The Vegetable Fight of the Century

August 9, 2018 11:06 AM

Point: Salad is overrated (Tamar Haspel, Washington Post). Counterpoint: Iceberg lettuce is superior (Helen Rosner, New Yorker).

Definitive take on the matter.

posted by backseatpilot (68 comments total)

It's damn hot out, you want me to give up my crisp cool salad!?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:14 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

I like iceberg lettuce and I'm not afraid to admit it!
posted by sevenyearlurk at 11:15 AM on August 9, 2018 [10 favorites]

Salad is fine. Just make sure you put some meat on it. Or, if you prefer, some sort of high-protein meat alternative like tofu.
posted by SansPoint at 11:16 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

The iceberg lettuce article is so much more entertaining if you read it in the voice of the food critic from Ratatouille.
posted by Toubab at 11:20 AM on August 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

So I should feel morally superior about making the salads I take to work for lunch with baby spinach instead of lettuce? Excellent.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:24 AM on August 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

you want me to give up my crisp cool salad!?

Drink your salad! NYT Best Gazpacho
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 11:28 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

I am afraid to show Mrs Abehammerb (Mary Toddhammerb Lincoln) the Iceberg Apologist article. I've never seen her resort to violence, but that kind of talk might do it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:28 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

PS I've never understood her passionate dislike of iceberg, and now I'm afraid to ask.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:28 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Iceberg lettuce is superior (if you use it in various manners that aren't what people use lettuce for)" is not exactly an affirmation of its virtue.

I'd be happy to give pickled iceberg lettuce a try, but that isn't going to sell me on the superiority of the lettuce; rather, it'll reaffirm my convictions that less tasty vegetables can be salvaged by the pickling process.
posted by explosion at 11:33 AM on August 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

I'm irrationally scandalized by the thought of putting dressing in the salad bowl first, which means I should probably try it.
posted by rewil at 11:41 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

As someone who grew up in South India, I STILL have trouble eating uncooked vegetables. All of my green bean curries are overcooked by US standards. :) "When in doubt, cook the hell out of things", is still something I actively have to fight against.

BTAIM, yeaaah... NO to Iceberg lettuce; especially when Romaine costs about the same.
posted by indianbadger1 at 11:43 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've had a ton of fun growing my own lettuce and kale this summer. If you do that, about 90% of the first article's objections go away. It takes a bit of space and time, but I'm lucky enough to have that right now.
posted by frogmanjack at 11:47 AM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Iceberg is not fantastic in most traditional salads, but it works well where you want a leaf that resists wilting and has a high degree of snap and texture. It's a pretty perfect taco shell alternative, for example.
posted by bonehead at 11:50 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Salad is awesome!
$10 for a 3¢ wedge of crappy iceberg and a drizzle of dressing is hellspawn.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:51 AM on August 9, 2018

Don't eat meat. Don't eat vegetables. Don't eat grains. Don't eat beans or legumes. DON'T EAT ANYTHING
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:52 AM on August 9, 2018 [11 favorites]

Iceberg lettuce is crunchy water.
posted by brujita at 11:53 AM on August 9, 2018 [25 favorites]

Looks like Lent is coming early this year!
posted by kevinbelt at 11:54 AM on August 9, 2018

Don't eat meat. Don't eat vegetables. Don't eat grains. Don't eat beans or legumes. DON'T EAT ANYTHING

But.....if you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding!
posted by Fizz at 11:58 AM on August 9, 2018 [16 favorites]

I once commented on facebook on a humorous anti-salad article saying "You can pry my salads from my cold dead hands!" or something like that, and literally every roommate I've ever had chimed into comment on how I truly ate an unreasonable amount of salad, like they had never seen a human consume so many greens and it turned into a chatathon about my bizarre eating habits while they all bonded over my unnatural love for salad.

So, um, I guess I eat so much salad that it's the singular weirdness all my roommates remember?

I like iceberg in taco salads and wedge salads. Romaine for Caesar, mixes for everything else. Lots of spinach! A moderate amount of cabbage! Yes please on the green onions!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:02 PM on August 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

But.....if you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding!

One step closer to not eating anything!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:03 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Do you like salad? You’re a fool.

(Somebody posted this here years ago and I found the title hilarious and unforgettable.)
posted by Pistache at 12:06 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Now that I've RTFA...I guess her point sort of stands if you assume that every salad in the world is either one of those chain restaurant things drenched in a cup of ranch dressing and covered in croutons or the three-ingredient salads my mom served in the '80s in an attempt to ensure that her family actually ate some fresh vegetables. But of course she knows that people make salads that are *not* one of those two things, right?

