Complex Numbers

Playing Chicken

I seem to have a fascination with classification questions, especially when it comes to food. I've chimed in on the sandwichness or lack thereof of hot dogs (I say they're tacos); the difference between soup and stew; and how Chicago deep-dish casserole isn't pizza. To name a few.

Now, Cracked raises another classification question:

    What About Chicken Salad Actually Qualifies As Salad?  
I can’t see through the copious mayonnaise to any solid reasoning

And no, this isn't about how chicken salad is the grown-up version of egg salad.

Summer is upon us, something that happens in about two seconds flat in the Earth’s modern climate. With it comes the barbecue, and with the barbecue comes a culinary curiosity I’ve never understood: chicken salad.

I don't particularly like chicken salad (I like my dead birds warm), but I think I understand it: as the author notes, it's associated with summer, and it's not a hot dish, which makes it a contrast to, say, barbecue ribs or grilled hamburgers. Plus, this is America, and mayonnaise is practically our national food.

I thought at some point after I’d had a taste of the world and started paying my own rent, the idea of calling said chicken mixture a “salad” would come into focus.

Probably also thought you'd have all your shit together and finally understand a New Yorker article. Didn't, did you?

Now, as for why chicken salad is considered a salad, multiple sources chalk it up to the inclusion of “dressing.”

"Dressing" is another point of confusion. In some parts of the US, they call the croutony mixture served with turkey at Thanksgiving "dressing." Most of us call it "stuffing." The practice of actually stuffing turkey with it has fallen out of favor thanks to contamination issues, but calling it "dressing" just won't cut it.

They shut the book there, too, as if they’ve proven something. Excuse my French, but fuck ouef.

That pun would have been way funnier if he'd spelled œuf correctly.

In my world at least, straight-up, jarred mayonnaise holds no claim to the title of dressing.

And yet its inbre(a)d cousin, Miracle Whip, is clearly labeled as "dressing."

A clarification that’s been lost to time would make all this a little clearer, and that’s the idea of a “bonded” or “bound” salad. More traditional salads are known as “composed,” or mixed salads, while bound salads are fashioned into a single substance through a thick agent.

Now, see, I didn't know that, but other sources confirm it, including the link included with the article.

This distinction would be especially useful for salads that live in both worlds, like pasta salad. I, for one, never order pasta salad on a menu because it’s a coin flip between receiving a delightful, refreshing mix of rotini and cherry tomatoes (with perhaps a pesto vinaigrette), and a trowel full of beige, edible mortar.

This is absolute truth. Except, in some cases, for the "edible" part.

The only thing I will say in favor of mayo-based salads is that the rants decrying them as a symptom of American excess are unfair. That’s because such salads have emerged across the world. Russia, in particular, lays a large claim to them, and potato salad is apparently known as ensalata rusa in South America.

I haven't heard such rants. I was always under the impression that it's the polar opposite of "excess." Unless you're using the term in the sense of "I'm using up the excess chicken from last night." No, though I don't care for them much myself, things like potato salad and chicken salad are generally enjoyed by all kinds of people, including the less economically advantaged.

So, I guess, I'll chalk this one up to the inherent ambiguity of the English language, not some culinary conspiracy.