'salads' your nan used to make...

[trashcanjunkie]

Mine used to do this for my grandad once a week - it would consist of a boiled egg, halved, a massive spring onion or two, some pickled beetroot maybe.... (not entirely sure....) and two slices of corn beef with salad cream on the side.....

DH says his lot also used to have 'salads' like these - he reckons it's 1970's northern thing....

I wish I could remember all of the elements... Did anyone else's family eat these? I bet there are variations on the theme

DH loves the traditional salad, it’s what he would have had at home.

I love all sorts of salads, and would eat a lot of fancy “modern” deli bits.

Tbh if it's fresh it's good.

There is nothing like new potatoes cooked just after they've been dug up with a bit of round lettuce, cucumber, tomato and radish plus some pork pie.

Oh this is a blast from the past. I only eat beetroot now because I had it at my nan's in a salad.

Going back up the thread now to see if 'My Nan's Salad' was anybody else's too!

Did anyone's nan or mother call spring onions 'gibbons'?
It was pronounced with a J so jibbons.
South Wales

did anyone have thin ham rolled up with cottage cheese in the middle? makes me think of my much loved and missed mum and one of my earliest memories!

I forgot cress & mustard & cold buttered potatoes.

Ham with cottage cheese would be nice.

Our ham was uncompromising: on the bone/ off the bone , there had to be a bone involved, it was too thick to be rolled.

My ancestors were basically hobbits.

My Grandma would have prepared more of a Ploughman's lunch: cold cut meat, bread (fresh door stop wedges of bread with dripping and salt,) cheese, onions, mustard (or Bovril) and pickles (silver onions & pickled contributing the salad properties)

@30daysoflight

Did anyone's nan or mother call spring onions 'gibbons'? It was pronounced with a J so jibbons. South Wales

No, they were called scallions up here in the north east

Little gem lettuce leaves arranged in a fan on one side of the plate. 3 or 4 slices of ham rolled or chicken/turkey white meat topped with a halved boiled egg and 2 small quartered tomatoes. Pickled beet and or spring onions. A bottle of salad cream ready to dress it along with salt and white pepper.

My MiL has had this as her dinner at least once a week all summer. And I'm talking in 2020.

Personally I would need to be well paid before I would consider eating anything with salad cream on it.

Tinned ham or tongue 🤢. Floppy lettuce, beetroot staining everything, half a hard boiled egg, cucumber and tomato. With salad cream, none of that fancy foreign stuff...

But going back to the OP's title of "salads your nan used to make" .....

..that would be coleslaw made with grated cabbage and carrot in jelly made with cream added (to make it cloudy) sometimes decorated with mini marshmallows and decorated with piped "Miracle Whip" (a thick mayo substitute)

I made Russian salad from a recipe when I was pregnant with DS3, thinking it sounded delicious. I was violently ill that night and since being reunited with every bit of it I have never been able to face the stuff again. A pity because objectively it was quite nice and probably not responsible for what happened as I had very sicky pregnancies in general.

Not my Gran but my great aunt.

Ham, lettuce (with salt), sliced tomatoes, pickled beetroot, hard boiled eggs.

I remember this from the late 70s, they were working class Londoners

@MuckyPlucky pleased you were brave enough to say that. I've been wondering what people use in 'modern salads' if it isn't err salad vegetables.

My Aberdonian nans idea of fresh vegetables was cucumbers and onions in vinegar.

We had tomato, lettuce, cucumber, spring onion and new potatoes from the garden. Hard boiled eggs, Pek, salad cream and bread and butter.

I was traumatised by a naked nan salad on my first day at school. I was already upset because my DM didn't get the letter saying that the school had decided not to have introductory half days so I was in floods of tears because I thought she would think I had run away or been kidnapped when I didn't meet her at the school gates at noon.

My teacher gave me the honour of sitting next to her at the head of the table to try and console me and I had just about stopped sobbing when the salad was served. My DGM is French so in my family salads came dressed, chopped and had a "recipe" and were actually tasty. I had never seen a salad with just a lettuce leaf, a few slices of tomato and cucumber plonked on a plate. Then there was the bright pink rectangle of "uncooked" meat (Spam) and a dollop of salad cream. It suddenly dawned on me. We had to "cook" our own lunch! I thought DM had taught me all the "grown up" things I needed to learn before I went to school, like tying shoelaces, doing up buttons, but she had forgetten to teach me how to cook.

It was the last straw and I was totally inconsolable. I didn't know what to do with the ingredients. Neither my teacher nor the dinner lady who were trying calm me down could understand what I was saying through my snotty sobs. They thought I wanted my mum but it was the horror of the salad that was upsetting me.

