A Love Letter To The Iceberg Wedge Salad (PHOTOS)

We're going to say something that we expect some of you to disagree with: iceberg lettuce rules. Is it the best lettuce? No way. But we also think it's undeserving of the vitriol that gets lobbed toward it so frequently, simply because it's full of water. The most compelling argument for the use of iceberg lettuce is, undeniably, the iceberg wedge salad. That, dear friends, is what we are here to talk about lovingly today.

The wedge salad, in our eyes, is a nearly perfect food. A crisp, refreshing foundation, studded with brightly acidic tomatoes, hearty bacon, piquant blue cheese, all blissfully smothered in buttermilk dressing -- these components come together to form a final product that is somehow both hearty and refreshing. Although we are wedge salad classicists, we also recognize that it lends itself to innovation and customization. Some people add chives, green onions, avocado or Buffalo chicken (!!!). We've started wondering lately why we don't make other salads into wedges (we obviously thought of the Greek salad wedge first). And we will never, ever forget the Sri-Rancha wedge salad on the first iteration of Talde's menu -- RIP (Dale, why did you take this from us??).

The wedge salad frequently gets called out as the laziest salad on earth. Look, you guys are right, it is stupidly easy to prepare. But lazy? When a perfectly seared steak arrives in one piece to your table, do you think that chef is lazy as well? The iceberg wedge is salad's one opportunity to be paleolithic, intimidating, over-the-top (okay, aside from maybe the taco salad, but just let us have this one declarative statement today).

We love the wedge salad for all these reasons and more -- and to show our admiration, we wrote it a love letter. Dearest Wedge Salad, we adore you.

Update: For New York-based wedge salad lovers, Dale Talde let us know that our beloved Sri-Rancha wedge now lives at Pork Slope in Brooklyn. Go eat this thing!

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