almuerzo

[serenissima]

I ate in my boss' backyard, as I normally do when the weather is nice. It's actually hot today: 77 F, according to Yahoo! Weather. I hope the weather is this warm and sunny for my road trip next weekend. I had a little salad, an orange, and leftovers from the yummy concoction my mother cooked up last night: shrimp, asparagus, an orange bell pepper, tomatos, scallions, onion and garlic, all stir-fried together. Onions and garlic should be considered a staple, I say. The orange flesh was coral-colored. All in all, very colorful.

A science question, for which I hope someone has a definitive answer:
I often pack my lunch, and it usually includes a salad. If I put dressing on the salad when I pack it in the morning, the lettuce is soft and limp by lunchtime. Why is that? Is the vinegar in the dressing "cooking" the lettuce, as in a ceviche? Or is it just the moisture, and the same thing would happen if I used water instead of salad dressing (an experiment I'm not inclined to try)?

Comments

[daisho.livejournal.com]

No promises on the veracity of this, but since leaves are semi-permeable membranes, I'd guess liquid from the dressing simply diffused into the salad.

Others' MMV, clearly. ;)

Salad

[(Anonymous)]

Don't have your definitive answer. Acids can 'cook' food. Consider this, however: Your salad dressing has all kinds of weirdness in it, that is, oil, vinegar, water, etc. These things are either absorbed by the greens, or they'll just 'bead' and stay there. Are oil particles smaller than water particles? Probably not. Small enough to get into a plant cell? Maybe. How about the vinegar?

Another issue is the salt. Doesn't salt knock on the cell membrane and say 'Hey, give us your water, RIGHT NOW!' to just about all living tissue? This would make your lettuce flaccid because it's giving up its water. I think this is the most likely answer-- your lettuce is giving up its water because someone's knocking, possibly salt. What kind of dressing?-C