the dinner thing explained

[ritaxis]

So here's the reason I was asking people about the shape of dinner. At least one of the editions of The Joy of Cooking says something about "in California, where they do everything their own way, the salad comes first." Another old cookbook says "It's becoming more common for people everywhere to serve the salad first, as they do in California." And this Spanish cookbook I was reading said, "In Spain, as in California, the salad is served first."

I'm a California girl, and yeah, if there's going to be an order to the meal, I expect salad to come early (but I think soup trumps salad for first position, though since I have no dining room and an awkwardly-shaped kitchen with no room for a dining table, dinners here are always food laid out around the kitchen all at once and people fare the best they can). But I just thought it was weird that for a time anyway there was a perception that salad comes some other place in the meal than the front, except in California and Spain, where you expect things to be different.

On another front, I'm at 46K words for Prospect Road, and for probably the first time ever I have no clear idea of what the end of the story is. But I'm having fun with it, which is some consolation. Oh, and Afterwar? doing that thing with the verbs might be paying off. I don't know. Anyway, I did realize that the word the writing group probably wanted instead of passive is static. Because passive means something grammatically, and it's not "excessive use of appositives (if I remember that right) and progressive past."

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Interesting; salad comes last in a traditional formal service. Restaurants put it first because it can be got ready quickly. Is how I understood it.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

My instincts for a formal dinner (Scandinavian background) says that a green salad would come after the (red) meat course, almost as a palate cleanser before dessert or cheese. I've also heard arguments that the juices from the main become the dressing for the salad.

[daystreet.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and never heard of the salad course coming anywhere else except at the very beginning of the meal. Then in my mid-teens the family took a trip to Europe. I was stunned and appalled that the salad would come after other stuff. I wondered when these European types would finally get some civilization.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

most everywhere in continental europe i've lived (not spain), salad, if there is any, comes with the main course. it's treated like a vegetable side dish. which, well, it is. :)

whe i moved over here i thought it was way weird that salad comes first in north america. i'm happy to find many restaurants in canada who serve it with the meal, and i usually try to order it that way, because i don't want to eat it first; it interplays so nicely with meat and potatoes.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Salad, if there is any, would be treated as a vegetable accompaniment or side dish to the main course in the UK too. In fact it's often called a "side salad" in restaurants.

However... I've just remembered that in the hotel where we stayed in Portugal, we did get a salad, with fishy stuff (that might have been squid), before the main course, even when we specifically asked for no starter. The meals were delicious, but humungous in size.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

If it's 'a salad' - salad with dressing and things (like chicken or seafood) in it, then I'd expect it before the main course; if it's 'salad' (as in green stuff) then I'd expect it to come with the meal.

I don't expect it to come after the main course under any circumstances.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Oh, that English thing, where they use the word "salad" to mean anything green. Very confusing for me, when I see people talking about buying salad and they mean brussels sprouts for cooking.

I'm not insisting that it's wrong or anything, just registering that for me, a salad is a dish of usually mixed, usually dressed, usually raw vegetables or fruit, except when it's an aberration of fish, egg, or pasta, called salad because it somehow reminds somebody of the "real" salad (by aberration again I don't mean there's anything wrong with the usage, just that it's a variation).

[momomom.livejournal.com]

Well in that case I'll add this to my stuff. Even if we serve buffet style or family style most people tend to eat their salad first here in Maryland.

I have read that in Europe salad is served later.

[ellarien]

Interesting. I've become very accustomed to salad-as-first-course in American restaurants, though I refuse to have dressing on it, but back home in the north of England it was either a substitute side or (for high tea) an accompaniment for bread and cold meats. (Salad, in those distant days, meant lettuce, tomatoes, sliced cucumber, pickled beets and possibly spring onions, with optional dollop of Heinz Salad Cream). I do remember coming across salad as a separate course in France and finding it odd, but that was mostly a buffet-style student cafeteria where the order of eating was discretionary.

On planes, I eat the hot course first while it's hot and then the salad, but that's just pragmatism.