Fruit salad is a dish consisting of various kinds of
fruit, sometimes served in a liquid, either their juices or a
syrup. In different forms, fruit salad can be served as an
appetizer or a side
salad. When served as an appetizer, a fruit salad is sometimes known as a fruit cocktail (often connoting a canned product), or fruit cup (when served in a small container).
There are many types of fruit salad, ranging from the basic (no nuts, marshmallows, or dressing) to the moderately sweet (
Waldorf salad
A Waldorf salad is a fruit and nut salad generally made of fresh apples, celery, walnuts, and grapes, dressed in mayonnaise, and traditionally served on a bed of lettuce as an appetizer or a light meal. The apples, celery, and grapes ...
) to the sweet (
ambrosia salad). Another "salad" containing fruit is a
jello salad, with its many variations. A
fruit cocktail is well-defined in the US to mean a well-distributed mixture of small diced pieces of (from highest percentage to lowest) peaches, pears, pineapple, grapes, and cherry halves. Fruit salad may also be canned (with larger pieces of fruit than a cocktail).
Description
There are several home
recipe
A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe.
His ...
s for fruit salads that contains different kinds of fruit, or that use a different kind of sauce other than the fruit's juice or syrup. Common ingredients used in fruit salads include
strawberries
The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...
,
pineapple,
honeydew,
watermelon,
grapes, and
kiwifruit. Various recipes may call for the addition of
nuts,
fruit juice
Juice is a drink made from the extraction or pressing of the natural liquid contained in fruit and vegetables. It can also refer to liquids that are flavored with concentrate or other biological food sources, such as meat or seafood, such as ...
s, certain
vegetables,
yogurt, or other ingredients.
One variation is a
Waldorf-style fruit salad, which uses a
mayonnaise-based sauce. Other recipes use
sour cream (such as in
ambrosia
In the ancient Greek myths, ''ambrosia'' (, grc, ἀμβροσία 'immortality'), the food or drink of the Greek gods, is often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus ...
), yogurt, or even custard as the primary sauce
ingredient
An ingredient is a substance that forms part of a mixture (in a general sense). For example, in cooking, recipes specify which ingredients are used to prepare a specific dish. Many commercial product (business), products contain secret ingredie ...
. A variation on fruit salad uses whipped cream mixed in with many varieties of fruits (usually a mixture of berries), and also often includes miniature marshmallows.
Rojak, a
Malaysian fruit salad, uses a spicy sauce with peanuts and shrimp paste. In the
Philippines, fruit salads are popular party and holiday fare, usually made with ''buko'', or young
coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...
, and
condensed milk
Condensed milk is cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of ''sweetened condensed milk'' (SCM), to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condens ...
in addition to other canned or fresh fruit.
Sicilian orange salad
The Sicilian orange salad (''Insalata di arance'') is a typical salad dish of the Spanish and Sicilian cuisine, which uses oranges as its main ingredient. It is usually served at the beginning or at the end of a meal.
In its most basic form the ...
is a typical dish of
Sicily (Italy) and Spain in which orange slices are dressed with olive oil, salt, and black pepper.
Mexico has a popular variation of the fruit salad called
Bionico which consists of various fruits drenched in condensed milk and sour cream mix. Guacamole may also be considered a fruit salad, consisting predominantly of various fruits and fruit juices such as avocados, lemon and/or lime juice, tomatoes, chili peppers, and black peppercorns.
There is also an extended variety of fruit salads in
Moroccan cuisine, often as part of a
kemia, a selection of
appetizers or small dishes analogous to Spanish
tapas or eastern
Mediterranean mezze.
A fruit salad ice cream is also commonly manufactured, with small pieces of real fruit embedded, flavored either with juices from concentrate, fruit extracts, or artificial chemicals.
Fruit cocktail
''Fruit cocktail'' is often sold
canned
Canned may refer to:
* " Canned", an episode of ''Rocko's Modern Life''
* Canning of food
* Dismissal (employment)
* Drunkenness
* produced and conserved to be released on demand, e.g.
** Canned air
** Canned hunt
** Canned laughter
** Cann ...
and is a staple of
cafeteria
A cafeteria, sometimes called a canteen outside the U.S., is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school ...
s, but can also be made fresh. The use of the word "cocktail" in the name does not mean that it contains alcohol, but refers to the secondary definition: ''" an appetizer made by combining pieces of food, such as fruit or seafood"''.
In the United States, the
USDA stipulates that canned "fruit cocktail" must contain a certain percentage distribution of
pears, grapes,
cherries
A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...
,
peaches, and pineapples to be marketed as fruit cocktail. It must contain fruits in the following range of percentages:
*30% to 50% diced peaches, any yellow variety
*25% to 45% diced pears, any variety
*6% to 16% diced pineapple, any variety
*6% to 20% whole grapes, any seedless variety
*2% to 6% cherry halves, any light sweet or artificially colored red variety (like
maraschino cherries)
Both
William Vere Cruess of the
University of California, Berkeley and Herbert Gray of the Barron-Gray Packing Company of
San Jose, California have been credited with the invention of fruit cocktails. Barron–Gray was the first company to sell fruit cocktail commercially, beginning in 1930, and
California Packing Corporation began selling it under its
Del Monte brand a few years later.
Canned fruit cocktails and canned fruit salad are similar, but fruit salad contains larger fruit while fruit cocktail is diced. Commercially, the fruit used was healthy but cosmetically damaged, such as a peach or pear that was bruised on one side.
The bruised parts would be cut away and discarded, and the rest would be diced into small pieces.
In popular culture
"Fruit Salad" (also known as "Fruit Salad Yummy Yummy") is the name of a 1994 song by
Australian children's band
the Wiggles and on the television show ''
Wonder Pets''.
"Fruit-salad" is also a slang term used for
medals on a soldier's uniform, e.g. "Look at the fruit-salad on that colonel." The term refers to the bright colors of a high percentage of the
ribbons that usually go with medals.
[ ]
"Fruit salad" is an alternative name for the party game
Fruit Basket Turnover
Fruit Basket Turnover or Fruit Basket Upset, also known as Fruit Salad, Fruit Bowl, Fruits Basket {{sic and others is a children's game.
Fruit Basket usually refers to a variation in which each fruit is ostensibly associated with only one player, ...
.
See also
*
Macedonia (food), a variation made of small pieces of fruit or vegetable
*
Compote, dessert of fruit in syrup
*
Green papaya salad, a savory salad made from the unripe fruit
*
Clericó – a Latin American version of sangria, made from mixed fruit and wine
References
External links
History of fruit salad
{{Salads
Fruit dishes
Appetizers
Articles containing video clips