"Salad Days"

The song "Gold" by Spandau Ballet includes this line in its lyrics:
These are my salad days

The term "salad days" was not familiar to me, but there's a whole Wikipedia article about it. It says:

The phrase was coined in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in 1606. In the speech at the end of Act One in which Cleopatra is regretting her youthful dalliances with Julius Caesar she says:
...My salad days, / When I was green in judgment, cold in blood/To say as I said then!

The phrase became popular only from the middle of the 19th century, coming to mean "a period of youthful inexperience or indiscretion." The metaphor comes from Cleopatra's use of the word 'green' — presumably meaning someone youthful, inexperienced, or immature. Her references to "green" and "cold" both suggest qualities of salads.

I don't know why, but it strikes me as odd, to think of Ancient Egyptians eating salad. But then, Cleopatra cavorted with Ancient Romans. Did Ancient Romans eat salads? Apparently so.

Bon Appetit Wednesday! An Ancient Roman Salad:
Romans loved salads. Columella’s writings suggest the Romans were much like we are today in their search for delicious and inventive salad combinations.[2] A main ingredient in all of these recipes was salt. In fact, the word salad comes from the Latin word sal, meaning salt.

According to the next articles, Ancient Egyptians domesticated lettuce. But they also considered it an aphrodisiac (or they didn't, depending on the article).

Watch out the Egyptian salad. Lettuce in Ancient Egypt: a ‘sexy vegetable’ and its usages

Lettuce and Kings: The Power Struggle Between Horus and Set

Ancient Egyptian Sexuality: Life in Ancient Egypt

... there I am getting dragged down a winding path of topics from where I started.

Going back to the Shakespeare Cleopatra line, it's neat how it is a double (or more) metaphor. Green is a metaphor for youth; coldness (temperature) is a metaphor for coldness (lack of emotion). And then salad, being green and cold, becomes another metaphor for youth and/or coldness.

Update, 2021/09/29:
The ancient Egyptian depictions of lettuce shown on the above link don't look much like modern day lettuce.

But today I came across a lettuce variety which does look somewhat similar to the Egyptian depictions:
Celtuce (also known as "stem lettuce".
Celtuce: A Stocky Stem Lettuce From China (video)