We Can Do Better Than “Obligation Salads”

Pretty much every restaurant has salads, and yet how often do you get really excited to eat one? In restaurants and at home, most salads seem to be there because the person making the meal felt obligated to offer them. And diners eat them for the same reason. This week we set out in search of salads that you’ll still be talking about weeks later. We hear from Chef Ayesha Nurdjaja of Shuka and Shukette in New York City, who makes Dan’s favorite salad. Then Emily Nunn, who writes the newsletter The Department of Salad, shares why she believes that “anything that you can eat can be a salad” — with one important exception -- and why she does “not by any means consider salad a ‘diet’ food, so get that out of your head this instant.”

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Ella Barnes. Transcription by Emily Nguyen.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Thank you to Subaru for sponsoring today's episode. Visit subaru.com/forester to learn more.