Is there anyone out there who doesn't want their salad chopped?

I always eat with a knife and fork, unless the whole meal is finger-food (or, obviously, spoon-based)

I’m very happy to eat my meal however the chef chooses to display it. If it’s in wedges, it’s no burden to cut to size, and I can enjoy the visual appeal of the fresh vegetables. With a chopped salad you’re likely getting the least fresh veggies the night before they had to be thrown away anyway, coated in enough dressing and seasoning that you can’t tell the difference.

I am in the @Seek camp on this.

I don’t go to restaurants that don’t set the place without a knife.

And a wedge is not a salad. It is a hunk of the worst type of lettuce (iceberg) disguised in some chemical gloop.

I don’t necessarily have to have the salad chopped into tiny pieces, but I do appreciate it being in somewhat small pieces. I don’t want to have big pieces of lettuce that need cutting or else will be falling out of my mouth. At home, if I serve salad (for a party, let’s say), I would rip the lettuce into small pieces, not have big sheets in the salad bowl.

If you put any sheets in my salad, then I’ll keel you, @jca.

~Sorry when I first saw this question I thought it was nsfw . You really don’t want to know what I thought the q was. I’m dying to tell but will be prudent and only tell those who PM’s me.~

@Seek Good point about the quality or freshness of the salad.

I prefer to wield the knife myself.

If I’m going to get a hunk of lettuce, a slice of winter tomato and an unpeeled slice of cucumber, I’d just as soon skip it. Worse yet, a couple of grape tomatoes and a 2×4 of red onion.

In my opinion it’s only polite to suit the food to the serving dish. If the salad is going to be served on a 6–7” plate, it should be ready to eat, as there’s not room for surgery. It doesn’t have to be pre-chewed, but I appreciate everything arriving in bite-sized pieces.
It doesn’t have to be coated in dressing and seasoned to high heaven, I just don’t want to spend 5 minutes wielding a knife and fork on a salad before I can take a single bite.

I most definitely don’t want my salad chopped. I don’t like it at all when lettuce has been cut with a knife.

Is a non-chopped salad a thing? Normally when I do a salad at home I just tear the shit out of everything with my hands and eat it with a fork.

But I can’t remember the last time I got a salad at a restaurant. I can make a salad at home but I don’t have a fryer. Ask me if I want fries or a salad and I am all over those fries.

The fanciest place I have been to in the last five years is a Red Robin. I love Red Robin. All you can eat french fries. So I get a chicken strip basket. I don’t touch the chicken. I just eat fries until I am sick and then get a box to take the chicken home. 12 bucks for pint of Stella and a few meals.

A “chopped salad” is different from a chef’s salad. Chopped salads are shredded into small pieces. Think cole slaw.

Chef’s salad is salad with cold cuts in it (ham, cheese, turkey, pastrami maybe).

I was just giving one example of a type of salad that isn’t chopped.

This is what I thought the OP meant by an ‘unchopped’ or “not cut into bite sized pieces” salad. Hunks of raw veggies in a container so small that it prohibits moving anything, much less cutting up. It’s my nightmare, and a prime example of the American obsession on form over function when it comes to food presentation in a restaurant. If they want me to cut the stuff up myself, then bring the same portions on a dinner plate. If you want to serve it in a 6” container, cut the stuff up.

Now, this salad is truly beautiful! Inviting to the eye, inviting to the palate and immediately ready for you to begin your meal.

To me there is a distinct difference between a restaurant reducing the ingredients to “bite sized” by chopping them, and a chopped salad. I’ve never been served a chopped salad in lieu of a green salad at a restaurant.

Speaking of wedge salads, and form over function, take a good look at this perfectly beautiful salad because I see no possible way of actually eating it.

I don’t usually eat iceberg lettuce. I prefer salads with field or baby greens. They’re harder to get on to your fork, but they don’t need to be cut and they have more nutrients and flavor.

There’s something gross to me about eating a salad that’s been pre-cut. Maybe it’s the freshness or that it’s usually at a cheaper place… not sure.

I always chop my salad up into bite size pieces as I prefer to eat it that way.