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.

  • Badass_panda@lemmy.world
    51·
    2 years ago

    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.

    • Serve it cold? Ok it’s saladier

    • It’s made up of chopped ingredients? Saladier still

    • Those ingredients are mostly vegetables? Getting pretty saladish

    • They’re mixed together? Even more salad like

    • 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

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
          41·
          2 years ago

          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

          • Hydroel@lemmy.world
            3·
            2 years ago

            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.

            • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
              2·
              2 years ago

              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.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
      1·
      2 years ago

      I think this is one of those words / concepts where one needs to invoke Wittgenstein’s “family resemblance” idea. You’re not going to find some exact set of criteria that define what people do and don’t consider a salad. They instead have a “family resemblance”.

      Your probably idea is not a bad way of describing how that works.

      • Badass_panda@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        I know, I was being humorous but it is in fact the way most categorization works. Very seldom is it a taxonomy; the way we recognize faces, voices, shapes, etc … it’s all probabilistic.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
    25·
    2 years ago

    I think 1 ingredient can be a salad as long as it’s a very salady ingredient.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    23·
    2 years ago

    I would probably still call dressing on just lettuce a salad, although I would say it’s an unusually basic one. 3 ingredients definitely counts.

  • vitriolix@lemmy.ml
    17·
    2 years ago

    All you need is lettuce and salt. “Salad” is derived from the latin for salt: sal

  • MTK@lemmy.world
    15·
    2 years ago

    Been there and found out that If you dig deep enough almost everything is either a salad or a soup

  • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
    13·
    2 years ago

    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.

      • tromars@feddit.de
        5·
        2 years ago

        I‘m German and have eaten a lot of potato salad during my entire life. Not once has it been served hot

        • SevFTW@feddit.de
          2·
          2 years ago

          Not hot but „lauwarm“ or „lukewarm“ is very typical for same day fresh potato salad

          At least down here in the south

      • blackbrook@mander.xyz
        3·
        2 years ago

        I’m not gonna claim a salad can’t be hot, but I think of pasta salads as a cold dish. Maybe it depends where your from.

        Potato salad is generally cold too, but there is also hot German potato salad.

  • Saraphim@lemmy.world
    11·
    2 years ago

    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.