Macedonia () is a French culinary term referring to a salad composed of small pieces of fruit or vegetables. Fruit Macedonia is a fresh fruit salad and is a common dessert in Greece, Romania, Spain,"Make time for Macedonia" (January 28, 2006) The Times France, Italy and South America. Vegetable Macedonia or Macédoine de légumes nowadays is usually a cold salad or hors d'oeuvre of diced vegetables, in France often including red beans. Macédoine de légumes is also a hot vegetable dish consisting of the same vegetables served with butter.Larousse Gastronomique Prepared macédoine, a mixture of diced vegetables and often peas, is often sold canned or frozen. It is sometimes mixed with mayonnaise combined with aspic stock, making it similar to Russian salad.
Etymology
The word macedonia was popularised in the middle of the 18th century in France to refer to mixed fruit salad. This probably alludes to the diverse origin of the people of Alexander's Macedonian Empire,Juan Antonio Cincunegui (24 November 2002) "La palabra en el tiempo", Nuevo Siglo, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaAuguste Scheler (1888) Dictionnaire d'étymologie française d'après les résultats de la science moderne p. 313 but that is "not fully established".Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2000, s.v. It is sometimes said that it refers to the ethnic mixture in 19th century Ottoman Macedonia.Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Edition 2, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, , Introduction, p. 1. Starting later in the 18th century, macedoine could mean any medley of unrelated things, not necessarily edible.Alan Davidson, (1999) The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford . Littré. Larousse du XIXe.
See also List of culinary knife cuts List of salads
References