A Sour Cream And Bacon Delivery System

June 7, 2015 2:17 PM

Get the quick and easy fully-loaded wedge salad you need, nay, deserve.
posted by The Whelk (68 comments total)

I couldn't help but read that first sentence with emphasis: "Come summertime, most of us want foods that somehow manage to satisfy while still seeming light and refreshing."
posted by Zephyrial at 2:20 PM on June 7, 2015

1. Bacon is over. Let it go.

2. Wedge salad will always look like some garbage a baby spit up on.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:31 PM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]

Ah, Metafilter. Don't ever change.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:31 PM on June 7, 2015 [11 favorites]

the only problem with this recipe is that it doesn't include toasted pecans.
posted by The Whelk at 2:33 PM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]

Bacon is over.

Wait, did I miss Peak Bacon? Oh noes!
posted by spacewrench at 2:35 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's ok, Peak Bacon has a long (curly!) tail.
posted by Lycaste at 2:36 PM on June 7, 2015 [19 favorites]

what a weird reaction. it's not like this is a bacon burger with bacon sauce on a bacon bun. it's bacon on a salad. that's a pretty well established combination.
posted by indubitable at 2:37 PM on June 7, 2015 [15 favorites]

Bacon will never be over.
posted by masquesoporfavor at 2:41 PM on June 7, 2015 [13 favorites]

Their reasoning for salt on tomatoes misses the shameful and delicious secret: because tomatoes are high in glutamine, this creates MSG.
posted by idiopath at 2:42 PM on June 7, 2015 [20 favorites]

1. Bacon is over. Let it go.

You can take my bacon from my pudgy, greasy hands...
posted by zardoz at 2:50 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Just scrape it off the lettuce and call it a dip, for god's sake.
posted by pipeski at 2:54 PM on June 7, 2015

I thought it was that iceberg lettuce isn't really food. It's like pure water and plant cell walls.
posted by bleep at 2:57 PM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]

so see it's a salad it's healthy, "I ate a salad today" you can say and no one can call you false.
posted by The Whelk at 2:57 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

why would i waste my time with iceberg lettuce, the tasteless wet paper towel of greens, when i can just put the bacon right into my mouth alternated with fistfuls of arugula
posted by poffin boffin at 3:02 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

they combine to make a "salad" in my stomach so i'm healthy
posted by poffin boffin at 3:02 PM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]

All those nice ingredients (mmmmmmmm bacon) and that's what you make?
posted by parki at 3:08 PM on June 7, 2015

I have no idea how these people got their icebergs wedged into their lettuce, or why.
posted by cortex at 3:15 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

I will confess that point #1 was half note-to-self and half desperate-cry-for-help.

I can't help noticing nobody has disputed point #2 though. ∴INDISPUTABLE
posted by Sys Rq at 3:16 PM on June 7, 2015

This is like the '90s fashion for potato skins all over again: those were basically an edible conveyance for butter, sour cream and bacon.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:17 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

The tomato prep is basically how we like to prepare them as a side in my house. No salad required; some oil, vinegar, and feta recommended.
posted by tocts at 3:18 PM on June 7, 2015

I grew up in the Netherlands in the 70s. Iceberg lettuce was an exotic delicacy when it was first introduced, as opposed to our local boring "kropsla". Only when I moved to the USA did I learn that iceberg lettuce here is considered a watery tasteless non-food, and kropsla is known here as Boston Lettuce, commanding a premium.

I still love me some cool crunchy iceberg though, with bacon.
posted by monospace at 3:29 PM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]

When I show you this recipe, your inner hipster says, bacon is soooo over.

But if I'd drop this dish in front of you and handed you a fork, you'd devour it. You damn hungry hypocrite. Taste buds don't lie.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:30 PM on June 7, 2015 [10 favorites]

Why would you even eat iceberg lettuce. You know why they named it after crunchy tasteless water.

Also maybe start with tomatoes that already have flavor?
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:37 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Man. I'd forgotten about potato skins. I think it's time for another comeback.
posted by angrycat at 3:45 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is like the '90s fashion for potato skins all over again: those were basically an edible conveyance for butter, sour cream and bacon.

You say that like it's a bad thing.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:06 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Iceberg lettuce is lovely when it's fresh, well-bred and good. So are apples. But many people think both are tasteless and cardboard because they're so easily abused by large-scale food suppliers. I'm just happy if I get iceberg lettuce that isn't brown on the white edge.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:08 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've seen "Irish Nachos" on several menus recently: a plate o' potato skin chips, melted cheese, and various other toppings.
posted by Songdog at 4:09 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Please send all unwanted iceberg lettuce and potato skins to me. I'll be here with my sour cream, bacon, and deep satisfaction.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:14 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

Re "bacon is over".

