The Steampunk World
Think back. Think waay back, through the misty cataract of memory, back in time. Think back to a time of rotary phones, and soda can tabs that came off. Back when only doctors had pagers, and only baseball catchers wore their hats backwards. Back, back. Back in "the day".
Do you remember when a salad had just one kind of lettuce in it?
Oh, maybe if Ma wanted to fancify things a bit, she'd throw in some spinach greens. But very rarely did the number of types of greens in a salad exceed three, unless it was some sort of mixed greens special.
I haven't had a salad with fewer than 15 types of greens in at least a year. House salad, caesar salad, side salad, whatever you order, it's that same mix of iceberg lettuce, boston lettuce, spinach greens, turnip greens, radish greens, mustard greens, carrot stems, maple leaves, parsley, clover, romaine lettuce, and other various roughage that's guaranteed to have you making Hershey's Kisses in your drawers. And that's just the foundation for whatever they wanna put in the salad!
Obviously it's done to make it look spiffier, since the stuff comes in all shapes and colors. Make you think that the $7.95 you're paying for a house salad is a good deal. I mean, instead of a bunch of lettuce, they've got a lot less of a lot more kinds of lettuce! Tres shwanky! But there are serious flaws in the presumption that more types of greens makes a better salad.
First of all, some of that stuff is more fibrous than bark. When I wanna eat food that would require as many stomachs as a cow has to digest, generally I want to be prepared for it. I want to order the "High-Colonic Special" on purpose, not receive it when I'm expecting something that's merely to be a bed for my Babe The Blue Ox partially-cooked meat slab.
Secondly, some of those greens have a very prominent taste. Generally, I like this. If you want to throw a flavorful herb into stir fry, or into a salad to give it a specific taste, great. But ALL of them? I mean, I like every spice on my spice rack, but I don't use ALL of them at once! The salad tastes like the vegetable version of All Spice flavored chips. (For those of you who have not enjoyed Ontario as a test market for U.S. food products, you definitely should. Even better than trying something a year before it comes out is trying the things that never make it to the U.S., like a chip that contains the spices from every other flavor of chip that they make. And they made a lot of flavors- pickle, ketchup, cheeseburger, pizza, etc etc).
Thirdly, it's a salad. It's freakin' greens. You cannot, through diversity, color, and texture, make a bowl of greens that much more exciting than a single piece of lettuce. I've never gotten a rush, a quick intake of breath, upon viewing any combination of salad greens. They just don't get me all hot and bothered. If they get you all hot and bothered, seek help.
Do you remember when a salad had just one kind of lettuce in it?
Oh, maybe if Ma wanted to fancify things a bit, she'd throw in some spinach greens. But very rarely did the number of types of greens in a salad exceed three, unless it was some sort of mixed greens special.
I haven't had a salad with fewer than 15 types of greens in at least a year. House salad, caesar salad, side salad, whatever you order, it's that same mix of iceberg lettuce, boston lettuce, spinach greens, turnip greens, radish greens, mustard greens, carrot stems, maple leaves, parsley, clover, romaine lettuce, and other various roughage that's guaranteed to have you making Hershey's Kisses in your drawers. And that's just the foundation for whatever they wanna put in the salad!
Obviously it's done to make it look spiffier, since the stuff comes in all shapes and colors. Make you think that the $7.95 you're paying for a house salad is a good deal. I mean, instead of a bunch of lettuce, they've got a lot less of a lot more kinds of lettuce! Tres shwanky! But there are serious flaws in the presumption that more types of greens makes a better salad.
First of all, some of that stuff is more fibrous than bark. When I wanna eat food that would require as many stomachs as a cow has to digest, generally I want to be prepared for it. I want to order the "High-Colonic Special" on purpose, not receive it when I'm expecting something that's merely to be a bed for my Babe The Blue Ox partially-cooked meat slab.
Secondly, some of those greens have a very prominent taste. Generally, I like this. If you want to throw a flavorful herb into stir fry, or into a salad to give it a specific taste, great. But ALL of them? I mean, I like every spice on my spice rack, but I don't use ALL of them at once! The salad tastes like the vegetable version of All Spice flavored chips. (For those of you who have not enjoyed Ontario as a test market for U.S. food products, you definitely should. Even better than trying something a year before it comes out is trying the things that never make it to the U.S., like a chip that contains the spices from every other flavor of chip that they make. And they made a lot of flavors- pickle, ketchup, cheeseburger, pizza, etc etc).
Thirdly, it's a salad. It's freakin' greens. You cannot, through diversity, color, and texture, make a bowl of greens that much more exciting than a single piece of lettuce. I've never gotten a rush, a quick intake of breath, upon viewing any combination of salad greens. They just don't get me all hot and bothered. If they get you all hot and bothered, seek help.
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