A+++ clickbait, would forward to my wife who loves salad and will definitely get angry about it again
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:07 PM on August 9, 2018

It’s a little weird to read these two articles while eating a green salad at work.

The first article: while I’d much prefer getting my vegetables in the form of roasted broccoli or a baked sweet potato or green bean curry, those options are not available at the office cafeteria, or anywhere within walking distance of work. Cooking at home is an unappealing option: I’ve been working 60+ hours/week for what seems like the last month or so, and I live in a house without air conditioning, and it’s hot. And the non-salad options in the office cafeteria are not exactly nutritious, either.

The second article: I apparently don’t have a sensitive enough palate to get all of those flavors out of iceberg. And all of the gourmet preparations of iceberg sound interesting, but are utterly irrelevant when I’m dealing with the office cafeteria. I’m glad we at least have the options of romaine or baby spinach here.
posted by creepygirl at 12:15 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lots of what passes for salad in restaurants is just the same as the rest of the calorie-dense diabolically palatable food that’s making us fat, but with a few lettuce leaves tossed in. ... Picture the salad without the lettuce, cucumber and radish, which are nutritionally and calorically irrelevant. Is it a little pile of croutons and cheese, with a few carrot shavings and lots of ranch dressing?

True, but the problem here isn't salads per se – it's shitty salads. Of course piling a bunch of junk on top of a salad will make it more caloric. So don't do that.

I often lunch at a local cafe which has amazing salads. Greens, carrots, red cabbage, cherry tomatoes, red onion, sprouts, avocado, freshly made hummus, and the best house-made dressings you've ever tasted. They don't need to be slathered with cheese or lots of dressing, because they're well prepared with incredibly fresh ingredients.

That one salad probably gives me 100% or more of my RDI of most vitamins, minerals, and fiber, plus a goodly chunk of protein and unsaturated fat. It's very filling, tastes delicious, and probably has a smaller environmental footprint than any animal-based food you can name.

I am not going to stop eating them.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:19 PM on August 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

Iceburg is good in tacos, sandwiches and hamburgers, the main places I ever want any kind of lettuce anyway.

Salad sucks, it's punishment food. Every time I've had a salad, even the best ones, it's always been a case of "geez, I could almost literally anything else in the universe and it'd be more interesting than this." I don't have the drive to torture myself with doing "healthy" bullshit for the sake of whatever being "healthy" means. Even if I suppose for a minute I want to, in any way, prolong my time on this miserable planet -- I don't want to spend those minutes ruthlessly chewing unsightly teeth debris so I can later see bits of it's leafy bullshit floating in the terlet.

Unless I suddenly develop whatever quality it is that derives pleasure from doing unpleasant crap that is supposedly healthy, salad will be a food I only eat if it's set me before me unasked.

I make an exception for Arugala, that shit is delicious and should replace all leafy greens.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:24 PM on August 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

I don't get salad. I love vegetables and will just graze on them, but the laborious part of chopping and mixing a bunch of vegetables can go to hell. THe flavors don't even metamorphize and combine, it's just a waste of time.

Also most salad dressing is gross and overpoured.
posted by WeekendJen at 12:40 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lettuce is just shitty cabbage.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:47 PM on August 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

I like a good salad, finding a good one in a restaurant is rare. The tendency to put all of the ingredients on top of the lettuce and that lettuce usually being overly dry means you end up eating all of the other ingredients before the lettuce and then skipping the large remainder of lettuce because you've either run out of dressing or you just can't assed to eat nothing but lettuce. So I guess what I'm saying is I like my salad tossed, and that's not a euphemism.
posted by doctor_negative at 12:48 PM on August 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

I used to hate salads, too, and I'm not going to try to talk those of you who hate salad into liking it, but I will say that saying you hate "salad" as a blanket statement is like saying you hate "sandwiches" or "stews" or "curry" or any other broad meal type which involves several ingredients mixed together.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:00 PM on August 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

Iceberg is the salad of my youth and I still love it. Slather, season or garnish it as you will, a wedge of iceberg is a tactile experience. It is a crisp, crunchy, sweet thing to be eaten with a knife and fork. It is the antithesis of any limp collection of mulch, clippings or bitter forage presented as "salad"...
posted by jim in austin at 1:09 PM on August 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

I have IBS and found out lettuce is one of the foods that really really don't agree with me. I miss salads so much. Like, I've cried watching other people eat lettuce. My favorite sandwich in the whole world is turkey, avacado, mayo, and swiss cheese on a kaiser roll. It's not the same without lettuce. And don't even get me started on BLT's. I'll cry.
posted by shmurley at 1:20 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Iceberg is the salad of my youth and I still love it.

the uncomplicated salad of your childhood?
posted by tobascodagama at 1:27 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yes, saying you hate "salad" is bizarre and I will look at you sideways. There are literally infinite salads out there, you hate them all?
posted by agregoli at 1:30 PM on August 9, 2018

Is lettuce soup salad?

