Salad with Thanksgiving dinner?

Every year I play around with a salad for turkey day....and each year, I think I can find something better. To be honest, my favorite is one my mother used to make which is a lime jello, with cream cheese. She grated a small onion into the jello, plus mandarin oranges and grapefruit sections. I like to use the Rio Star grapefruit and Satuma mandarin sections. What salad do your prefer, if any?

Karen, I hate to argue, but the lime jello concoction is not a salad. The French have a name for that part of culinary offerings, but it alludes me just now.

I made a celeriac-jicama-apple-persimmon-red lipstick pepper salad. Dressed with yogurt, creme fraiche, lime juice, red onion, espalette pepper and salt.

Hi Bernard,

Re your comment. I remember when I first visited the USA just how taken aback I was to see the different types of dishes presented under the name of "salad". I've travelled fairly widely, but I have to confess that something that had more in common with the nursery food I was served during rationing just after the second world war (tinned fruit in synthetically flavoured jello jelly) pushed the definition to the outer limits!

For me (without in any way wanting to criticize USA naming conventions) a confection with a lot of fruit in it, whose overall flavour balance is fruity & sweet with merely balancing acidity would be called a fruit salad and would be served as a desert. If it were made with a top quality home made jelly (UK) gelée (Fr) and fresh fruit, then we would possibly call it a a "fruit jelly" or in French "Chartreuse". But it has to be said that I've not really seen anything like that for years.

Interesting..... I've not really thought where I would draw the line around the use of the word "salad". In thai cooking a salad will certainly have their usual balancing sugar and chillies and I'd happily accept the name as a valid translation. In Germany a lot of salads have a dressing with sour cream or yoghurt, but the overall character is more salty/savoury than sweet. Hmm. But in principle, what the difference between a cranberry sauce or redcurrant jelly (conserve) served with meat, and a fruit salad with onions? Not much really. I suppose.

Every year I play around with a salad for turkey day....and each year, I think I can find something better. To be honest, my favorite is one my mother used to make which is a lime jello, with cream cheese. She grated a small onion into the jello, plus mandarin oranges and grapefruit sections. I like to use the Rio Star grapefruit and Satuma mandarin sections. What salad do your prefer, if any?

I had some lime jello the day before my colonoscopy.

So did I.

[Jenise]

Have to agree with Bernie. With no disrespect meant, as I grew up eating a lime jello concoction my grandmother made every Thanksgiving and called salad (made opaque with mayonnaise and also containing pineapple, walnuts and cottage cheese), I just can't consider jello a salad. Too sweet, and of course it doesn't go with wine. In my world, salad is lettuce-based. For our shared Thanksgiving, my friend Susan B. served a lovely arugula salad with diced red beets, walnuts and chevre.

Karen, it's funny you should ask. The was no "salad" on our table this year, and the group that gathered at our house didn't miss it at all. (I asked, and there was a resounding "NO!") Last year I think I made a frisee salad with oranges and toasted almonds and Champagne vinaigrette. It was hardly touched. We always have so many different sides, that our group just doesn't really care about salad during this feast.

No salad here, but then I'm not a real salad fan.

Karen, I hate to argue, but the lime jello concoction is not a salad. The French have a name for that part of culinary offerings, but it alludes me just now.

Well, all I can say is that I am not in France...this salad was made in my family when I was little as were a lot of great "jello concoctions". I realize they have fallen out of favor, but they were called salads at that time, and still are in cookbooks, magazines, cooking shows, etc. and I, too, am not going argue about it, just stating how it is.

[Jenise]

Karen, I hate to argue, but the lime jello concoction is not a salad. The French have a name for that part of culinary offerings, but it alludes me just now.

Well, all I can say is that I am not in France...this salad was made in my family when I was little as were a lot of great "jello concoctions". I realize they have fallen out of favor, but they were called salads at that time, and still are in cookbooks, magazines, cooking shows, etc. and I, too, am not going argue about it, just stating how it is.

You're absolutely right that in America it's a commonly accepted term. I wonder how that got started, though? In France (not the only cuisine in the world, but inarguably the finest and that from which so many other foods evolved), a savory aspic served on lettuce leaves would indeed be something served as a starter course and probably even called salad though I'm not 100% sure of that. I'm thinking that somehow America looked at that and ended up with the other. But I'm not sure how...Jello company contest in 1942 or something? I'll see if I can find any history.

