I chop lettuce. Go ahead, let me have it.
You're not supposed to chop lettuce. I'm no cook but even I know that. I don't know why exactly, but I know you're supposed to tear lettuce, not chop it.
Which
is better than leaving it untorn. One of the downfalls of going to a
nice restaurant is you're likely to get a salad with great big leaves
flapping around in it. You can try to fold it up into a tidy package
with your fork, but you're still at risk of looking like a turtle,
snapping your neck back and forth trying to corral the greenery. Little
fringey bits are trailing all over your face because despite your best
fork-folding efforts the stuff is springing back out of your lips and
dripping unsightly dressing down your cheek. And you're also not
supposed to go after it with your fingers. You have to herd the escaped
greens back into your mouth with your fork, and that can't be done with
any delicacy. I don't know how the Queen manages it.
It's
worse if you have a small face. I have a small face on account of I
have a small head, and my face is on the front of it. Sure, everything
from the chin down has swollen into pudding, but there's not a lot of
acreage in the face itself. I start smearing runaway lettuce onto it, I
look like I've planted myself in a hedge.
That's
allowable, in your lesser restaurants; you can tear your lettuce into
little pieces. But I am not inclined to stand there over my cutting
board and rip plants into confetti when I can just whack at them with a
big knife in four seconds. Done.
I
read up. Seems the reason you're supposed to tear, not chop, is that
the resulting pieces will separate along natural cell-wall lines and not
rip the cells apart. I've studied plants with a microscope before. The
cells are generally lined up like subway tiles. And they're very little.
Even if a whole bunch of them are screaming at once, you're not going
to hear them over the chewing.
Well, I can't even separate an invoice from a page along
the perforated line without messing up at one end or the other. I could,
if I took the time to fold it real good and crease it with my
thumbnail, but that's not my idea of a good use of time.
Presumably
the cells damaged by my kitchen knife produce polyphenols in order to
protect the plant against further damage. I'm making a salad. I'm
already planning on damaging the hell out of those little princesses,
right quick.
I'm chopping. If the Queen drops by, I'll chop a salad for her, too.
Posts
I too chop salad, particularly now my teeth are not what they used to be. Yesterday I was given a Nutribullet. You cannot hear the salad screaming over the noise of the motor. When I was young I specialised in giving an impression of a tortoise eating a lettuce leaf. I pulled a roll-neck sweater over my chin and slowly - very slowly - drew the leaf into my mouth as I ate it with a blank expression on my face. I won prizes.
ReplyDeleteFor a while after I got my iguana Sparky I couldn't be prevented from imitating him whenever I got hold of a big piece of lettuce!
DeletePaper is always strongest at the perforation. That's why I just get the scissors and cut the damned invoice.
ReplyDeleteI used to tear salad, because I, too, heard that cutting the lettuce "bruises" it. Then one day when I was in a hurry, I slapped the romaine down on a cutting board and chopped it. It was quicker, easier, and tasted the same.
When I used to wait tables, occasionally women would order their salads chopped. Now I know why, since I also have had a too big piece of friseé unfold itself from my fork while I was trying to eat it. There is just no attractive way to get it back into one's mouth.
I do not understand the point of frisée at all. Just to tickle your cheeks?
DeleteHaha! WHAT A READ and dammit I buy my lettuce already torn, in a bag with 2-3 other types of greens, also torn and I STILL chop it down for things like BLTs and hamburgers! Murr, you're a treasure and I think I've fallen for you a little bit :^)
ReplyDeleteOoooOOOooo.... Dave, look out!
DeleteI have the most wonderful cup my friend Molly gave me, with a picture of a starling on it and the words "I AM A GODDAMNED DELIGHT."
DeleteHahahaha!!
DeleteI saw her first!!
DeleteYou actually did.
DeleteI chop a bit but once it thinks it's safe in the bowl I come back with scissors to make the slashing complete. (Wo)man, the tool-using animal!
ReplyDeleteFEAR STELLA!!!
DeleteEffin Birds! You ARE a goddamned delight.
ReplyDeleteI chop lettuce too, although lately it's more likely to be arugula that's being chopped even though its leaves are already smaller than lettuce leaves. I also cut up my spaghetti with a knife - for basically the same reason.
YES. I do too. The hell with all that twirling.
DeleteI break up the spaghetti before it even goes into the pot.