I might like iceberg lettuce more if the stuff I could buy was green all the way through like the photo in Ms. Rosner’s article. That looks more like the Boston/butter/Bibb lettuce in my local grocers than any iceberg I have seen. The lack of appeal of iceberg stems largely from the fact that the middle 2/3rds of a head resembles tightly wadded printer paper in appearance, texture, and taste. Romaine has both flavor and retains crispness in the refrigerator long enough for me to consume a whole head, so that is my go-to lettuce.

The anti-lettuce folks also disregard the important role of roughage in the diet. Once you hit a certain age your score on the Bristol stool scale is more important than your credit score!
posted by TedW at 1:46 PM on August 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

If you're not putting dill into your salad greens... ok, you're maybe not doing it wrong, but you're also missing out.
posted by bonehead at 1:54 PM on August 9, 2018

iceberg lettuce is rubbishy compared to the many other tasty and flavorful greens from which an actual salad can be made but it's good for when you need your greens to be durable, like on top of a taco

also i will eat a head of radicchio like an apple, cronch cronch cronch
posted by poffin boffin at 2:00 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

I keep seeing combinations of letters which seem to suggest that putting lettuce on a taco would be a non-insane thing to do.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:18 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

BLTs with fancy lettuce are just plain NOT AS GOOD as BLTs with big crispy slabs of iceberg.

On the flip side, the very concept of shredded iceberg lettuce is revolting to me. I was given a bodega sandwich with a fistful of the stuff inside it the other day and I wanted to weep.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:40 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Iceberg is the greatest of the engineered leaves. It is the lingua franca of salad, understood by everyone, and rejected as basic as a result. Yet it also provides a lingua franca for a cold dish, a well-understood linguistic basis upon which grammar, flavour narratives, dressings, and contrasts can be laid. It took me 30 years to love salad, and it only hit home when I reached the point of understanding that a dressing was not a flavour supplicant but a neck lubricant.

Also, iceberg can be pan-fried and in the 19th century salad stakes, does anyone see any titanic lettuces any more? /case rested.
posted by davemee at 2:53 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yes, I dislike basically all the salads, unless they are so bastardised that they are no longer a salad any more. And probably not even then. Cold vegetables mixed together in a bowl is straight up unappealing to me and croutons are only good in soup. Unless you count raw spinach with a bit of grated parmesan on top as a salad, which I do like, but that seems to me like a stretch.

I also don't really like sandwiches. Sure, there are exceptions. A plain peanut butter sandwich. Good cheese in a baguette. A bean burger in a crusty roll. But that's about it. I am not a big fan of the genre.

I am probably some sort of food abomination.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:55 PM on August 9, 2018

I think it was Julia Child who quipped that salad was what you ate while you waited for the meat to cook.

That said, good salads are amazing and generally easy to make compared to a lot of dishes. Hell, the “sal” in salad is about salting, and some of the best meals I come up with are just throwing everything leftover in the fridge and pantry into a big bowl, sploosh olive oil and vinegar, salt it, and sit on the couch munching on awesome.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:01 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

I used to think that a wedge salad was best with iceberg until my husband bought butter lettuce instead and now I know the truth. I will still order one and eat the iceberg, but if I am making it myself, I will use butter lettuce.
posted by soelo at 3:02 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Iceberg lettuce is crunchy water.

Ice is crunchy water. Iceberg lettuce is crunchy water with class.
posted by biffa at 3:11 PM on August 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

meh - iceberg is fine. it's also not that great. Yeah, it's crisp. The arguments in favour of its flavour are hyperbolic. I'll take romaine over iceberg almost all the time. At the same time, I'll take iceberg (or ideally a mix) over straight spring mix which does suffer from being wilty and lifeless, even if it's more nutritious and better tasting.

And the wedge is the ultimate fuck-you-salad salad, it's basically an excuse to eat blue cheese without a cracker.

