Harvest season is underway, and if we’re not eating more healthy food right now, lord knows how we’ll fare in February and its cavalcade of mealy citrus and wilted greens. I’ve written about salads in previous columns, but this week’s Family Recipe Box takes a strategic view towards that collation which can range from iceberg minimal to smorgasbordian.
The “Salad Bar” was an innovation of the 1970s and an offshoot of the “back to the land” movement. As women entered the workforce during the second wave of feminism, restaurant owners hit upon a dining opportunity to attract them: the bistro featuring a “light lunch.” Whether it was crepes (remember The Magic Pan in Boston?) soups or salads, restaurants for mid-day weekday dining began to expand from the classic steakhouse model (two martinis, french fries and steak flopping over the platter).
Decades ago, there was a delightful chain called “Souper Salad” in the greater Boston area. I used to go to the restaurant in Harvard Square. The central attraction was a 30-foot long banquet table with dozens of bowls of greens, veggies, fruits and fixings.
Coming to the big city from little old Lunenburg and beholding this masterpiece was mind-boggling. The centerpiece of salad bars back home was an aluminum platter of chopped up iceberg lettuce, rough cut cucumbers with the skins left on, and fridge-stiff tomatoes alongside beakers of Italian and Roquefort dressing.
The Souper Salad presentation had many items I’d never seen before such as chickpeas, and varieties of lettuce. So many colors of pepper — diced red cabbage, and tiny florets of broccoli, plus add-ons like hard-boiled eggs and bacon bits. This is the era when “macrobiotic” was an extreme form of vegetarianism, and the health benefits of brown rice versus white rice were starting to be discussed.
What I loved about Souper Salad (which was not cheap, by the way) was that all the salad components were washed, peeled, chopped, and ready to be combined. It’s very satisfying to contemplate a colorful array of raw vegetables that need only to be scooped into a bowl. But that’s always 20 minutes — or longer — after the time one gets the urge for a salad.
A little work, a lot of sides
Thus, Family Recipe Box presents the “Three Day Salad,” where you do all the work, but get at least a couple of meals, or a few days worth of sides. The trick is making the salad for a container of a specific size — and remembering to eat your salad on sequential days, so it doesn’t sulk in the fridge and turn brown.
We like the 1.5-quart rectangular glass boxes with snap-plastic lids which can be found at Ocean State Job Lot for under $10. These will keep your salad crispy, and reduce the amount of plastic involved in meal preparation.
Speaking of plastic — are you as anxious about the unseen and deadly world of nano-plastics as I am? For those just tuning in, news about the detrimental effects of nano-plastics has been going on for a few years. In 2024, National Institute of Health reported that “Researchers developed an imaging technique that detected thousands of tiny bits of plastic in common single-use bottles of water.”
The study continued to explain that “plastics are a part of our everyday lives, and plastic pollution is a growing concern. When plastics break down over time, they can form smaller particles called microplastics, which are 5 mm or less in length — smaller than a sesame seed. Microplastics, in turn, can break down into even smaller pieces called nanoplastics, which are less than 1 μm in size. Unable to be seen with the naked eye, these are small enough to enter the body’s cells and tissues.”
Now if that isn’t plot fodder for a Stephen King novel, I don’t know what is. What’s more ghastly is that the nanoplastics can apparently migrate throughout the organs, blood, and body, and can cross the blood/brain and placental barriers.
So last year, I reviewed the worn collection of faux-Tupperware in the larder, and a dinged-up collection of water-bottles and purchased some small thick-walled glass bottles and snap-top glass containers. These may weigh a little more, but not as heavily as nanoplastics weigh on my mind.
Three-Day Salad for 1.5 quart container
INGREDIENTS:
6 leaves Romaine
2 plum tomatoes
Half a cucumber
radishes
peppers
hard-boiled egg diced
toasted walnuts
1/4 cup Craisins
diced orange
ripe avocado
DIRECTIONS:
Wash your greens, and slice cucumbers and radishes into half-circles. Put together, and take out 1/3 for the salad you are eating right now.
Notes: If you are adding avocado, make sure you eat it on the first day. The philosophy of the three-day salad is that you do not need to make a salad on the second and third day because you have a salad. And by the fourth day, you’re probably ready to have cooked vegetables with your meal.
One helpful household hint
When you are making a salad, whether a “Three Day” or other variety, tear, rather than slice your greens. They will not go brown as quickly.
Sally Cragin would love to read your family recipes and stories. Write to: sallycragin@gmail.com