DeleteI think cut lettuce browns at the chop line, but if you're going to eat it soon after you chop that's not an issue. That's what I heard at least. Not sure how pre-cut lettuce is cut. With plastic knives? Dunno.
ReplyDeleteI haven't yet chopped a salad I didn't immediately eat.
DeleteCeramic knives work like a charm.
DeleteI'm not sure I've heard of such a thing.
DeleteTupperware presenters used to say that lettuce would brown if chopped with a metal knife. And surprise! They had a plastic knife just handy to go with their "lettuce keepers'. I'd rather
Deleteeat the lettuce as soon as I chop it.
Alfalfa sprouts are hard to eat tidily too.
Yeah, plus they tickle.
Delete"Even if a whole bunch of them are screaming at once, you're not going to hear them over the chewing." You are the best.
ReplyDeleteNo, you!
DeleteBut -- the Queen managing her lettuce...? My dear, it is quite incorrect to observe the Queen eating. I know you have never done so, haven't you?
ReplyDeleteReally? So you just stare straight ahead at a royal dinner?
DeleteI’m gonna invent a fork that works like a pincer, cause I’m so tired of balancing salad bits on four tones. Meanwhile, in D. C. and elsewhere, I’m sure, the fast salad shop, “Chopped,” is very successful. I love watching them go at the lettuce, with a two-handed, rocking cleaver. Take that, you miserable greens!
ReplyDeleteI hope there's some "Hee-yah!" in there too.
Delete"fast salad shop Chopped", try saying that fast after a few beers.
DeleteFork that works like a pincer? Have you tried chopsticks?
DeleteI remember someone wrote to an etiquette columnist asking why there is no salad knife. Her answer was that salad is SUPPOSED to be served in bite size pieces. Maybe next time we get foldable leaves in a restaurant we should send them back to the kitchen.
ReplyDelete"Emlittle these, please!"
DeleteCook's Illustrated once studied the issue and as I recall, found that tearing doesn't protect from browning or other such degradations any better than cutting or chopping. So there.
ReplyDeleteI'd chop just for the time savings alone.
DeleteAnd when my salad is nice and chopped, I eat it with a BIG SPOON! True dat.
ReplyDeleteI just remembered my dad got a notion to spend some time in the kitchen in the late '60s. He specialized in salads and Bavarian creams. The salads were chopped such that no dimension was larger than a half inch. He included tiny cubes of cheddar too.
DeleteEd! I’m a chopper and a big spoon user myself! Happy to make your acquaintance.
DeleteOK enough about lettuce! What can you teach us about Bavarian creams?
DeleteI chop my lettuce too, and anything else that is going into that salad, so I can scoop it up with a spoon and hold open a book with my other hand. Sometimes I'll make a prettier salad with torn leaves, but they get torn into small mouth sized pieces which are still useless as I can't get the bits to stay on the fork no matter how long I stab at it.
ReplyDeleteThe real difference between chopping and tearing is cut edges of leaves at the stem end in particular go brown much quicker than if torn, but who cuts lettuce three days before they need it?
Precisely. As soon as the knife comes out, that salad had better be saying its prayers.
DeleteSee? Your whole problem here, guys, is you all seem to be trending in the wrong direction. As you age you’re growing neater? Tidier? Not I! The older I get, the more I love eating with my fingers. And nobody’s been watching me for over a year except my dog and the man who’s had 45 years to learn when to pretend to ignore me. It’s amazing how many comestibles count as finger foods when you give yourself over to it. You can’t fold things with a fork; that’s how come we’ve got opposable thumbs.
ReplyDeleteMaybe one big lettuce leaf and everything else gets folded inside like a burrito? Huh. I still use flatware. Except with tater tots.
DeleteFolding and rolling, I like it. One big leaf with sticks of cheese and cucumber, rolled and eaten with the fingers.
DeleteFor spaghetti I've always wondered about those forks with a motor in the handle to do the twirling. If I used one I'd be terrified of getting my nose hair caught.
ReplyDeleteThere is such a thing? The things I learn here.
DeleteOh my gosh, this has to be one of your funniest! Been lurking for far too long, thanks for all the laughs from you & the Commentariat
ReplyDeleteI love the Commentariat, and thanks for the proper word for it.
DeleteChopping? Woman, I use my kitchen shears to make a green salad in a bowl. Works like a charm! Just hold those shears in a vertical direction.
ReplyDeleteIf we keep this up any more, we'll have us a smoothie.
Delete