In short, Helen, you've mastered up-market clickbait, iceberg is boring and adequate, you're writing this while the us government is holding children hostage, I like your work but this is actively making the world a worse place.
posted by GuyZero at 3:15 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

salad is not overrated. people love to shit on salad and people who eat salad or like salad - salad as metonym for liberals hippies gays women and people with eating disorders, "jokes" about salad veiling misogyny and homophobia and contempt for people who want to feel like they're being healthy because clearly it's just like "virtue signalling" or something because who could actually like that shit, i'll have me a nice juicy steak (cuz i'm a MAN) while u have ur sissysalad
i would have salad everyday if i hadthe time n money fuck the haters PEACE
posted by LeviQayin at 3:20 PM on August 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

I love salads and don’t really see the hate. It’s like getting mad at pita bread because of hummus.
posted by gucci mane at 4:01 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

iceberg lettuce has minimal nutritional value and i'd like my dark greens with my home-grown tomatoes thank
posted by lineofsight at 4:11 PM on August 9, 2018

I once pretended to be a brontosaurus and ate a head of lettuce whole. The children were aghast that such rudeness was possible AND ask me to repeat it all the time.

There is no point to this anecdote other than to say that you really need to stick your neck out and chew side to side to get the best out of the impression.
posted by five_cents at 4:32 PM on August 9, 2018 [20 favorites]

Iceberg is great in the things iceberg is great in. I get angry at restaurants who try to wedge romaine into hamburgers, etc. Sandwiches, tacos, etc. iceberg is the way to go. It’s there specifically for the texture. My In-N-Out burger would not be made better by butter lettuce wilting under the patties.

For the people complaining about the lack of nutritional value, you’re not otherwise starving. It everything needs to be the most nutritious thing you can eat at the time, unless you’re very specifically malnourished in some strange way.

I had a Thai noodle dish the other night that would have been too cloying and heavy if it hadn’t rested on strips of iceberg. It totally made the dish and it would not have been made better by any other kind of lettuce.

There are no bad ingredients (except weird sweeteners) just bad applications of ingredients.
posted by mikesch at 4:38 PM on August 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

There is no point to this anecdote other than to say that you really need to stick your neck out and chew side to side to get the best out of the impression.

I am OFFENDED that this doesn't come with a video link
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:16 PM on August 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

I dislike most salads cause I don’t like leaves in my mouth, a nice bowl of beans, cucumbers, corn, radishes, and wild rice? That’s a good salad. Fennel with oranges and radicchio and red onion? That’s a good salad. Iceberg has a frimness and crispness I respect
posted by The Whelk at 6:01 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

You don’t win friends with salad.
posted by New Frontier at 7:39 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Are nachos salad? Is taco salad salad? lettuce wraps?
posted by TedW at 7:54 PM on August 9, 2018

Also, can we all just stop pretending that kale actually tastes good? It sucks.

I love kale! It is the best! My parents grew it when I was a wee one in the 1970s. But the current trend of putting it in milkshakes is ghastly.
posted by TedW at 8:01 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Chopped salad!!! Good for you! And word salad! Scrambles the brain like PCP if ingested in the right frame of mind.
posted by kozad at 8:07 PM on August 9, 2018

I keep seeing combinations of letters which seem to suggest that putting lettuce on a taco would be a non-insane thing to do.

It is an extraordinarily Midwest thing that is usually accompanied with black olives.

It’s actually pretty tasty, you just need to accept that it’s a Midwest Taco(tm)
posted by flaterik at 9:07 PM on August 9, 2018

this is the new stand/sit argument, isn't it
posted by Hermione Granger at 11:04 PM on August 9, 2018

kale is repulsive and a crime against humanity
posted by poffin boffin at 11:22 PM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

I love a cold, crisp wedge salad with punchy blue cheese dressing and crispy bacon bits. I was delighted to find this on the menu at an "american style bbq" restaurant in my London so I ordered it. Readers, they served it with Butter Lettuce.

