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Salad Theory

saladtheory.github.io

41–50 of 62 posts

Re: Salad Theory

#42
Salads are dishes without a fixed structure. You can randomly rearrange the ingredients without changing it into another dish. For example, a pizza is salad on top of dough, a burger is salad between buns, and a burrito is salad wrapped in a tortilla. But as a whole, pizzas, burgers, and burritos each have a strict, defined structure, so they aren't salads, they just contain a salad component. Additionally, anything made mostly of liquid by volume is a soup or beverage, not a salad.

Re: Salad Theory

#43
I really love this, it’s what I want to see in HN. But I can’t resist joining the pointless debate:

- A primarily cooked dish, particularly if it is cooked all together or is served warm, is definitely not a salad.

- An “untossed salad” is definitely not a salad.

- English speaking people add the term “salad” to a bunch of concoctions that are definitely not salads.

Re: Salad Theory

#44

Salads are dishes without a fixed structure. You can randomly rearrange the ingredients without changing it into another dish. For example, a pizza is salad on top of dough, a burger is salad between buns, and a burrito is salad wrapped in a tortilla. But as a whole, pizzas, burgers, and burritos each have a strict, defined structure, so they aren't salads, they just contain a salad component. Additionally, anything…

Watermelon salad?

Re: Salad Theory

#45

Salads are dishes without a fixed structure. You can randomly rearrange the ingredients without changing it into another dish. For example, a pizza is salad on top of dough, a burger is salad between buns, and a burrito is salad wrapped in a tortilla. But as a whole, pizzas, burgers, and burritos each have a strict, defined structure, so they aren't salads, they just contain a salad component. Additionally, anything…

Watermelon salad?

Watermelon pieces are made mostly of water, but are solid as a whole, not liquid. You can't pour them. And if you actually blend them into a liquid, then you get watermelon juice or soup. (Soup vs beverage is a distinction based on the mode of serving, in a glass vs bowl+spoon)

Re: Salad Theory

#46

I’m fine with their first consideration: > A salad must be a mixture of greens. The only additional realization you need is that things like “fruit salad” and “chicken salad” are using the word “salad” figuratively . There’s no reason to expect our definition of “salad” to cover figurative usage. After all, do you really expect to cover, for instance, “word salad”?

> A salad must be a mixture of greens.

My mums German potato salad disagrees

Re: Salad Theory

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watermelon salad?

Watermelon pieces are made mostly of water, but are solid as a whole, not liquid. You can't pour them. And if you actually blend them into a liquid, then you get watermelon juice or soup. (Soup vs beverage is a distinction based on the mode of serving, in a glass vs bowl+spoon)

I think my main issue is that the spectrum goes from

entire melon -> salad -> slush? -> beverage

with decreasing side length of the cut pieces.

So both the fixed structure from your definition (" Salads are dishes without a fixed structure") and solid/liquid definition don't feel really tangible to me. YMMV

Re: Salad Theory

#48
post #43

I really love this, it’s what I want to see in HN. But I can’t resist joining the pointless debate: - A primarily cooked dish, particularly if it is cooked all together or is served warm, is definitely not a salad. - An “untossed salad” is definitely not a salad. - English speaking people add the term “salad” to a bunch of concoctions that are definitely not salads.

  >  An “untossed salad” is definitely not a salad.
I definitely agree, but grandfathering in this specific exception suggests a definition variant: a salad can be mixed and shuffled (possibly from an ordered initial state), and in this case it remains a salad; it isn't damaged, and on the contrary it usually improves (typically by increasing the entropy of solid component positions and distributing liquid condiments more uniformly).

Re: Salad Theory

#49
Nice read!

I was interested in similar thoughts around definitions and scopes long time ago https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/4182/List-vs-Categ...

Something may look obvious to you unless you get into definitions (stage 1), discussions about definitions (stage 2), trying to get alignment on definitions (stage 3), and so on.

Re: Salad Theory

#50

I’m fine with their first consideration: > A salad must be a mixture of greens. The only additional realization you need is that things like “fruit salad” and “chicken salad” are using the word “salad” figuratively . There’s no reason to expect our definition of “salad” to cover figurative usage. After all, do you really expect to cover, for instance, “word salad”?

>After all, do you really expect to cover, for instance, “word salad”?

This is covered further down in the article where it's pointed out that one of the Merriam-Webster definitions is

>"A usually incongruous mixture : HODGEPODGE"

The author points out that Merriam-Webster actually has a looser definition of salad than they do, because the article is only considering edible things to count.

Also, I disagree - I don't think "fruit salad", or "chicken salad", or "egg salad" etc are "figurative" (not sure what you even mean by that), I would absolutely consider them legitimate salads.

Not saying I agree with the rest of the claims, but it is funny to think of a bowl of skittles as being a salad, and it's always a mindfuck to think about just how impossible it is to categorize every little thing into a neat little box.

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