I don’t know what happened but our university cafeteria has improved dramatically this year. Instead of mountains of deep-fried and breaded stuff, we now have a person who makes salads for people right in front of them. And the salads are all great. The line to the salad person is a lot longer than the line to the hamburger stand, which is very nice to see.
We also now have stand that sells fresh fruit. The selection is not huge and the prices are high but, still, this is a great start.
Now look at this beautiful salad I just got. And I also bought two fruit salads but I can’t photograph them because they are gone already. 🙂
And a question for everybody: my colleague from Spain and I were discussing how salads are eaten in our cultures. For both of us, a salad accompanies the main course and it feels weird that here in North America people eat salad first and then the main course after that. I always have to struggle with waiters who want to remove my salad before serving the main course.
How do you eat your salads? And also, should I start posting photos of the salads I make at home? I’m a salad fanatic and I always invent new ones.
Clarissa's Blog 
I would not like this salad. I have an aversion to mixing fruits and vegetables together in a salad, with few exceptions. (Avocados and tomatoes are the only fruits that I like in a salad containing lettuce, radishes, onions, red peppers, mushrooms, etc.) Cheese goes with the vegetables, but not with fruit, in my opinion. A pure fruit salad is good, of course.
I also like salads with my main course. I wish this were not so problematic in better U. S. restaurants.
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For me salad always precedes my meal. I especially like a salad right before a nice porkchop or steak. It sort of cleanses the palate, especially if I mix in some mandarin slices and give it a good toss with a light raspberry vinagrette.
What about you guys? How do you prefer to toss a salad? Do you like to do it before or after eating your meat?
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Lookee there I made myself roll my own eyes so hard they fell out.
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We eat salad during the meal, but often I eat it after the meal. Somehow it helps me eating less as I know that a salad will come next.
Classic salad at home: tomatoes, white onions, cilantro, olive oil, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, and sometimes avocados.
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Are you also a person who doesn’t put many huge pieces of lettuce into the salad? I never got that tradition.
And I love avocado. Radishes, however, are my favorite. And ginger.
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I am tired. I can talk about food for hours now!
I could put ginger in my cereals. Put some ginger in your carrot/potatoes/parnsnip recipe, for instance.
Also, I often cook that beet soup with ginger in it. But I am shy of sharing beet recipes with a foodie from Ukraine!
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My students make long faces when I talk to them about beets. It’s like their world revolves around fried chicken and French fries.
I’m exhausted, too. Two and a half hours of irregular verbs in the Preterito and I’m dead.
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I don’t care for beets but try and stop me when there’s a turnip around! Great when sliced and raw on salads and then you boil the greens with bacon and salt and oh my god.
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I used to hate beets but that’s only because I was only served the canned version when I was a child. I was at a friend’s house several years ago and he cooked a meal which had as one of its dishes some fresh beets. That was when I started to come around to them. I still find them to be a little strong-smelling, but in small amounts (either cooked fresh or grated raw for salad) they are very good. On the whole I like my vegetables, though — I can’t think of many I don’t like. Parsnips, maybe. I bought some fresh ones and tried them (cooked) but wasn’t impressed.
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Growing up, we served salads with the main course at home — but yes, on the occasions where we went out to restaurants, salads were served first. I vastly prefer them served with a main course, mostly because I’d rather eat a raw salad than a cooked (often overcooked, especially in restaurants) green (or yellow or orange) vegetable. Maybe even more than a potato in some form — though this is quite variable depending on the type and preparation of potatoes in question.
And yes to the pics of salads. I love getting new ideas for them.
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That’s all I needed. Just one voice to welcome my salad posts idea. 🙂 Thank you, Tori.
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Here’s another yes to the pics and recipes of salads and other dishes.
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In US are salads actually eaten first in homes and not just in restaurants? In homes, if it’s an informal meal the salad and main course come together, and if it’s formal salad comes second. In restaurants in Spain salad is often an early course, too.
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