I say there are four categories:

• “standalones”: anything that is only described as itself. Separation just results in smaller versions of itself.
• sandwiches: organized or layered arrangements of foods. Can typically be separated into it’s composing parts.
• salads: tossed or jumbled arrangements of foods. Could be separated into its parts, albeit cumbersome.
• sauces: perfectly combined or blended arrangements of foods. Can no longer be separated into its composing parts, but differs from a standalone because it was still composed of other foods, and can still be identified or described as all of the parts.

That’s bad taxonomy, because then what’s a taco salad? It’s an untossed taco salad salad. But we still don’t know what taco means. So it’s becomes an untossed untossed taco salad salad salad. Which becomes an untossed untossed untossed taco salad salad salad salad. We never learn what a taco actually is.

This falls into a common trap. Because we cannot succinctly define a salad in one sentence we decide that it cannot be defined at all. This argument effectively reducto ad absurdums itself by coming to the conclusion that all foods are salad.

If we start from a position where we discount nothing from being a salad, and we have only salads (and soup, seemingly) to base our analysis on, how can we ever identify the boundaries of salad? The whole argument is based on the flawed premise that anything could be a salad.

I realise that I am thinking too hard about this.

Then what’s a wedge salad? “Ingredients “?