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09-18-2002, 03:35 PM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Professional Chef | | Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Kamloops, BC, Canada
Posts: 795
| |  The Salad Poll
OK, so I was watching food network at around 2am this morning, and there was this new show on, I think it's called 30 minute meals, anyway the host was making some salad, and she mentioned that alot of people are split over whether you should tear the lettuce or cut it. So I thought this would be a fun thing, to see what everybodies preference is. Myself, I prefer to cut the lettuce, because that's how it gets done at work.
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09-18-2002, 03:58 PM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Cook At Home | | Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: This 'n that galaxy.
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09-18-2002, 04:39 PM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Restaurant Manager | | Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Back at work
Posts: 848
| |  rip it up
At work and at home, I tear. I' m also a stickler for washing before tearing and making sure the leaves are DRY!
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What a relief! To find out after all these years that I'm not crazy. I'm just culinarily divergent... |
09-18-2002, 05:01 PM
|  | ChefTalk Moderator | | Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: SLC UT
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I do both. Depends on quantity, type of green, how far ahead I'm prepping, how much time I have for the task and so on. A truly sharp knife doesn't bruise it significantly, but it looks manufactured.
Phil |
09-18-2002, 05:19 PM
|  | ChefTalk Moderator Culinary Experience: Professional Chef | | Join Date: May 2001 Location: New York, NY
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At home, I tear. At work, I do whichever my chef tells me to do.  |
09-18-2002, 07:59 PM
|  | ChefTalk Moderator Culinary Experience: Cook At Home | | Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Wisconsin USA
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I tear, and with gusto! 
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09-18-2002, 08:14 PM
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Unless I'm making coleslaw, I most definitely tear!
BTW CoolJ, hubby just finished the Paul Newman's... 
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Last edited by Kimmie; 09-18-2002 at 08:17 PM.
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09-19-2002, 01:49 AM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Right Here
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Quote: Originally posted by Suzanne
At home, I tear. At work, I do whichever my chef tells me to do. | At work, true, I do as my chef tells me.
At home, I do what my WIFE tells me.
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09-19-2002, 05:48 AM
| | ChefTalk Supporter Culinary Experience: Professional Pastry Chef | | Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: norwalk, CT USA
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I cut! I find that when it's torn, the leaves get crushed. So I take the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. |
09-19-2002, 09:15 AM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Southern Missouri
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I buy it in a bag! 
...if I buy it in a bag I eat salad more often...which is good for me. I'm afraid there are some preservatives on bagged salads tho... |
09-19-2002, 10:27 AM
| | ChefTalk Moderator Culinary Experience: Professional Chef | | Join Date: May 2001 Location: New York, NY
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We still love you, Nancya. But remember you still have to wash the stuff in the bag. It's not just the preservatives ...  |
09-19-2002, 11:35 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Cook At Home | | Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: This 'n that galaxy.
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The preservative is probably just bleach. I overheard a manager at Denny's say that bleach is what they use to preserve salad greens. |
09-19-2002, 02:43 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Southern Missouri
Posts: 817
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Oh! Suzanne! Do I really want to know??? If Kokopuffs is right...no! I don't want to know! And I have seen reports on the amounts of chemicals and fertilizers on bagged salads and lettuce (organic or not) and I just don't want to think about it.
Now...where did I leave that salad spinner? |
09-19-2002, 03:33 PM
|  | Forums' Administrator Culinary Experience: Culinary Instructor | | Join Date: Oct 1999 Location: New Castle, De USA
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From what I have seen in produce processing places, they gas flush the cut lettuce with nitrogen to keep it fresh. However, the flavor suffers - just open that bag! Peeeeewwww. Also, if you check out Harold Magee's On Cooking he goes on for 20+ pages on cutting vs. tearing greens to prevent browing. His conclusion- it's all the same.
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09-19-2002, 04:02 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Restaurant Manager | | Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Back at work
Posts: 848
| | Great subject!
As I was tearing away at work a little while ago, and I know that this is a personal preference and nothing more- but we tear the salad as we make them, and the smell of the freshly torn greens does seem to make some difference. They look good too. Suzanne would be proud of me- she could get a freshly torn just-tossed salad with fresh, never bruised lettuce properly dried with the right amount of dressing.
All of that out here in the diaspora.......For @3 bucks to boot!
I liked the coleslaw comment. Could you imagine. "Hand torn coleslaw- a dish for the truly patient cook." lol..
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What a relief! To find out after all these years that I'm not crazy. I'm just culinarily divergent... | | |
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