we got fancy and added black olives or Spanish (manzanilla) olives.
And we always had the salad as the final course… the logic was that the roughage (fiber) and vinegar would escort all the other stuff from the night’s dinner through the system and do some clean-up work in the intestines.
Yes, we talked about this at the dinner table when I was too young to use a knife.
When we went to my grandparents’ house, the salad was similar but often included half an avocado. If half an avocado doesn’t sound like much to you, well… you must not have spent time in Florida prior to Hurricane Andrew. Those old style “Tampa avocados” were as big as a football.
If I had a time machine… that’s what I’d go get…
These days, I like to get fancy with my salads. I usually start with Romaine lettuce and tomato. Those are the basis.
To that, I add whatever we have, including fresh spinach, a shredded carrot, artichokes in vinegar, olives of any kind or a scoop of muffaletta, slices of sweet peppers, diced onion, mushrooms, cucumber, avocado, thinly sliced purple cabbage, celery, cheese (Feta or parmesagn), and any kind of sprout (broccoli, radish, alfalfa, etc.).
Sometimes, I throw in apple chunks, pear slices, or orange sections. Sometimes, we throw in sunflower seeds or crushed pistachios or cashews.
In the summer, I like to find new types of lettuce and new varieties of tomatoes at the farmers’ market.
My Nani had a trick where she would cut into a garlic clove and rub it on the inside of the bowl prior to adding any ingredients. I always seem to remember the trick too late. 😕
Lately, I’ve been moving my salad to the beginning of the meal, rather than the end. This is because of the hacks I recently learned to lower blood glucose levels.
Here’s the details on that, from the Glucose Goddess, Jessie Inchauspé who I hear just got her own TV show!!! 🙌
The Cancer Canary 