„One Small Linguist, Please!“ The Story Behind the Salad

“Can I have a small linguist, please, but I’d like to have avocado instead of chicken, thanks!”

This is what the order sounded like as the author of this article stood in front of the Háma salad bar at lunchtime. The staff there are generally quite busy but not so busy that they can’t spare a smile or exchange a few words with customers. Memory is of the essence here, as the staff needs to memorise the ingredients of ten different kinds of salads with up to nine different types of ingredients each. And on that day, I decided to do some research: where do those ingredients come from, what is their story and why are they so tasty? This is the story behind the salad:

Avocado

Avocado is one of those foodstuffs that sometimes confuse us: which is it, a fruit or a vegetable? From a culinary point of view, it seems to be a vegetable. At least, we handle it as such: it wouldn’t occur to us for example to use avocado in a fruit salad or spread olive oil and salt over a fruit before taking a bite, although we readily let the avocado endure such a treatment. But botanically speaking, the avocado is just a huge berry with a very large stone, meaning a fruit. According to biology, fruit is that part of the plant that contains seeds, while vegetables can consist of roots, stems, and leaves.

The avocado originates from Central America, and although it is cultivated in many parts of the world nowadays, Mexico is still the largest producer in the world. In some countries, the avocado is called an “alligator pear”, as the colour and texture of its skin are similar to those of the alligator’s hide.

Chickpeas

Just like many other species of peas and beans, chickpeas are often a favourite among vegetarians and vegans, as they provide a high protein content and therefore work wonders as a substitute for meat products. They are one of the first species of legume that humans started harvesting and the earliest evidence of their cultivation has been found in Syria. But why on earth are they called “chickpeas”?

The story behind the name is rather amusing. The Latin name was cicer (whence the Latin writer Cicero got his name as his family cultivated chickpeas). From the Latin cicer, the word became pois chiche in French, which the British then adopted as chich peas. But as the British have an unfortunate habit of misunderstanding their own language, the word progressively transformed from chich peas into chick peas, without anyone understanding why the beans became suddenly associated with a domesticated bird species. Icelanders then added insult to injury by translating the English name as kjúklingabaunir, meaning “chicken peas”...

Cashew nuts

The cashew nut is an eccentric little nut. It grows on an evergreen shrub originating from South America but unlike most other nuts it grows outside and alongside a fruit of sorts that is called the cashew apple. The apple itself is yellow to reddish and while edible, it is not as popular as the nut as its taste is bitter. Still, it is used as food in some countries, either fresh, boiled, or fermented into vinegar.

Soft and buttery, but also crunchy and slightly sweet, the cashew nut is a favoured ingredient in many dishes and as a snack, as well as a base ingredient in all kinds of sweets. The main producers at the global scale are India and the Ivory Coast.

Eggs

Who needs to introduce them? Humans and their ancestors have eaten eggs for millions of years, but the domesticated chicken is believed to have first appeared about 9500 years ago. The wild poultry from Asia which the chicken is descended only lays about twelve eggs a year, and only during the nesting season. But many thousand years of breeding have changed the wild bird into a golden hen that can lay almost one egg per day, all year long.

Eggs are rich in proteins and are therefore a good addition to all the greens in the Háma salad.

Salad cheese or “feta”?

Feta originates from Greece and the authentic feta is made from sheep milk or a mix of sheep and goat milk. The oldest traces of cheese production in Greece date from about 800 before Christ and cheese is even mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey. The Greek word “feta” has its root in the Italian word fetta which means “slice”.

Since 2002, the product name “feta” has been a protected designation of origin in the European Union, according to which the cheese of the same name can only be produced in Greece. In 2020, the Icelandic dairy company Mjólkursamsalan was required to change the name on its products after a Greek member of the European Parliament filed a complaint against the company’s misuse of the name. From then on, Icelandic “feta” was to be called “salad cheese”.

Croutons

Wheat is, along with chickpeas, one of the very first plants that humans started domesticating in the region which is sometimes called the “fertile crescent” about 10.000 years ago (roughly what is now Iraq, Syria, Israel, Palestine, and the northeastern part of Egypt). This is where the agricultural revolution is believed to have happened and the region has therefore been described as the “cradle of civilisation”. Of all domesticated plants, the global wheat harvest is second only to rice, measured by weight, and the reason for its success is first and foremost the fact that wheat has a higher protein content than most other grain species.

Bell pepper

Like avocados and tomatoes, the bell pepper is one of those fruits that like to disguise themselves as vegetables and sneak into our salads under such pretence. They originate from Mexico, as bell pepper seeds were imported into Spain in 1493 and spread from there into the rest of Europe. The word “bell pepper” has the same origin as “pepper”, as in those times Europeans tended to call everything that was bitter and spicy “pepper”. Therefore, the bell pepper acquired the same name as the black pepper, Piper nigrum, although the two are biologically unrelated species and the latter originated from India. Yet another unfortunate misunderstanding…

Broccoli

Broccoli is biologically speaking a very large flower, just like cauliflower which is a close cousin of his. The ancestor of both species, as well as of other related species from the Brassica family, is a wild species of cabbage that humans started to cultivate north of the Mediterranean sometime around the seventh century before Christ. The name “broccoli” comes from the Italian brocco which means “sprout”.

Just as most other species from the cabbage family, broccoli is a rather hardy and cold-tolerant vegetable and is therefore relatively well suited to Icelandic conditions. It is rich in vitamins C and K and it is best eaten raw, pan-fried, or steam-boiled so that its nutritive elements are best preserved.

Bon appétit!