A question. If someone tells you that it’s salad for dinner, isn’t there a teensy petulant you inside that stomps their foot a little at the prospect of being fed rabbit food as a repast? Be honest now. You are not alone: back in the (seventeenth-century) day, one Robert Burton wrote: ‘Some are of the opinion that all raw herbs and sallets breed melancholy blood.’ We have all had luscious salads full of melty cheese, naughty croutons and sizzled meat or fish, but still the initial mention of salad immediately conjures visions of floppy lettuce, diet clubs, detoxing and virtuosity. Or very sad pub garnishes composed of wilted round lettuce leaves, slightly sweaty tomatoes and a bit of mustard and cress.
