More Than Just a Meal: The Performance of Making a Salad

Milly Berman, Event Coordinator, grew up in Brooklyn and still calls Park Slope home. A recent Wesleyan University graduate with a professional chef certification from Rouxbe Culinary School, she’s always had a passion for food—but it was hosting a series of dessert pop-ups with her sister, called the Night Café, that sparked her love for events. From crafting exquisite sweets to orchestrating unforgettable gatherings, Milly brings creativity and care to every detail.

More Than Just a Meal: The Performance of Making a Salad

I discovered Alison Knowles’ seminal performance art piece “Make a Salad” years ago, but even before that, I was performing it a couple times a week.

The piece is simple: the score reads, “make a salad,” and that is all there is to it. Knowles premiered the performance at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1962, making a simple salad in front of museum visitors among the art. The most recent performance was at the High Line in Manhattan in 2012, where Knowles made a salad for thousands of people with ingredients thrown from above onto a tarp and mixed by a group of volunteers. While she could have been the next big thing in large scale catering, Knowles chose to prioritize the process of making over the result of feeding people. She does not serve her audience a salad; she has them watch her make one.

Preparing a salad—or cooking any meal—is usually a domestic task, typically restricted to the feminine realm of the home and neither respected by nor visible to the public. Salad in particular is seen as a women’s food, perhaps because of the delicacy of its material, the implied abstinence from indulgence, or even the bourgeois ideal of skinny-girl self-starvation. By drawing out a uniquely feminine type of labor from its domestic relegation and bringing it into the public eye, Knowles’ “Make a Salad” is a decidedly feminist performance.

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Of course, I was intrigued by this piece when I first learned about it. I’m a big fan of badass female artists, and an even bigger fan of salad. However, I only truly began to understand Knowles’ work in the weeks and months after. I thought of Knowles when I added freshly misted, just-picked lettuce to my basket at the farmer’s market. I thought of Knowles as I silently spooned vinaigrette over tender pink cups of radicchio, and then when I listened to those cups crunching in the mouths of my dinner guests. I thought of Knowles as I stuck my fingers into fresh soil to plant early spring seedlings in the garden. I especially thought of Knowles when I would I arrive home after a late night at work, throw open the fridge, and slavishly make a meal for only myself with no one watching.

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It takes a lot to make a salad. And the making of that salad is something beautiful. In fact, it is a performance which thousands of people would come to see! At Great Performances, our outstanding chefs make hundreds of salads every day, whether in the noisy clamor of the commissary kitchen, the hushed urgency of the event kitchen, or in the darkened kitchens of their own homes while the rest of the city sleeps. Regardless of how many are watching, or who is eating, making a salad is a performance — a great one.

Milly Berman

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More Than Just a Meal: The Performance of Making a Salad