Tossing salads: what do you use?

[JAZ]

When I was growing up, we ate a lot of tossed green salads. My mother had a standard "salad" bowl and "salad servers" -- the wooden long-handled spoon and the long-handled thing that wasn't really a spoon but wasn't really a fork either. Pretty much any set of salad servers that I see today are the same kind of thing, so apparently it's still the standard in serving salads.

But a few years ago, it became the in thing to toss your salads with your hands -- less damaging to the lettuces or something. I tried that for a few months, but here's the thing: it's really messy. I'm not crazy about having my hands covered in salad dressing, regardless of how it makes the lettuce feel. In any case, if I'm serving family style, I still need something to serve the salad with, right? I can't really have my guests plunging their hands into the salad bowl to serve themselves, can I?

So now, I mostly use tongs. It's not perfect, but it works. Am I missing any options? Am I damaging my salad greens with harsh metal implements? What does everyone else use for salad tossing and serving?

[KarenDW]

I consider tossing to be a kitchen activity, and serving to be a table activity, so therefore am quite vindicated in using separate implements. That said, for me, tossing is definitely a "hands on" task. And I love that serving salad with tongs can be a single-handed activity.

[weinoo]

Hand for tossing; nice wooden salad implements for serving.

[David A. Goldfarb]

A large metal fork and spoon. The lettuce doesn't seem to mind.

[Lilija]

One or two huge flat wooden spatulas, depending on the size and composition of the salad. They're like rice paddles, only with longer handles. I serve with tongs, though.

[Lisa Shock]

I toss in a really big bowl, then serve with scissors-like fork/spoon salad server.

When I toss, I just flip around like tossing stir-fry in a wok or flipping an omlette in a pan -no utensils, no hands.