Reflections on a Chopped Salad
Early in my career as a dietitian I worked at the Head Start program in Gloucester, Massachusetts doing monthly nutrition workshops for parents. With the cook, I supervised meal preparation and reviewed menus. Regrettably, I can’t recall her name, but she was a genius in helping the preschool children learn to love vegetables.
She found that the children usually refused traditional salads which can be awkward to eat. Using a fork and keeping the food in place on the way to the mouth is a developed skill. Her solution was a chopped salad with nothing larger than a quarter inch. Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, celery, cabbage, peppers—or whatever was seasonally available—were all carefully cut to size. The salads were colorful, easy to eat and the children could use a fork or spoon. They loved her chopped salads and ate them eagerly. This was decades before chopped salads appeared on restaurant menus.
Today I was remembering my cook friend and how much she taught me and the Head Start parents. So why not have a chopped salad for lunch?
