Salad Making in Honduras

Salad making in Honduras is a tricky, lengthy process. After all, I don't want anyone contaminated by unclean lettuce or salad fixings when I am in charge. You can't just buy a head of lettuce, wash the outside and start making a salad......thats just nasty!

So here goes...if you have a weak tummy you may want to skip this blog entry...

First step is to prepare 2 bowls of purified water to wash the lettuce and a 3rd extremely clean container to put the washed lettuce in.

1. Pull the lettuce apart leaf by leaf and first wash in a pur. water/bleach solution
2. Then rinse in the 2nd tub of just purified water.
3. Then break into bite size pieces and put in the serving bowl.

Notice, I said leaf by leaf. When you do 4 or 5 heads of lettuce that way for dinner each night it takes quite a while. And you totally understand the washing each leaf part when at the end you look into the first washing bowl - its not pleasant. No little creepy crawlies in my salad!

Tomatoes get washed with soap and water, then go through the bleach water, then plain water and then get cut...the knife and cutting board get bleached too.

The cantaloupes and watermelons get the same treatment as the tomatoes. The pineapple skips the scrub with soap (can't figure out how to do that and not get torn to shreds). Each banana gets washed before it is used for anything.

I wear aprons down there but still manage to get bleach spots on my clothes. So I have a pile of designated Honduras clothes now, pre-bleach spotted.

And yes, you can get tooooooo paranoid about germs and use too much bleach. I know from experience and ended up with chemical burns on my hands and arms the first trip. Now I go with rubber gloves to protect the skin!

I'll talk about our kitchen tomorrow!

Notice I typed this in green, keeps with the lettuce theme!