Driscoll's has trivia and recipes to help us celebrate National Salad Month

National Salad Month?  Are you kidding?  Well, no.  Models, stars, vegans and more are always touting the benefits of a good salad on overall fitness. So it seemed appropriate that I pass along this great info from our friends at Driscoll's. Driscoll's is (as I hope you know) a neighbor to us in Silicon Valley, located in nearby Watsonville, CA.    According to the crack PR team at Driscoll's: The average American consumes about thirty pounds of lettuce a year, but of course salads can be built upon any edible foundation your palate desires.   FUN SALAD FACTS: Different nations have their salads at different points of a meal: The French eat salad after the main course to cleanse the palate and to prepare it for the cheese or dessert, North Americans eat it mostly as an appetizer to get the gastric juices going, and eastern Mediterranean people always enjoy it with their main course and often throughout the meal. Salads were favorites in the great courts of European Monarchs - Royal salad chefs often combined as many as 35 ingredients in one enormous salad bowl, including such exotic "greens" as rose petals, marigolds, nasturtiums, and violets. King Henry IV's favorite salad was a tossed mixture of new potatoes (boiled and diced), sardines and herb dressing. Russian dressing typically consists of the mixture of mayonnaise, pimientos, chives, ketchup, and spices. The name comes from the earliest versions that included a distinctly Russian ingredient, caviar. The average American consumer eats about 30 pounds of lettuce each year The term coleslaw is a late 19th century term, which originated in the United States. Cole slaw (cold slaw) got it's name from the Dutch "kool sla"- the word "kool" means cabbage and "sla" is salad - meaning simply, cabbage salad. In English, that became "cole slaw" and eventually "cold slaw." The original Dutch "kool sla" was most likely served hot. Ranch dressing is the most popular salad dressing in the U.S.