When they put the plate in front of me I couldn't stop myself and just burst out, "Wait, what is this?" and I had to be "that" customer who told them after I ate it (I did eat it) that it was nice but it should have been with iceberg lettuce and showed them the google image results for "wedge salad" because COME ON freaking middle class hipsters ruining everything.
posted by like_neon at 2:14 AM on August 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sorry nebulawindphone, no video. But feel free to challenge your friends (or small children) to recreate. It's surprisingly easy to eat a whole head of iceberg lettuce.
posted by five_cents at 4:10 AM on August 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Mmmmm, kale is the best. I'm actually grumpy at health-conscious kale-smoothie people who have driven the price up from "crappy immigrant food" to "trendy health food" levels. It's really good mashed into potatoes (stamppot style). But my current favorite way to have it is torn or chopped into smaller pieces, sauteed in butter and garlic, and then tossed with whole-wheat spaghetti. (Usually with a bit of diced roast chicken on top for protein, I like it marinated in a garlic lemon oregano marinade but even leftover rotisserie chicken is good.) The whole-wheat spaghetti stands up SO well to the strong kale flavor, and the whole thing is super-delicious. As evidence, my children inhale it and beg for me to make it all the time. I was sure they wouldn't like it (wilted greens are a tough texture for little kids!) but they absolutely adore it.

Neither of which is a salad, but I definitely eat it in salads too!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:21 AM on August 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

I love salad. I know buffets put salads at the front so you fill up your plate and belly with them instead of more expensive food. I don't care. I load my plate up with delicious salad. After I try everything else on the buffet, more often than not I go back for seconds on salad.

Iceberg is usually meh—even on a sandwich a crispier piece of romaine is better. But a good iceberg wedge salad is a wonderful thing, and my first choice when it's offered.
posted by grouse at 5:32 AM on August 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I, too, grew up eating kale from my mother's garden. The first time I mentioned kale and got a "lol hipster food" reaction, I was baffled – I didn't know it was even possible to be fancy about cabbage.

The current trend will subside, and instead of being a trendy Superfood™ it'll become hopelessly passé, and I'll continue eating it without caring either way, just as I've always done.

Looking forward to the faddish fetishization of (and inevitable anti-hipster backlash against) carrots, bananas, and oatmeal.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:33 AM on August 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

There was this ask some time ago that got me looking for an old cookbook: Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking. I couldn't find it, and later it turned out that I had already put it in my holiday basket of things to read while summering. So I read it back to back and obviously there is a lot of salad in that book. Her salads are generally much simpler than contemporary salads, but I realized when re-reading I've learnt the most from her emphasis on dressings -- she uses much more oil (and sometimes cream) than most other cooks, and she writes a lot about mixing the salad with ones hands to make sure the dressing and salad greens are wholly integrated. Too often, you get a lot of dry or watery veg with a sprinkling of sour stuff on the top. That is wrong. While lettuces are fine with a light lubrication, something like kale needs a literal massage with a good dressing to become edible. IMO, of course. I don't want to impose anything on anyone. Another thing David emphasizes strongly is the quality of the product. She is probably spinning in her grave over bagged salads. This summer I've had access to lettuces that were picked in the morning from a field, not a greenhouse, and I can tell you even the iceberg isn't crisp water then.
I grew up in one of those horrible iceberg+unripe tomato+cucumber=salad households, and when I was a young adult everywhere I went I had the even worse Napa cabbage+canned corn+raw squash=salad. So have hated salad and never ate them unless I had to in my lifetime. But I have learnt to salad. First from David, a generation ago, then slowly becoming more adventurous. Today we rarely have a meal without a salad in my family, and the kids would complain if it was any different, they have always loved their vegs. I don't even mind the prep-work anymore.
posted by mumimor at 7:45 AM on August 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Your favorite salad green sucks.
posted by grouse at 8:36 AM on August 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's not fair to knock kale without trying it in oil-drizzled, carb-laden Tuscan/Apulian recipes. Kale's popularity with the clean living community has not helped its reputation, and has resulted in way too many "sneak in this healthy food" recipes. Don't "sneak" kale anywhere. Let it be the star of your pasta or whatever. If you like a little bitterness in your life, kale is delicious.

...and I guess I have to try this iceberg soup business, now that I've declared that The Problem Is People Are Eating Kale Incorrectly. Bleh.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:57 AM on August 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

I love kale because I love all brassica. Along with allium, one of nature's finest families.
posted by dame at 10:31 AM on August 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

If I am not the only one who hates lettuce, then why is it so difficult to get a sandwich without it? So much confusion whenever I ask for no lettuce on my burgers/sandwich/etc.

Iceberg is my least favorite, because it tastes like nothing and most often shows up in a sandwich in limp shredded form; perhaps if it actually got served fresh enough to have crunch left I would be less annoyed.

I am also confused because I agree with neither of the articles— salad is awesome, but iceberg is a stupid waste of matter.
posted by nat at 4:05 AM on August 11, 2018 [3 favorites]