Talk:Bean salad

Who in their right mind puts beetroot in a bean salad? 203.97.26.189 (talk) 04:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I've heard of three bean salad, but also five bean (which is far more common as I can buy it prepared at the grocery store, and in cans), so I don't think bean salad refers to three exclusively. The source is even for 4 bean salad, or mixed bean salad, so until someone actually puts an effort into this article, I think specifics are best avoided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.112.19.122 (talk) 18:06, 24 July 2010 (UTC) Also removed the American bias, I have seen no proof or references that suggest the recipe is primarily American, and I doubt that my North American replacement is correct, as Lawar Ayam is a similar Balinese dish apparently, and I even found a recipe from a book called "Cooking with the Bible", although I'd have to read Samuel to see how specific and related it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.112.19.122 (talk) 18:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Talking about three-bean five-bean etc is hardly removing American bias, as these are names coined by food manufacturers to put on their cans. The 'This article needs additional citations for verification' graffiti all over wikipedia lend massive support to American bias, given the Empire's domination of English-language (mis-)information media over the last 60 years or more.


 * To remove American bias (highly desirable objective), acknowledge that 'bean salad' is a generic description covering any and all ways of making a salad with beans, and we agree that there a many kinds of beans. How can such a thing need citations?


 * A paragraph stating that the traditional Armenian way is such and such, may be improved with some evidence, but if someone says they put beetroot in their bean salad, they probably do. Canned 'bean salad', aka known as toxic waste for its adulteration with massive doses of salt and sugar, hardly needs a page here. If that's what you want to eat, go buy it. It's cheap, though not remotely as cheap as buying your beans and making your own salad. The benefit to the world of a page on bean salad here, is for people to find what other people add to the beans. If someone reckons beetroot is good, I want to know.--Alkhowarizmi (talk) 11:19, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Removing American bias is a worthy goal, but not to the point of omitting actually useful information. Around here nobody refers to "bean salad."  It's always "three-bean salad", "four-bean salad" or the like.   Equating these terms with "names coined by food manufacturers" is incorrect (I own a turn of the 20th century American cookbook which uses the term "3 Bean Salad") nor does insisting on the entire class of dishes being referred to as "bean salad" accurately reflect modern usage.


 * I was asked recently by an Asian colleague about the term; she had (quite reasonably) looked it up here and seen no reference, and all of the recipes she found online were different.


 * IMO, it is not inappropriate to note in the article that some versions of the dish frequently go by other names in America. If someone from Armenia, or France, or whatever, wants to ADD a section on whatever variants are popular in their culture, GREAT.  It will make the article even more useful.  But suppressing a commonly-used term just because it may or may not be American in origin is counter-productive and makes the article LESS useful, even if it's more politically correct. GodaiNoBaka (talk) 19:46, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Nutrition
The section on nutrition is garbled and generalises too much to be useful. Foremost of my reasons for not fixing it (well, perhaps second after inexpertise) is that I think it should be deleted as it is about beans, not bean salad. However, I'm reluctant to delete without evidence that others agree. Alkhowarizmi (talk) 11:46, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I had the same thoughts. I added an off-topic tag to this section.  Anyone care to defend this section, or improve it?  If not, I think it can safely be deleted GodaiNoBaka (talk) 19:57, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how nutritional information about a food is off-topic. Bean salad consists largely of beans, and beans have nutritional value. Yes, the canned versions have way too much sugar and salt, but bean salad made from scratch or purchased from a deli can be a beneficial addition to the diet.2601:5C2:200:3D59:BD9A:B692:D3F0:1ED9 (talk) 21:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

J. Edgar Hoover
The article claimed:
 * It was a favorite dish of J. Edgar Hoover, and it is believed that bean salad was one of the final dishes he ate before his death.

I was not able to substantiate this, so I deleted it. If a citation is available, please put it back with citation. —Mark Dominus (talk) 20:09, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Three (or more) bean salad
Three Bean Salad likely needs to have its own article, or at least, its own section. As it is now, the article is kind of a hodge-podge, and looks as though there was originally a three-bean salad article which was then universalized. Three Bean Salad is a specific American dish, with its own history and culture, a bit of a phenomenon, reaching very broad national acceptance in a relatively short time, and lasting (it's not a fad). It has a simple, but rather specific kind of dressing and some general rules, partly dictated by theme of the ingredients and desirable appearrance. Drsruli (talk) 20:15, 24 May 2024 (UTC)