September 6, 2004

Salad Days

“That was the salad that changed America,” the restaurant consultant Clark Wolf told me recently. “It taught us that greens aren’t necessarily bland and wilting, that they can be peppery and sweet and nutty and creamy. It taught us that they can make a different dish in every season, as the crops and flavors change. And, once we knew that, it changed the way we felt about everything. If salad wasn’t just iceberg with a slice of radish on top, then what about other vegetables? What about chickens and cheese and milk and grains?”