Mary Ann's Blog
Salad Sampler
June 30, 2026
Ask for a salad in Italy and the standard choices will be an insalata verde (green salad) or an insalata mista (a mixed salad with vegetables like shaved carrots, radicchio and fennel).
Salad has always been an integral part of the meal, traditionally served after the main course as a digestive. This practice still exists in many places but in larger cities, salad is often served with the main course.
The word salad comes from sale, salt and is also the base of our word for salary. In ancient times, salt was a necessary preservative for fish, meats and for making sauces. It was a form of currency paid as salary to the Roman legions and the phrase “he is not worth his salt,” meaning not worthy to be paid, comes directly from ancient Rome.
Italians prefer salad greens on the bitter side. A mix of chicories like radicchio with its gorgeous deep purple leaves and white veining, sturdy escarole, Romaine and dandelion greens are popular. Romans adore puntarelle, a chicory that grows in the countryside that is tossed with an anchovy and olive oil dressing and agretti, a wispy grass-like salad green in season for a just a short period of time.
Salads are typically dressed with extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar or fresh lemon juice. In restaurants, cruets of oil and vinegar are brought to the table for you to dress your own.
Some regions offer more than just green salad. In Milan, I enjoyed a splendid salad with a Gorgonzola cheese dressing. In Tuscany, panzanella (bread in a swamp) is a classic raw vegetable salad made with the addition of small stale bread cubes soaked in red wine vinegar. In Sicily, rinforzata (reinforced salad) contains cauliflower and other vegetables that are added each day to the original salad. Fennel and blood oranges make an unusual flavor combination in Sicilian salad. In Amalfi, the ubiquitous insalata Caprese (Capri style) can only mean juicy tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Creamy burrata cheese from Puglia marries beautifully with roasted pears
A salad starts with the freshest ingredients and in the case of a green salad, crisp lettuce that has not been water sprayed to death as is the practice in many grocery stores. To get limp lettuce crisp again, revive it by soaking the leaves in ice water for about 30 minutes; drain it and spin it dry in a salad spinner to remove the excess water from the leaves, otherwise the dressing will not adhere very well.
Do not saturate the leaves with too much dressing; if puddles of dressing lay in the bottom of the bowl, you have used too much. The leaves should be lightly coated with the dressing. I use a ratio of one part extra virgin olive oil to two parts vinegar but that is a personal choice. Toss the leaves with the olive oil, then the vinegar and last the salt. Some cooks dissolve the salt in the vinegar first before adding it to the salad.
Whether salads come before, with, or after the main course, they remain a healthy component of the Mediterranean diet.
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