Dance in the Season with a Colorful Salad!

            We dance around the May Pole every year at our church, often in the soggy rain, but always with delight that spring is finally here! If we are lucky, we engage a local troupe of Morris Dancers as well. The food around our shared meal is colorful and gay, using the best of this and last year’s seasons of harvest. This salad is made to imitate the beautiful, gayly colored ribbons of the May Pole.

            This mostly raw ribbon salad is made with root vegetables from the previous season, enhanced with what is available from our local greenhouses and first crops. Use what you can find that is both delicious and colorful (or looks really cool like the local native fiddleheads). This is still the time of making do, but with the promise of what is ahead.

Rainbow carrots of multi color, sliced into ribbons with a vegetable peeler

Chiogga or candy stripe beets, very thinly sliced

New radishes, very thinly sliced

Pea shoots

Fiddlehead ferns, well-soaked, and blanched

Cucumbers, sliced lengthwise into ribbons

Zucchini, sliced lengthwise into ribbons

A few red peppers for color, sliced very thinly

Flowers to garnish!

Mix all the ingredients together on a large platter, and dress with a simple vinaigrette of 2 tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard, a little salt and pepper, and ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil.

Sprinkle with edible flowers. Think pansies, lilac, chive blossoms.