Salads

Nearly every vegetable stall in Bombay has a small section devoted to lettuce, or salit. It’s usually a delicate leaf lettuce and, as often as not, it sits neglected and wilting through the heat of the day. In my childhood, salit appeared as a restrained border for sliced beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions—the green salad of so many Bombay restaurant menus—or as a surrounding garnish for mounds of mayonnaise-dressed meat, fish, or vegetables; either way, perfunctory appearances. I knew only one public place that served just lettuce, freshly picked, with oil and vinegar. This was my parents’ club, which ran a magnificently polyglot kitchen.