Let’s Talk About Salads

It’s hard to imagine a country with better produce than Italy. Yes, most countries in the southern hemisphere have great quality fruit and veg, but the obsession with quality isn’t always as pronounced. Italy is blessed with a long growing season, especially in the south, and going to the mercato every week feels like walking through a technicolor Andy Warhol painting. The sheer quantity of fruit overflowing from wooden crates. The overwhelming variety of greens still speckled with dirt from the fields. Bright, exotic-looking flowers that light up the faces of passersby with curiosity.

Il Mercato

You’d think with so much to play with in the fruit and vegetable department, Italy would be a cornucopia of salads. I thought so too. The reality is….confounding.

If you order a salad in just about any restaurant in Italy, you’re going to get a bowl of leaves, and possibly two sliced cherry tomatoes. Next to it, you’ll receive a bottle of olive oil and a packet of salt. You might get balsamic if you ask for it, and sometimes I’ve been given a spray bottle of apple cider vinegar. Red wine vinegar? Forgettaboutit.

Sure, sometimes that simple salad is all you need. Like when your pants are telling you no more first courses and you need something to entertain your palate while everyone else eats gnocchi dripping with butter and fried sage. Then, you can safely move on to a second course like a normal person.

But let’s be real. The salad experience here kinda sucks. It reminds me of what it felt like being a vegetarian in the mid-90s. Every restaurant I went to with my family offered one menu item without meat. It was always “Pasta Primavera”. Overcooked penne tossed in overcooked zucchini and broccoli, garnished with a single leaf of basil for flair.

The typical Italian salad is the 90s Pasta Primavera. It’s boring, outdated, and shows a lack of creativity given the abundance of produce available. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but consider it tough love. Italy is the land of the Porsche and the birthplace of Salvatore Ferragamo. Mossimo Battura puts us on the culinary map every year in the Michelin Guide. The religious fervor surrounding food in this country demands more. It’s time to level up our salad game.

When you visit Italy and inevitably ask Google how Italians stay so thin, you’ll find answers like “They eat salads during the week and carbs only on weekends.” That is a lie. First of all, where are those salads??? Are they literally eating bowls of greens with two cherry tomatoes all week? No, they aren’t. I know that because I live here and I see them all out eating pasta and pizza and focaccia dripping with olive oil all day, every day. Then they go for aperitivi and eat more carb snacks and sometimes they top it all off with two scoops of gelato.

I’ve done this for four months now and I don’t look like an Italian. I look like someone who needs to work out more.

I would love nothing more than for my metabolism to magically adapt to all of these carbs, but that’s not within my control. I have to stick to mostly vegetables and dip into the pizza and pasta only on occasion. So please, please for the love of Dante, can we make salads more interesting?

How about some cannellini beans with tuna, peppers, red onions, and spinach? Or roasted melanzana and zucchini with arugula tossed in a red wine vinagrette and some toasted almonds? Salads with chickpeas and whole grains like farro and quinoa?

All you have is a Caprese?

Ok, fine. I’ll have that.