If y'all are done with that bacon, pass it over. I'll happily eat it.

I see no particular reason to waste it on iceberg lettuce, though: toss it on some greens with real flavor, damn it.
posted by straw at 4:25 PM on June 7, 2015

You had me at "Crisping the fresh bread crumbs in the rendered bacon fat."
posted by Splunge at 4:33 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

I am excited to try this salad. Wedge salads are awesome. The rest of you are just entirely wrong.
posted by jaguar at 4:54 PM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]

it looks great and I love all lettuces, including iceberg, but how is it actually consumed? Is it served with a steak knife so you can carve the wedge into chunks that will fit into your mouth, or do you have to try to peel the thing apart with your fork spraying your neighbour with dressing in the process?
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:13 PM on June 7, 2015

You tilt your head back and swallow it whole like a pelican
posted by The Whelk at 5:27 PM on June 7, 2015 [12 favorites]

tocts: "The tomato prep is basically how we like to prepare them as a side in my house. No salad required; some oil, vinegar, and feta recommended."

So a tomato salad?
posted by Splunge at 5:29 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

The proper iceberg salad, if you grew up in the 50's or 60's, is a wedge smothered in commercial Italian, Thousand Island or Blue Cheese dressing with a basket of individually wrapped crackers to the side...
posted by jim in austin at 5:41 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Bacon is not over! As long as there are pigs, there will be bacon.
posted by rankfreudlite at 5:51 PM on June 7, 2015

Iceberg is all about the cool refreshing water-packed crunch and the ability to stand up to a lot of toppings. It's all about the accoutrements with iceberg, and you load it up in ways that would wreck a less sturdy leaf. I'm sure it's possible to create a more flavorful lettuce that accomplishes the same thing, but I haven't seen it. Romaine is close, but not quite there. Iceberg is utilitarian like a basic loaf of crusty bread or something, it definitely has its place and the culinary simplicity of it is a feature, not a bug.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:00 PM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]

Is it served with a steak knife so you can carve the wedge into chunks that will fit into your mouth

Yes. Knives are allowed for the consumption of salad.
posted by jaguar at 6:05 PM on June 7, 2015

Never was there a time when bacon did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of this bacon cease to be.
posted by Sphinx at 6:29 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

You don't win friends with salad!
Unless it comes with bacon!
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:39 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Bacon is not over, but some of us are wishing it were, especially in chocolate, ice cream, etc.
posted by holborne at 7:09 PM on June 7, 2015

A chunk of iceberg on a plate is a loathesome excuse for a salad. How it's become a thing is beyond me. To me, a wedge always looks like the restaurant couldn't be assed to make an actual salad.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:36 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

veganizer appears!

You could make this vegan with some combination of coconut bacon, Just Mayo, soy milk, vinegar and silken tofu. Also maybe tofutti sour cream if you want to be a dirty cheater.

veganizer vanishes
posted by Gymnopedist at 7:44 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

If people like iceburg lettuce in certain dishes, it's worth eating iceburg lettuce in those dishes, regardless of "nutrition."

Iceburg lettuce may have little nutritional value, but if it tastes good in certain dishes, that's a reasonable reason to include it in those dishes.

Iceburg lettuce may have little nutritional value, but if someone's eating a wedge salad rather than a bacon-blue cheese burger, it's still probably better for them, overall.

Other people's nutritional choices are not actually anyone else's business or concern.

You people are so totally absolutely completely wrong about the beauty of wedge salads that I can only assume you're buying shitty ingredients and therefore do not have standing to comment on the quality of such salads.
posted by jaguar at 7:44 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

The thing about iceberg lettuce is that it's basically 100% made up of the 5% of romaine that's worth eating -- the dense, crunchy part. They sell romaine hearts three to a bag for, like, $2.99. You can buy a head of iceberg lettuce for $.99 and it's pretty much the same thing -- only you get at least four times much lettuce.

I know it's out of fashion. I don't care. Scoff all you will. It has its place. I'd choose it over limp, tasteless, textureless red leaf lettuce any day.
posted by mudpuppie at 8:07 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Iceberg is perfect on burgers, and whatever the things we call tacos up here actually are.

