Salsa ain’t salsa…unless its salsa

I hope you are all healthy and safe. With so much chaos, and calamity amongst us, I thought it would be good for you to read something that is quite near to my anal-rententive heart and something that has nothing to do with coronavirus. So let’s talk about salsa.

A disclaimer…this is one of my favorite soapboxes to get on. My wife will be grateful that I’m sharing this with you all so that you can all tell me I’m crazy too. In fact I think she might be interested in making T-shirts….”The “I think Dan Brownell is nuts club.” I think the world may run out of fabric too quickly, but it’ll be a boom for small textiles businesses.

So we have a dear friend who once made something called apple salsa. And I took a bite, with a little cinnamon cracker, and while the concoction was delicious, a little red light was going off in my head. This was not salsa. Strictly speaking, salsa is the Spanish word for “sauce.” But come on, you and I both know that salsa is that thing you have with chips. Its tangy, sometimes very spicy, and includes tomatoes, peppers and cilantro. If its not that, its not salsa. Its a beautiful, delicious concoction of something. Call it Apple Cinnamon paste. Call it Delicious Mystery dish of which we are thankful but will not call salsa. But don’t call it salsa unless its actually salsa!

Here’s another one. Salad. Salad is a dish with greens, croutons and some form of dressing. Sometimes you can add meat if its a chef salad, and sometimes some fruit, but it has to be a foundation of greens. If its not, its not a salad. So if you put fruit in a dish and call it salad, or if you put…well anything in a large dish and call it salad, don’t. Its a wonderful fruit cocktail, or whatever you have in it, but its not a salad. Again, the dictionary disagrees with me, but just because he shares my name doesn’t mean Dan Webster knows everything!

So make good food during your time as shut-ins, but remember. If it ain’t salsa, or it ain’t salad, don’t call it such. Invent a new name.