The definition of salad

[azurelunatic]

Belovedest made tater tots last night, and we all had some (except the cats). They added some of the cooked ground beef and some cheese, and said something about stretching the definition of salad.

This was clearly (to me, anyway) in the same spirit of shitposting about the definition of sandwiches. So I considered my rules. "If it doesn't have anything that looks like it's photosynthesized recently, it's nachos," I declared.

This was accepted. Though I think the thing that makes it a nacho is the melted cheese. (By which definition, a staple of my childhood was rice nachos.)

Comments

[harpers_child]

Sounds like a version of what several local restaurants call "irish channel nachos". i.e. potato skins with the usual nacho toppings.

[azurelunatic]

A good number of fantastic hole-in-the-wall burrito-centric Mexican restaurants in Phoenix Arizona and San Francisco have nacho toppings on shoestring fries, and it's delicious.

[harpers_child]

I've had the home fries variant and the thick cut fries variant, but not the shoestring kind. I think that means further research is needed.

[ghoti]

around here they do "Irish nachos" as waffle fries with nacho toppings. nomf.

[redsixwing]

Any word so broad as to include a Caesar salad, a macaroni salad, a jello salad, and a hot potato salad is already useless, so far as I can tell.*

That said, nachos always involve corn chips. ;)

*unless it means "edible stuff, probably mixed with other edible stuff," a definition I am prepared to accept.

[alexseanchai]

that latter definition, while certainly acceptable, is a little overbroad to be useful, don't you think?

[redsixwing]

Yep. ;)

[conuly]

Where I am, corn chips is definitely NOT synonymous with tortilla chips!

[steorra]

What are corn chips to you?

[conuly]

Fritos or Dipsy Doodles and the like. Even Bugles or Nacho Twists, if looked at in the right light! But definitely not tortilla chips. They taste totally different and have a completely different texture.

Wikipedia suggests that the difference is that one has nixtamalized and the other hasn't. Seems as plausible as anything else!

[redsixwing]

Ah!

You're right; I meant tortilla chips. Nacho toppings on the other kind of corn chips are Frito pie. :D

[alexseanchai]

rice nachos

your childhood would horrify my Uncle Jeff

(my adulthood regularly horrifies Uncle Jeff; this is nothing to be terribly concerned about, though I must admit he has a point about my nutrition)

[azurelunatic]

I did have a lot of fresh garden carrots, in season.

[lannamichaels]

I just fell down a deep and terrifying hole in my head and I think I'm going to say that my personal defintion of salad is 1) "something where the vegetables are the point rather than an add-in", and, 2) is not meant to be eaten with rice or pasta. I add that addition because otherwise stir-fry is a salad and I got too scared by the possibilities.

As for what counts as nachos, I haven't the faintest.


EDIT: aaaaaand I just remembered my chicken pasta salad thing, so striking out pasta. If I end up ever making a salad that includes rice, I give up. :P

[azurelunatic]

The ingredients may be cooked, but if so, they should be cooked before mixing.

[lannamichaels]

That's a very good distinction! I do cook vegetables for salad, but the only ones that are mixed in the pan are the ones that have the same cooking time.

[azurelunatic]

Most salads are not hot. (Most.)

Abusing random Capitalized Letters.

[archangelbeth]

*ponders*

I think what makes it a nacho to me is corn chips + melted cheese. I, for instance, will eat nachos that have green bell-peppers on 'em. (Potato chips + melted cheese are not nachos, but some unholy abomination that people can of course find edible. I mean, it might even taste good, but it will not scratch the "Nacho Itch" in my brain and taste buds.)

*ponders salad*

Salads are a mix of Similar Foodstuffs With Discrete Boundaries, with 1 or maybe 2 Dissimilar Added permitted. E.g., Leafy Greens + Dressing (dissimilar) + meat/eggs (dissimilar). Fruit + cheese (optional). Pasta-and-sauce + uncooked vegetables (optional). This means that if you mix ham slices and bacon strips together, you have a meat salad, but I can live with this concept. ^_^

Jello salad is (Similar things) + Jello (dissimilar), but humans gonna human with language.

Chili doesn't really have discrete boundaries of the ingredients, so it can't be meat salad. It has become Diffuse Boundaries, and thus is Stew.

Re: Abusing random Capitalized Letters.

[azurelunatic]

My Dissimilar Additons are by ratio, not count. So I will tolerate a large count of different salad toppings before it stops being a salad and starts being a buffet, as long as it's under say 1:3.

Re: Abusing random Capitalized Letters.

[archangelbeth]

Fair! ...and true, there's the Fruit-On-Salad stuff, though I suppose maybe they're defining by "it's all vegetable, right?"

*grin*

[melannen]

I think I agree that nachos must have either chips or tortillas of SOME kind involved. Although of course then we could argue about whether tater tots are chips.

I think I would call your meal a deconstructed loaded baked potato, myself.(Anytime I can use the word "deconstructed" to describe that kind of meal it makes me very happy.)

I think for me the most important factor in a salad is it is a mix of at least two ingredients that is not a dessert and is served cold. I have never heard of "hot" potato salad before, I am not pleased to learn, and I'm pretty sure what that is, is a "casserole". :P Maybe I could finagle it to "a dish of at least two mixed ingredients that is not a dessert where the ingredients are not cooked together."

[azurelunatic]

A nacho has a firm starch substrate which can be discretely pulled out while loaded with topping. So it depends on the structural integrity of the tater tots.

[vass]

I'm no expert, but I suspect that Cronch is a necessary textural attribute of nachos.

[melannen]

I like that!

Maybe it's as simple as "nachos should never be eaten with utensils. Salads always should."

[archangelbeth]

*eats salads as finger-foods, dipping into dressing, until it's down to the additives*
*is a barbarian, yes*

[alatefeline]

On nom tasty nachoes.

[azurelunatic]

So many options!

[wohali]

So if you add jalapenos, it's a salad, right?

[azurelunatic]

If fresh. Pickled haven't photosynthesized recently enough.

[rainne]

Nachos. I can get behind that.

By that definition, would a Frito Chili Pie be considered nachos, or is that more of a casserole?

[azurelunatic]

Casserole. Because it's supposed to go a bit soft.

[nadyne]

The cafeteria closest to my office does breakfast nachos: tater tots, cheese, bacon, optional fried egg, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole. You have to know to ask for them, but the cook loves it when you do.

[azurelunatic]

Om nom nom.