Wedge salads are kind of amazing. It's like the token concession to green vegetables on a table at some old steakhouse, like somewhere Don Draper would have gone that's still open. "You want salad? Here's a chunk of salad." No messing about.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:32 PM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]

The perfect salad to accompany a main course of 2-3 martinis. Keep the blue cheese on the lettuce and out of my olives, please. (Not that blue cheese stuffed olives aren't delicious anywhere outside of a glass full of gin.)
posted by bashos_frog at 9:04 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

mudpuppie, you mean the ribs I deliberately strip out of my romaine because they're 100% stupid tasteless plant fiber and water? Please come pick this so-called "worth eating" garbage out of my salad. It's godawful boring, except when it makes my stomach hurt.

salad fight?
posted by deludingmyself at 9:10 PM on June 7, 2015

It's my birthday and I love me some lettuce wedge salad. Haters be hatin' but I'll be crunchin'.
posted by harrietthespy at 9:18 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

mudpuppie and deludingmyself are required to get married, so we can make a nursery rhyme about their dinner arrangments
posted by idiopath at 9:25 PM on June 7, 2015

They see my romaine
They hatin...
posted by jaguar at 9:28 PM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]

Patrolling they tryin to catch me eatin fiber!
Tryin to catch me eatin fiber
Tryin to catch me eatin fiber
Tryin to catch me eatin fiber
Tryin to catch me eatin fiber
posted by jaguar at 9:30 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wedge salads always seemed like the perfect response to needing a salad in a Stakehouse environment. They have to be cut and eaten like steak, so you use the same utensils, it uses dips and ingredients you'd already have for steak and traditional sides, and it has that kind of manly slab of food thing Steakhouses like...

Did it exist before the Steakhouse was A Thing? What is the history of the wedge? (I suspect the advent of super cheap, super sturdy iceberg lettuce ...)
posted by The Whelk at 9:33 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's your FPP, dude. Shouldn't you have looked into that?

Random source so not vouching for accuracy:

Period cookbooks, old newspapers (esp. New York Times historic), and culinary reference books confirm the popularity of iceberg (also known as crisphead) lettuce in the 1920s. They do not, however, reveal claimants (hotels, chefs, restaurants) to the invention of the classic American wedge-type salad served with creamy dressing. The general concensus of current sources squarely places this salad as a ubiquitous menu entry of the 1950s and 1960s. The lettuce wedge lost its place in the 1970s when consumers were intrigued by more interesting salads. Recently, the iceberg wedge salad has resurfaced as a "reinvented" item on trendy menus. The new accompaniments are blue cheese (Maytag, esp.) and nuts.

posted by jaguar at 9:50 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

I JUST LIKE BACON FRIED BREAD CRUMBS OKAY
posted by The Whelk at 9:59 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

SALAD FITE
posted by poffin boffin at 10:37 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

i will now slap the whelk with a wet leaf of lollo rosso and demand satisfaction
posted by poffin boffin at 10:37 PM on June 7, 2015

that reminds me I have everything to make a tomato/spinach/feta/pistachio salad that I should really serve with some flank steak tomorrow.
posted by The Whelk at 10:59 PM on June 7, 2015

if I sear the steak in bacon grease before putting it in the oven I can add bacon to the salad yes
posted by The Whelk at 10:59 PM on June 7, 2015

bacon fat has a low smoke point. Sear with veg oil, then after you take the steak out baste it with the bacon fat and/or butter
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:01 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is all very helpful

(Oh a mustard vinaigrette for the salad, yes)
posted by The Whelk at 11:15 PM on June 7, 2015

can't you just sew it all up in some lardons and then throw it into the deep fryer
posted by poffin boffin at 11:31 PM on June 7, 2015

ugh I'd have to change the oil in it I don't wanna
posted by The Whelk at 11:40 PM on June 7, 2015

FINE THEN here's your beet soup and black bread and starka now go sit in the corner and weep about the Родина
posted by poffin boffin at 12:22 AM on June 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Realistically it would be cape cod chips and just a gallon of gin in lieu of dinner.

I mean we're not peasants.
posted by The Whelk at 12:31 AM on June 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

you mean the ribs I deliberately strip out of my romaine because they're 100% stupid tasteless plant fiber and water?

As opposed to the less stupid slightly less tasteless plant fiber and water of the rest of the leaf? The nutritional profile of Iceberg and Romaine are far more similar than different. I use them where they work - the flavor or romaine would be lost under the dressing on this salad and the leaf wouldn't stand up to the weight. And iceberg is just too wet to work under a more delicate dressing - it washes it right out.
posted by rtimmel at 7:57 AM on June 8, 2015

wedge salad is new to me (I may not have been paying attention) - and this is a delightful thread
posted by mumimor at 10:45 AM on June 8, 2015

I actually made this three nights ago! It's pretty good but in the future I think I'll gussy up the dressing a bit more, perhaps some garlic and/or onion.
posted by Carillon at 4:41 PM on June 8, 2015