Curious about salad. Yes, really.

Same. Salad was a huge part of my meals growing up, for all dinners and most lunches. Occasionally, we had a kale salad as a side at breakfast. Sometimes, salad was the whole meal. No surprise to me, because it can fill you up.

While my mom may have had a salad occasionally, I never ate it because I didn't eat (and still don't) lettuce. She tried when I was younger but I couldn't eat it. Since I was the oldest, she just got used to never serving it to the whole family.

Now that I'm older, I love a good salad as long as it's with spinach. I rarely use it as a side to my meal but make it the actual meal.

I'm from Western PA. Oh and because I think it's relevant to where we are from, my mom's go-to salad is one with steak fries, mandarin oranges, ranch, plus a protein.

lemurcat2 wrote: »

gremloBBPT wrote: »

My curiosity is probably odd, lol, but I'm genuinely curious about this...

1. Growing up, did you have a lettuce-based salad with your dinners at home on most/all days?
2. Was it served before, with, or after dinner?
3. What country did you grow up in? (And if your ancestors were from a different country, were your salad-eating habits from that culture?)

1. No. We had it regularly, but not with every dinner. We had non starchy veg as a substantial part of all dinners (about half the plate) and sometimes it was salad (salad was served in a separate bowl, however), and sometimes we had a cooked veg + salad also, but we often had just the cooked veg. (We also always had a starch of some sort -- corn, bread, rice, potato -- and meat.)
2. It was served with dinner. (Unless at a restaurant, in which case it would be before.)
3. The US, and my family has been midwestern Americans for a long time.

Almost exactly this

When I was a kid in the U.S. Midwest region, we did not have salads with our regular meals, just cooked vegetables as side dishes.

However, if we had people over for holidays or birthday parties, my mom would sometimes make a big salad, but it depended on who was coming over.

Greek side of the family, ALWAYS a Greek salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, feta cheese, olives. Served with dinner.
German side of the family, usually no salad.

This started to change when we were teenagers...my parents started serving more salads with our regular meals. Now, I notice they always eat salads with their meals and always serve it when they are hosting guests as well.

We never had salad. Always a veggie served with dinner, but never a salad. Although, every time we went to Ponderosa (a buffet/steak house we had in Ohio) my mom would always make us have a salad first before any other buffet items.

My mom was a salad freak, still is. I like them now, and have one for dinner very often. My ethnic background is mostly Italian, and part German. Second generation on both sides.

We had salad on occasion, sometimes with dinner, sometimes AS dinner. My family are all huge salad lovers so we always had it in the house. I would say I ate it maybe once or twice a week. I still do.
We do eat it before dinner if we go out to eat, though. Every single time. Even buffets.

My fam growing up yes before dinner, now I can’t get anyone to eat it so I quit wasting food lol. However we do have Doritos salad as the main one night a week typically cause it’s the only way most my fam will eat it. Now for formal holidays always a salad is served though us no one eats it but my mil. My background Irish/Dutch his background Irish/Cherokee

lol though with my daughter that was probably 13 years ago