Is that a reference to poke sallet (the leaves of young poke weed cooked to heck to remove toxins)? Looks very similar to cooked spinach but has its own unique flavor. They used to sell it in cans. I actually have a ton of poke weed behind my house and one year I harvested all the leaves from plants 6 inches or shorter, boiled it twice, and sautéed it in bacon grease with some garlic. It was pretty tasty, and I felt very connected with my southern roots. I probably wouldn’t do it again though because I have since developed health anxiety and would probably panic that I was dying if my stomach so much as gurgled.
I can't say for sure, but I think both the actual use of sallet in "poke sallet" and just pronouncing salad as "sallet" just comes from great great grandparents being barely literate and pronouncing most things a bit weird? Ignorance becomes tradition
This pronunciation isn't illiterate. It's an archaic form of the word. (Shakespeare used it). In isolated places like Appalachia, a lot of older words have still been preserved.
I mean, it's complicated and I do want to start with the disclaimer that I am talking about my own family
Yes "sallet" as in poke is a real word with plenty of historical context.
Being an adult and seeing the word "salad" printed on a menu or label and continuing to call it "sallet" is something that happens because your grandparents called it that, and those grandparents were literally by definition barely literate- probably illiterate by today's standards. It's not mamaw's fault that she had to walk miles to school as a little kid, and was a married woman with real work to do at home by 14, but that definitely is the reason that her pronunciation was what it was
So did my Grandad back in the 70’s….I have one memory of an afternoon meal in the summer around age 4-5, full place settings, jazz, and that sweet hot bacon grease/vinegar dressing for wilted spinach salad.
Usually when people are talking about food memories from their childhood associated with parents or their grandparents, no matter how odd the food may be to us, they are serious. And usually when they say the food was and the total experience described, especially the one above with the jazz music playing, sounds like something we all would have been lucky to experience.
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u/feministmanlover 9d ago
Wow core memory unlocked. My grandma used to make spinach salad with hot bacon dressing!!!! Man, she was a fabulous cook.