<p>I just purchased a bamboo salad bowl by Food Network. I love the look of it and the size and design seem right. It says to hand wash. Am I naive to think that it will always look this nice? What should I know about wooden salad bowls? The idea of dressing/oil seems like a problem. Thanks.</p>
<p>I have a teak salad bowl that I’ve had for at least 30 years. It looks as good now as the day I received it as a gift. I do NOT oil it…I just gently hand wash it after each use.</p>
<p>I love my wooden bowls, and do about the same as thumper1 in terms of caring for them. Just don’t let water sit in them for more than a few minutes. If you get spots left from acidic dressing, you can wash gently, dry it, and then wipe it down with a paper towel dabbed in vegetable oil.</p>
<p>Thanks for the hints. I keep looking at it on the counter pondering its return but your comments tell me otherwise. Just can’t imagine Catalina dressing not marring the surface.</p>
<p>It depends. A lot of the new wood salad bowls have a polypropylene finish. It would be pointess to oil that. Just wash and dry.</p>
<p>The older ones either had no finish or a mineral oil finish and gradually acquired a patina. Remeber, salad dressing is mostly oil.</p>
<p>Personally, I like stuff that goes in the dishwasher!</p>
<p>I also have a teak salad bowl–which I only wipe out right after use and don’t put water in at all. All the salad dressings I make have an oil base, so this works just fine.</p>
<p>We have a maple salad bowl that was the first thing H & I bought for our household, almost 3 decades ago. It was a handmade, unfinished bowl. We use it almost daily, and scrub the hell out of it, but no soap – just water and a scrubbing brush. It does not get treated gently! It has now acquired a beautiful patina and is practically waterproof from the built up oil. I think salad tasted better in it.</p>
<p>Oil is definitely not a problem for hardwood salad bowls. As a matter of fact, it’s recommended that you periodically apply mineral oil to unfinished hardwood bowls to help protect the wood and prevent it from drying out.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about bamboo, though, so I googled it. According to this site, mineral oil should be applied periodically to bamboo cutting boards:</p>
<p>[How</a> to Care for Bamboo Cutting Boards | eHow.com](<a href=“http://www.ehow.com/how_4822904_care-bamboo-cutting-boards.html]How”>http://www.ehow.com/how_4822904_care-bamboo-cutting-boards.html)</p>
<p>I assume the same advice holds true for bamboo salad bowls.</p>
<p>Anyway, hope you enjoy your new bowl!</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, Mapsey. I guess the part that confuses me is that the literature with the bowl only mentions the gentle wash with dish detergent and quickly drying. I believe interesteddad mentioned the possibility of today’s products being coated with some sort of polypropylene.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t use too much soap on it. In fact when we use ours, we normally give it a good hot water rinse if there was only the salad part, no dressing.</p>