Salads

Salad

Salad is any of a wide variety of dishes including: green salads; vegetable salads; salads of pasta, legumes, or grains; mixed salads incorporating meat, poultry, or seafood; and fruit salads.Encyclopedia Britanica They include a mixture of cold and hot, often including raw vegetables and/or fruits.

Green salads include leaf lettuce and vegetables with a sauce or dressing. Other salads are based on pasta, noodles, or gelatin. Most salads are traditionally served cold, although some, such as south German potato salad, are served warm.

Green salads including leaf lettuces are generally served with a dressing, as well as various garnishes such as nuts or croutons, and sometimes with the addition of meat, fish, pasta, cheese, eggs, or whole grains.

Salads may be served at any point during a meal. They may be:

*Appetizer salads, light salads to stimulate the appetite as the first course of the meal.
*Side salads, to accompany the entrée as a side dish.
*Entrée salads, served as the main dish, usually containing a portion of protein, such as chicken breast or slices of beef.
*Palate-cleansing salads, to settle the stomach after the main course.
*Dessert salads, sweet versions usually containing gelatin or whipped cream.

Etymology
The word "salad" comes from the French salade of the same meaning, from the Latin salata (salty), from sal (salt). (For other salt-related words, see also sauce, salsa, sausage, and salary). In English, the word first appears as "salad" or "sallet" in the 14th century.

Salt is associated with salad because vegetables were seasoned with brine or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings during Roman times."etymonline">

Other language trivia regarding the word "salad": The terminology "salad days", meaning a "time of youthful inexperience" (on notion of "green"), is first recorded by Shakespeare in 1606, while the use of salad bar first appeared in American English in 1976."etymonline"/>read more at » http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad