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

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*