My significant other ate cucumbers and onion with some ranch. I called it a cucumber onion salad. She says there aren’t enough ingredients to call it a salad, because “it takes multiple ingredients”. I pointed out she had three and asked what the minimum is. She refuses to answer so I ask Lemmy.
Lettuce alone is sufficient, but not necessary. As soon as you omit lettuce it takes multiple ingredients.
Also the conditions for a salad grow stronger. If there’s lettuce there’s no worry about adding hot ingredients but if it’s a potato salad you’re only making fancy mashed potatoes if it’s hot.
So teeeeechnically, a salad is a dish composed of mixed ingredients. You could make the argument that you mix any two set of chopped ingredients and bingo bongo, it’s a salad.
However, I like to think that dishes’ ingredients aren’t a taxonomic thing, they’re a probabilistic thing. In other words, there’s no such thing as “not salad” or “salad”, only shades of saladness.
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Serve it cold? Ok it’s saladier
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It’s made up of chopped ingredients? Saladier still
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Those ingredients are mostly vegetables? Getting pretty saladish
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They’re mixed together? Even more salad like
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They’ve got some sort of dressing mixed in? Now it’s very likely a salad!
… and so on. To me, your SO’a dish has a pretty high Salad Probability^tm
Is there anyway to convert a Salad Probability^tm into a Salad Factor score?
Give me weights for the coefficients and I’ll construct a matrix
Here’s some example weights for a salad factor
Lettuce - 10
Spinach - 9
Arugula - 7
Cabbage - 7
Tomato- 6
Carrots- 6
Cucumber - 5
Onion - 4
Olives (black) 4
Anchovies - 1
There are a few missing points in there IMO, like which of your ingredient is cooked, or how are they sliced? Graped carrots rises the score, but cook them and it’s less likely to be a salad. Diced radish? Not in my salad, especially not cooked, but thinly sliced raw radish definitely belongs. And don’t even get me started on tomatoes.
Damn, I’m not sure the two are compatible then. The salad factor score is meant to be super easy so people don’t get overwhelmed by all the possibilities and variations.
What we need is a salad categorizing multilayer neural network
It wouldn’t be hard to train on obvious salads, but what about the non obvious ones? Who do we trust to properly label these as salad or not a salad?
“Saladier” is my new favorite word of the day.
TIL salad is a spectrum.
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lettuce in a bowl is salad.
To me, it has to have dressing. Otherwise it’s just lettuce in a bowl.
Pop a drizzle of oil on it? BOOM SALD
Quick edit: plug for saladguy12, who just hit DAY TWO THOUSAND
Removed by mod
All you need is lettuce and salt. “Salad” is derived from the latin for salt: sal
Oh i see… sal ad… ad sal… add salt… That’s pretty neat!
One, if that ingredient is salad.
Been there and found out that If you dig deep enough almost everything is either a salad or a soup
A soup is just a salad with a lot of dressing.
Soup, salad, or sandwich. In that order.
Soup and salad are the same thing, just with a different ratio of solids to liquids.
I guess it depends on the language, in my native language I think all foods could be defined as either a salad or a soup (even a sandwich is just a kind of soup)
Can we first define “salad”?
If it’s cold ingredients, mixed together, then wilted iceberg lettuce and a gas station dressing packet is salad.
So two.
Oxford dictionary says:
Originally derived from the Latin sal for salt, meaning something dipped into salt. Now normally a dish of uncooked vegetables; either a mixed salad or just one item (commonly lettuce or tomato).
2 minium?
- A base, such as lettuce, pasta, boiled potato or rice.
- Some salad-worthy veggie or fruit.
Potato salad is often just potatoes with chives and Mayonnaise. Your SO is chatting shit imho.
What about Kabelsalat?
Two ingredients must be present for something to be a salad - a vegetable and a dressing. I make all sorts of salads. Some have lettuce, some don’t. I make salad with just fennel and an oil/vinegar dressing. I make salad with tomatoes & cucumbers with a dressing. What she ate was 100% a salad. This is a weird fight.
I dont do dressings. What do you call 15 ingredients and no dressing? A fryless stir fry? Genuinely curious if there’s a word now!
How do you feel about chicken or tuna salad?
I feel like that’s a grey area because it’s called salad but only in the context a product with dressing (the mayo). but it’s not really a salad, it’s just called chicken salad the way Kraft dinner isn’t really a dinner but it could be a dinner. I say if it only has chicken and mayo, that’s not a salad, that’s a sandwich filling. If it has celery, onion, etc, you could make the argument it was salad.
I feel the same way about cheesecake. It’s really more of a pie if anything.
I would argue the minimum number of ingredients is two.
Tuna and mayo?
Something in a bowl with a dressing is salad.
- Tomatoes + balsamic + olive oil = salad
- Romaine + Caesar dressing = salad
- Canned tuna + mayo = salad
- Cucumber + rice wine vin + sesame oil = salad
Salad is more fun with multiple ingredients, but everything up there is still salad
So by your definition at least two ingredients are required for a salad.
Yes. Dry lettuce in a bowl is not salad.
https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/non-edible/other-non-edible/honeymoon-salad.html
Dry lettuce in a bowl is a honeymoon salad. Lettuce alone, undressed.
Noodles + olive oil + grated Parmesan = salad?
When the doctor tells me to eat more salads, yes
Well, there’s noodle salad. I guess pasta is a hot noodle salad, like cereal in milk is a cold soup.
