Stretching the concept of "main course" to its limits

I already wrote about how some of the recipes in McCall's Book of Wonderful One-Dish Meals (edited by Kay Sullivan, 1972) make me kind of nervous, but the post didn't mention the especially nerve-wracking chapter on "Salads as a Main Course." I have no problem with the concept, often making a tossed salad loaded with half-a-dozen veggie varieties, Tofurky, cottage cheese, and a sprinkling of mixed nuts into a standalone meal on hot summer days. This book, though, doesn't seem all that concerned with whether a main course salad is all that substantial.

I expected the Fiesta Salad Platter, for example, to be a fairly standard taco salad. Nope! Not even close.

It's mostly just cooked cauliflower and and green beans marinated in oil-and-vinegar dressing and sprinkled with a few croutons. Diners can slather on some herbed mayonnaise to make it a little more substantial, but I'm not sure what would make anyone see this as a main dish (or a fiesta).

I've seen variations of the next selection listed as a salad or as a dessert.

But I have never seen anyone claim that a dish consisting largely of fruit-flavored gelatin and ginger ale should count as the main course.

Also in the desserty realm, the book recommends Rainbow Salad Plate.

This recipe is a bit more substantial, offering diners a bite or two of cheese and a couple pecan halves, but it's still mostly fruit and sherbet. (At least the book recommends hot buttered muffins as an accompaniment to give this meal a little heft.) I saved this one for last just because I wanted to make you imagine eating a scoop of sherbet with oil-and-vinegar dressing on top.

Of course, a lot of old cookbooks list lengthy menus-- soup, meat, potatoes, hot vegetable, cold salad, rolls with butter, and fruit, plus a substantial dessert of pie, cake, cookies, and/or ice cream--  so maybe "main dish" didn't mean as much back then. If the editors are expecting cooks to serve these with accoutrements like soup, bread and butter, and a heavy dessert, maybe they would do as a main course. That would mean that Sullivan was not particularly committed to the "one-dish" premise of the book, but I already established that she wasn't, so... maybe these would actually work? Or maybe Americans' expectations of what constitutes a full meal have changed over the years? People were trimmer in the 1970s.