Salads, Fresh & Cooked

From the traveler’s point of view, the Subcontinent and salads aren’t always the world’s best partners. Throughout the region, there are unique and delicious salads full of good fresh flavors and textures, but fresh can also mean uncooked, and uncooked breaks a traveler’s rule: If you can’t cook it or peel it, you shouldn’t eat it. This can be a predicament, because we’ve come to see salads as an essential part of a great South Asian meal. A fresh salad, even one as simple as a plate of fresh cucumbers, chopped shallots, and lime juice, can be all it takes to make an ordinary meal absolutely perfect. Like a fresh herb plate in Lebanon, Armenia, or Vietnam, or the salad greens and scallions served alongside a Thai meal, the flavor-heightening freshness in taste and texture that a salad brings to a curry-centered meal is all-important.