The aromas drifting from the kitchen are intoxicating. Appetites are honed to the

sharpness of a thin-bladed carving knife. The guests consumed the hors d'oeuvres some time ago

that did their job—they teased appetites. Everyone is eager, and thinks about nothing but food,

like those poor souls in their 24th hour of a full-day fast. There are anxious and hopeful glances

toward the table, waiting with famished anticipation for the first delightful course of the meal to

arrive.

The first course of American meals, as in many other parts of Western culture, is often a

salad or a soup. More formal meals include both. Whatever your first course is, it must not

disappoint your diners. It should be a choice course that sets the tone for the meal. It may be

small and light but it must sparkle both visually and in flavor.

In spite of the mixed heritage and range of eating habits of Americans, salads and soups

are still daily affair on most of our dinner tables. Soups are universal to every cuisine in the

world, but dressed raw-vegetable salads are mainly French and English. The rest of Europe

prefers their vegetables either cooked, marinated or pickled. Asians, Africans and most Latin

Americans don't eat salads as we know them. Yet salads are so splendid and easy to prepare, that

most of our immigrants readily adopt them to include with their ethnic menus.

This American love affair with salads and soups, unlike other food addictions rampant

today, is a fortunate development—these foods, besides satisfying, are healthy and nutritious.

For many, they are the major source of daily nutrients. Supermarkets allot abundant shelf space

to prepared canned, frozen and dehydrated soups and mixes, as well as salad dressings, and the

produce section is full of fixings for salads. Let's explore salads and soups and find out how to

make them the best-tasting with ease and least effort.

SALADS

We inherited salad from the French. It all began with tender greens topped with a light

dressing of oil and vinegar. This basic theme got more and more elaborate, first with the addition

of other raw and cooked vegetables, then fish, poultry, meats and cheeses. Today anything can,

and does, go into a salad bowl. The dressings on the salad also became intricate with spices and

herbs, condiments, exotic oils and vinegars. Now you hardly, if ever, see a simple salad recipe in

a new cookbook or in a fashionable restaurant, yet simple salads and dressings have much to

recommend even for festive meals. If I experiment with salads, I prefer the exotic ingredients in

the main body but leave the dressing simple.

TASTINGS Salad's ancestor

It was the Romans some 2000 years ago who first introduced salads as they

served tender greens with oil, vinegar and salt. These first salads remained simple

and basic—no exotic ingredients, just the basic goodness of fresh greens with

tasty oil and vinegar.

Cuisines in warm climates avoid the raw-green salads that is common on tables of cooler

climates. The tender, high-moisture greens are cool climate vegetables, that neither grow well

nor hold fresh for very long in warm climates. Also in tropical and subtropical climates, raw

fruits and vegetables are often not safe to eat due to less hygienic growing conditions,

contaminated irrigation and rinsing water and faster growth of microorganisms.

Serious Kitchen Play