The Color of Salad

Georgian salads: Although the type and ingredients vary around the world, salad is generally agreed upon to be one thing: leafy green vegetables. In overhearing a phone conversation this evening I found that the color of salad is indeed variable. The juicer that Vladimer's mother is trying to sell is "salad green". At first it sounds vaguely poetic and normal, considering that orange is called, "carrot color". As orange is a fruit as well which is not native to Georgia, that sounds rational. After you realize that there is a word for green in Georgian, you start to wonder, just what color is salad?

Salad color is considered to be a pastel or milky green color. You begin to ask yourself, how do they get their lettuce to be that color, until you realize the Georgian form of salad is innately connected to mayonnaise. It is perhaps one of the naughty aftermath of the Russian influence in the Soviet Union: dousing every healthy vegetable in mayonnaise. A couple of years ago, vinegar and olive oil with salads were veeeerrrry strange, now it is almost acceptable in modern settings. Traditional restaurants will do a tomato and cucumber salad with European dressing but with the Georgian walnut sauce mixture with it: a nice cosmopolitan twist.