My aunt, who was a wonderful gourmet cook, made aspic every Christmas, which was served on lettuce leaves from her garden. It was beautiful, but I recall thinking it was an odd food, and the texture was not to my liking. She did call it a "salad". Much of what one considers to be a salad is very regional.

Not Thanksgiving for me if there's no Waldorf Salad. This year it wasn't Thanksgiving.

[Jenise]

Karen, here's a link to a website you might enjoy: http://recipejunkie.blogspot.com/2008/04/jello-salad-and-some-history.html

Because of our discussion here, I must say I laughed out loud when way down in her description she referred to a jello salad she grew up (dangerously close to my grandmother's) with and called it a "fluffy green concoction"--the word 'concoction' seems inevitable when anyone discusses this.

Anyway, after finding that I went to Wikipedia and optioned "Jello Salad". Interesting they report a different story about the invention of Knox Gelatine that strangely leaves Mr. Knox and his product out of the story. Hard to tell where the truth is except to think that this has to be an error of omission, but it does seem that the origins of Jello salad are more or less as suspected--a copy of an elegant Continental food abetted by the invention of Jello the convenience product. The Wikipedia article mentioned two other things I found particularly interesting, that in the 50's Jello had a range of vegetable flavors like celery and tomato, and that Jello is the official state snack of the state of Utah. I can't believe there's such a thing as an official state snack. Anywhere.

Hi Jenise,

The Wikipedia article mentioned two other things I found particularly interesting, that in the 50's Jello had a range of vegetable flavors like celery and tomato, and that Jello is the official state snack of the state of Utah. Official state snack?

Now that IS fascinating. I can well see that an aspic made with those flavours would go very well with most of what I'd call salad vegetables which might well be embedded in it. Personally I'd want to call it an aspic salad or something like that. I really do find it hard to get my head round the idea of calling fruit in jello "salad".

Karen, please don't take what I say as criticism, it's not meant in that way at all. Furthermore, although I live in France, I certainly wouldn't say that all food definitions had to be acceptable to France or its culinary traditions. My references are probably more English than French in this respect. In the UK the word "salad" is a lot narrower in meaning than it is in France, I think.

I can't believe there's such a thing as an official state snack. Anywhere.

New Mexico has an official cookie: the bizcochito
official vege: the chile

And as a few days ago, New Mexico, now has an official guitar!

I am no fan of the jello "salad."

Except.

My mom makes something with strawberry jello, cream cheese and pretzels...and I love it.

My dark secret.

I raised this matter with the final authority - my final authority. My wife agrees that "jello salad" is not salad, much to my surprise. She always knew the culinary concept as "Jello Mold".

OK Gang! Now I've done the work for y'all. Here's the dreaded link: Looks like I was a decade late in estimating the onset of jello sin.

http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/jello/index.html

At the bottom of the page, click on "let the decline begin".

And there's more:

http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/knox/index.html

Yeah, jello mold sounds like a good name for the stuff!

We did a pretty decent salad with a raspberry vinegrette, pears, blue cheese and walnuts this year.

As you might expect, the salad is not a popular offering on the table.

I raised this matter with the final authority - my final authority. My wife agrees that "jello salad" is not salad, much to my surprise. She always knew the culinary concept as "Jello Mold".

OK Gang! Now I've done the work for y'all. Here's the dreaded link: Looks like I was a decade late in estimating the onset of jello sin.

http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/jello/index.html

At the bottom of the page, click on "let the decline begin".

And there's more:

http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/knox/index.html

The Gallery of Regrettable Food strikes again! Have to admit, though, I hadn't seen the Jello section before. I still have tears in my eyes from laughing at some of that stuff.

Great stuff, Bernard!

I'm a salad lover but can easily do without it on Thanksgiving with all the other vegetable dishes. I agree with Fred, however, that Waldorf salad would be appropriate.

My favorite jello dish (it can be with the meal or as dessert) includes black cherry jello, pecans, crushed pineapples, cherry pie filling and red wine. I got it from a wives' cookbook in an American community in Germany. My Mormon colleague went running to tell his wife not to sample the jello dish when I informed him that it included some wine.

Simple. If it's there, I'll eat it.

I'm a salad lover but can easily do without it on Thanksgiving with all the other vegetable dishes..

True. But depending on what you have on your Thanksgiving table, salad (or something bright) can be a welcome change from all the other stodgy mushy heavy dishes.

Not Thanksgiving for me if there's no Waldorf Salad. This year it wasn't Thanksgiving.

Exact situation here. Usually Waldorf Salad, but unfortunately not this year.