Салат
If there is any word in the Russian language that a modern American is bound to misunderstand, that word is салат. For an American the primary meaning of salad is a mixture of raw leafy greens with a bit of dressing on top, perhaps with tomatoes or some other vegetables added. In Russia the leafy greens are not a requirement at all. If you mix a quantity of any vegetable matter with some kind of herbed sauce and serve it up on a plate, that is салат. For instаnce, a hundred grams of potatoes combined with enough mayonnaise to cover them, that is салат. If you combine a hundred grams of cucumber with enough sour cream to cover the slices and enough dill to make the sour cream green, that is салат.
Among the most well-known Russian salads are:
Name | Ingredients |
Салат «Оливье» | boiled potatoes hard-boiled eggs boiled sausage marinated cucumbers peas |
Винегрет | boiled beets boiled potatoes boiled carrots sunflower oil |
Мимоза | canned fish onions eggs mayonnaise |
Салат из крабовых палочек | artifical crab hard-boilded eggs onion canned corn mayonnaise |
For a marvelous rant inspired by Мимоза, see Tanyant. For those of us who are vegetable-impaired, there is a valuable website called Мир салатов The World of Salads.
Салат can also mean lettuce, and thus it can also mean any salad made with lettuce as well. But what Russian ever uses lettuce?

Салат из крабовых палочек
Artificial crab salad
2 comments
haha, i just realized my post only made sense in my head. my family is Russian and i’ve lived in the US for 7+ years.
nice entry! my family eats fresh lettuce salads every day. though i think we got that habit from france when we lived there for two years. …and i still sometimes refer to lettuce as salad in english, even though i’ve lived here for 7+ years.
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