The salad dish

A salad is a dish consisting of small pieces of food, which may be mixed with a sauce or salad dressing. Salads can incorporate a variety of foods including vegetables, fruits, cheese, cooked meat, eggs and grains. Garden salads use a base of leafy greens; they are common enough that the word salad alone often refers specifically to garden salads. Other types include bean salad, tuna salad, fattoush, Greek salad, and somen salad.

The sauce used to a flavor a salad is commonly called a salad dressing; well-known types include ranch, Thousand Island, and vinaigrette.

Most salads are served cold, although some, such as south German potato salad, are served warm. Some consider the warmth of a dish a factor that excludes it from the salad category calling the warm mixture a casserole, a sandwich topping or more specifically, name it for the ingredients which comprise it.

Salads may be served at any point during a meal, such as:

Appetizer salads, light salads to stimulate the appetite as the first course of the meal.
Side salads, to accompany the main course as a side dish.
Main course salads, usually containing a portion of heartier fare, such as chicken breast or slices of beef.
Dessert salads, sweet versions often containing fruit,
The word "salad" comes from the French salade of the same meaning, from the Latin salata (salty), from sal (salt). 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.

The phrase "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.

History

The Romans and ancient Greeks ate mixed greens with dressing.In his 1699 book, Acetaria: A Discourse on Sallets, John Evelyn attempted with little success to encourage his fellow Britons to eat fresh salad greens. Mary, Queen of Scots, ate boiled celery root over greens covered with creamy mustard dressing, truffles, chervil, and slices of hard-boiled eggs.

The United States popularized mixed greens salads in the late 19th century. Salads including layered and dressed salads were popular in Europe since Greek imperial and particularly Roman imperial expansions. Several other regions of the world adopted salads throughout the second half of the 20th century. From Europe and the Americas to China, Japan, and Australia, salads are sold in supermarkets, at restaurants and at fast food chains. In the US market, restaurants will often have a "Salad Bar" laid out with salad-making ingredients, which the customers will use to put together their salad.[citation needed] Salad restaurants were earning more than $300 million in 2014.