Type Salad Origin Italy | Main ingredients Fruits or vegetables | |
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Similar Fruit salad, Fromage blanc, Tabbouleh, Crudités, Paupiette | ||
Macedonia or macédoine is 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, France, Italy and Latin 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.
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 at the end of the 18th century to refer to mixed fruit salad, alluding to the diverse origin of the people of Alexander's Macedonian Empire. It is sometimes said that it refers to the ethnic mixture in 19th century Ottoman Macedonia, but the chronology and contemporary sources do not support this interpretation. Macedoine can refer to any medley of unrelated things, not necessarily edible.