They got the message when I was finally persuaded to try a mouthful and tasted salad cream for the first (and last) time... and started to gag.

@FusionChefGeoff

I didn't know this was a thing but I basically have a NaN salad every lunchtime!!

It varies a bit and sometimes I have homemade tabbouleh, pomegranate, feta and sweet potato pakoras which I don't think would have made it across my Grandmas threshold!

But the basic base is round lettuce, cucumber, peppers, radish, tomatoes, celery. An English garden salad and actually a lot of the time is majority grown in my actual garden!

I also have cooked beetroot, homemade vinaigrette and cottage cheese as staples although my protein tends to be marinated grilled chicken or hot smoked salmon. I can be partial to a boiled egg or rolled ham if we're out of the fancy stuff! And coleslaw obvs is a must.

What else would you call 'salad'???!?

That all sounds lovely. And very 'fancy' (as she would have said) compared to my granny's salad. It literally was 2 whole lettuce leaves, half a tomato and a couple of slices of cucumber. All not touching each other on the plate. No peppers (I don't think my granny had ever eaten a pepper) no vinaigrette dressing, home made or otherwise. No beetroot, radishes and certainly no "modern stuff" like coleslaw.

Of course, the ingredients were salad ingredients but no fripperies. She made up for her basic salads though with 4 courses of cakes. which we loved as kids. Who wanted salad when you could eat as many cakes as you liked.

I remember when my mum did a more 'modern' salad where it was iceberg lettuce chopped up with other salad ingredients all tossed together in a bowl. With a dressing. That seemed a fancy version of a salad. Olives in it for goodness sake! My granny would NOT approve.

Of course, ways to eat things change all the time. We have a bowl of salad ingredients now but I tend to have different kind of leaves, spinach, nuts, seeds, oils and peppers and other veg as well as the basics of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber. And then there are many different kinds of salads, broccoli salad, warm courgette salads, greek salad which is a favourite of my sons.
One of my favourite vegan restaurants which has now sadly closed used to have the most dazzling array of salads to choose from. The first time I went in the 80s I thought it was marvellous.

It seems a far way from my 70s salads of a bit of lettuce, a tomato and a couple of slices of cucumber.

Isn't the main difference between "now" salads and "then" salads (60s, 70s, 80s) that things were much more restricted to seasons until relatively recently; now we fly lots more stuff in? And we go abroad much more and experience a larger variety from around the world? Plus now we have poly tunnels etc to simulate warmer weather to propagate?

Is it just me remembering wooden salad bowls becoming a thing in the 70s?

The Irish version-

Sliced deli ham and turkey, rolled up
Coleslaw
Potato salad
Tomato, quartered
Spring onion
Pickled beetroot from a jar
Lettuce leaves with salt
Sliced of cheese (Galtee, with little shard of tinfoil still present)
Salad cream
Bread and butter
Giant mug of tea

@orangenasturtium

I was traumatised by a naked nan salad on my first day at school. I was already upset because my DM didn't get the letter saying that the school had decided not to have introductory half days so I was in floods of tears because I thought she would think I had run away or been kidnapped when I didn't meet her at the school gates at noon.

My teacher gave me the honour of sitting next to her at the head of the table to try and console me and I had just about stopped sobbing when the salad was served. My DGM is French so in my family salads came dressed, chopped and had a "recipe" and were actually tasty. I had never seen a salad with just a lettuce leaf, a few slices of tomato and cucumber plonked on a plate. Then there was the bright pink rectangle of "uncooked" meat (Spam) and a dollop of salad cream. It suddenly dawned on me. We had to "cook" our own lunch! I thought DM had taught me all the "grown up" things I needed to learn before I went to school, like tying shoelaces, doing up buttons, but she had forgetten to teach me how to cook.

It was the last straw and I was totally inconsolable. I didn't know what to do with the ingredients. Neither my teacher nor the dinner lady who were trying calm me down could understand what I was saying through my snotty sobs. They thought I wanted my mum but it was the horror of the salad that was upsetting me.

They got the message when I was finally persuaded to try a mouthful and tasted salad cream for the first (and last) time... and started to gag.

I'm feeling very sorry for 4yo you, @orangenasturtium!

As far as I can recall, in the 60s and 70s the only form of lettuce available was round lettuce. Iceberg came later. Little Gem and other forms later still. We didn't grow our own vegetables, though. Maybe people who did knew more about lettuce.

Mayonnaise was something extremely modern which my Mum started buying from the supermarket or M&S in the late 70s instead of salad cream. She also bought tubs of coleslaw, Russian salad and (maybe this was in the 80s) Florida salad, which contained segments of mandarin oranges. These were a welcome addition to our salad meals, which were much as everybody else has described. I loved them. Round lettuce with lots of salt is great.