I am not predisposed to be a salad person — but I’m trying a rebrand

Summer has a way of magnifying small anxieties — haircuts, the lack of a wearable summer shoe — and with the sun comes my seasonal attempt to rebrand as a “salad person”. It is not a health crusade so much as Fomo: weighty tomatoes at the greengrocer, talk of panzanella, and people treating an immaculately composed Waldorf as a meal in itself make me want to improve myself.

I am not predisposed to be a salad person. My cooking instincts pull me toward stews, braises and soups — things that meld and mutate, things that actually cook. My family were non-salad people; sometimes a bowl of iceberg lettuce appeared, undressed. When they did make a proper salad it went off the rails: Nigel Slater’s beansprouts, red pepper and banana in sesame oil, or my dad’s Ghanaian salad of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, hard‑boiled egg, tinned sardines and baked beans.

salad, salad person, panzanella, waldorf, tomatoes, greengrocer, nigel slater, braises, soups, ghanaian salad