The Mighty Wedge

 

The Mighty Wedge

I've been down this road before, and alas I did not make it very far, so I will try again. 

A lot has happened since 2017, when I last attempted to eat 365 salads, including having all my teeth removed, and wandering the hinterlands as a toothless hillbilly, which will certainly impact how this second - really third - attempt to fill my gut with roughage. I think most importantly, I actually want to eat salads now. Why? Well, having to just gum your way through soft foods for three years, and sometimes subsist on protein shakes and broth following surgeries, will change a person's tastes. 

There's more though. We've all been through a global pandemic where food availability was, at times, rather scary. That kind of thing will make a person think differently about the sustenance available at any given time. 

I will keep this short though, as this is just the first of many entries to come, and given the nature of it all, why not start with the mighty Wedge salad? Histories of The Wedge suggest that the dish goes back to Roman times, but the first printed recipe wasn't until the early part of the last century. Even if we can't find a longer history of the salad, it is certain that it a venerable dish of more than 100 years, and I don't really know anyone who doesn't like it. 

Oh sure, people will deride The Wedge, and call it all kinds of names, but this is usually by way of signaling their culinary superiority. This is not unlike those who disparage American Cheese or Truffle Oil. When people tell you they don't like American Cheese because, for example, "It's not even cheese," they are not really talking about the cheese food product in question. No, rather they are telling you something about themselves. They're letting you know that they're better than you because they wouldn't ever allow that "plastic" cheese past their lips. Here's the thing though... It's not plastic. It's just mild cheddar cheese, to which some sodium citrate has been added, and then it has been shaped into delicious little slices that melt better than anything else on the planet. So, you know... tell those folks to kick rocks, and slap some American on your burger. It's the best cheese for a hamburger, and you know... go on... have two slices. You're worth it. 

The Wedge suffers many of these kinds of slights from the foodie elite, but in their heart of hearts, they all delight in a delicious wedge of iceberg lettuce, slathered in blue cheese dressing, bacon bits, with some cherry tomatoes on the side for color. It's delicious. It's crunchy, and filled with water, and has basically no nutritional value at all, but that's not what you came here for. You come to The Wedge as a vehicle to transport the dressing from the plate to your mouth. It's all about the dressing. You've created a crunchy way to transport pure, delicious, fat, from the plate to your facehole, and all the while you get to tell yourself you're eating a salad. 

This is fine, by the way. Don't let anyone tell you that The Wedge is just as bad for you as anything else because of all it's fatty dressing. This is simply untrue, and you need not listen to these people either because again... They're not talking about the salad, they're telling you that they're better than you, and they're not. You're a great person and we love you just the way you are. 

Blue Cheese Dressing

Mix together the following ingredients. This dressing is so incredibly simple that it's astounding to me that people don't make it all the time. You can make your own mayonnaise, and it will elevate the experience for sure. Don't want to make your own mayo? Grab that jar of Duke's... Or rock some Kewpie into the mixing bowl. Neither of these will be bad decisions. However: don't you dare even think of looking at that Miracle Whip. This is not the place for that. You can alter the type of blue cheese you use, and I highly recommend using Roquefort if you're going for the taste of the now defunct Boston gastronomic land mark Locke-Ober's mind blowing contribution to the long history of The Wedge, but really you could just squirt some store bough blue cheese dressing on a head of iceberg lettuce, and it would be delightful. So here: mix all this together. 

A 1:1 ratio of Mayonnaise and Sour Cream

A squirt of lemon juice

A good amount of minced parsley 

Some black pepper

A squirt of soy sauce or Worcestershire (And don't pronounce it funny. That joke is tired as fuck, and no one wants to hear it.)

Add enough crumbled blue cheese so as to be chunky

Make a decision about how think you want your dressing. At this point it will be the consistency of a dip. If you would like it to be thinner, simply mix in some heavy cream. 

Taste it, and adjust the seasoning to taste by adding salt until it tastes delicious to you. 

That's it. 

Enjoy.