“You eat with your eyes first” & this most definitely applies to salads. A colourful, vibrant & appealing salad is most likely to draw one’s attention than a boring, monotonous leafy mix. Having said that, I believe salads are highly subjective choice food. ‘Have you ever been to salad bars?’ With exactly same available ingredients people end up making quite distinct & unique salads. They like different dressings, different veggies, different meat cuts, so on & so forth. Fruit salads are no different. Although the rough idea is to mix seasonally available fruits & serve them with an addition of some liquid (including their own juices), versions & recipes of fruit salads vary from place to place.

It is believed that fruit salads were highly popular with Greeks & Romans. One of the oldest forms of fruit salad is ‘compote,’ which has its origin in 17^th century England. A typical 1950s American fruit salad used canned fruit cocktail as its base & was mixed with either of mayonnaise, whipped cream or sour cream.  

Waldorf Salad (Mayonnaise based) containing red-skinned apples, celery & walnuts is quite popular in Europe, whereas fruit salads with sour cream or Greek yoghurt are popular in America.

Since Indians are hugely biased towards ‘sweet’….Indian fruit salads generally use custard or condensed milk as their base.

The possibilities of combinations are endless….add dried fruits for crunchiness, canned fruits if particular fruits are not in season or just toss up whatever is available in your fruit dish. If the fruits are fresh, you are likely to get a hit side dish or dessert. Fruit salad with ice-cream or whipped cream is a huge favourite of kids & is most likely to please even the sweetest of a tooth.

Obviously, I have my own version of fruit salad. Normally for different textures & tastes, fruits from different categories are mixed in fruit salads. For example a couple of citrus fruits like oranges & grapefruits; a couple of sweet fruits like bananas & sapotas/chikoo etc. are mixed. However, my version works well even if you have fruits from the same category. I have tried it with oranges, strawberries & grapes & it still tasted heavenly. One of my friends named it ‘Fruit Cream’ but it’s just a version of fruit salad.

All that is required is 3 to 4 different fruits- fresh & seasonal are always preferred. Table cream or packaged fresh cream or even half & half will do. Powdered sugar or fine granulated sugar & a pinch of salt. Mix everything together & voila fruit salad is ready. It’s easy & delicious. It’s a perfect dessert which can be whipped up even in less than 10 minutes & still can be called home-made.

So, next time you don’t have time for baking a cake or setting an ice-cream, don’t worry…slice some fruits, add some cream & serve a perfect dessert.

Enjoy!!!