Okay, I need to talk about North Beach salads. More specifically, side salads, house salads. The ones you get with a meal or sandwich, whatever. Not the full-meal-deal salad.

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I couldn’t help but notice after arriving here that the salads are what seem to me unusual. Different. 

First, there is the limited number of ingredients:  iceberg lettuce, finely shredded cheese (usually cheddar) and diced canned black olives. 

See, I think I must have come from the land of salads. Because even side salads or house salads usually had an assortment of different greens beyond iceberg lettuce. And a variety of other things, like tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, radish, oh man, I haven’t had one in so long I can’t even remember all the forms of freshness. There was rarely anything cooked or even processed. Except for the dressing, of course.

But the salads gave me the feeling I was tasting real vegetables. I know, I know, tomatoes are technically a fruit. But bear with me.

I was not prepared for the cheese and olives in the North Beach salads. It’s not like I came from that far away.  Oregon actually. It shares an actual borden with our fair state.

In my view, cheese is not really an actual salad ingredient. I mean I appreciate the effort to make it more nutritious and proteinish, but I look to my other menu items to fill that need. I’m sure it’s at least partly if not wholly due to my lactose intolerance, but I don’t want cheese on my side salads. I understand it as part of a big chef salad, but otherwise, no. 

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So I started asking them to hold the cheese. That’s when I really noticed the black olives. I think the generous cooks kindly piled extra olives on my salad to make up for the lack of cheese. That’s how I discovered I don’t think black olives are a desirable item on side salad either. But if I ask to hold the olives as well, I feel so embarrassed because that only leaves the iceberg, and it just looks so sad and lonely sitting in the bowl all by itself.

Even when there happens to be something else added, there’s always cheese and black olives lurking nearby. Maybe it’s a piece of tomato. Or a shred of carrot. 

I asked around to see if I could get some insight into the particular nature of the North Beach side salad and got some good suggestions:

1. It’s a byproduct of the popularity of pizza here. Yes, I’ve have noticed nearly every place in these parts seems to offer pizza! I wasn’t expecting that! In my former life, I had to go to a pizza place to get pizza. Not here! Pizza is abundant! I’m curious about that too, but I need to stay on my salad topic for now.

The pizza connection some folks suggested is that every eatery has a lot of cheese and olives on hand to put on their pizzas, and both items are very storable, therefore always available for salads.

I think that makes a lot of sense. We are kind of off the beaten path here, so I bet food delivery is expensive and less frequent than many places. And it’s not like you can store my other salad ingredient wishes forever.

2. Another suggestion was that the cheese part is due to the many dairy farms in the area. I haven’t really tracked this down, or seen a whole lot of cows in the vicinity, but it makes sense. In Oregon where I came from, the coast has been famous for cheese for a long time, especially in the form of Tillamook, an area on the coast where one sees an abundance of cows and dairy farms. So I’ll buy this cheese theory, as long as you leave it off my salad.

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3. I decided to ask an expert, namely a local person who owns a restaurant and is known for how well he knows local ingredients. Experts are busy people. I hope to hear back at some point. I will add a post script if and when I do.

In the meantime, can any of you help me understand this? Why these salad ingredients?

Or is it something about me? 

As in:

A. I go to limited places. I need to get out more.

B. I need to understand that lettuce, cheese and olives are perfection in salads and we are in salad nirvana.

C. I need to just shut up and quit asking so many questions. 

I’m not sure C is a realistic option, sorry.