Home economists in the early twentieth-century liked to come up with strange combinations of chopped fruits and vegetables, bound together with that processed food innovation, salad dressing. Miracle Whip was the most famous of these, a sweeter version of mayonnaise, and both began to appear ready-made in jars at about the same time. In my home growing up, we called Miracle Whip "mayo" and used it exclusively on our sandwiches and in our tuna salads. When I grew up and got my own home, I developed a distaste for Miracle Whip and came to love Hellmann's mayonnaise. My husband still prefers the "tangy zip" of Miracle Whip (to quote an old commercial) and so I keep a small jar of each for us in the fridge, in the reduced-fat versions.
Feel free to use either, should you decide to tackle one of these salads.
Salad
When I scanned this one, I wasn't even sure how to label it since it didn't really have a title, so I labeled it "Yukky Salad." (Of course then I couldn't remember what the label was when I went to find it just now.)
The card reads "Salad - Ebersoles," who must have been a family Aunt Carrie knew, maybe from church. No quantities are specified, just a list of ingredients seemingly pulled at random from one's pantry and fridge.
Carrots
Bananas
Marshmallows
Peanut Butter
Celery
-----Mayonnaise--
Odd as it is, this is a somewhat typical "salad" recipe of the kind I mentioned above. The only ingredient that looks unfamiliar to me is the peanut butter. Bananas and marshmallows, in particular, were beloved in the 1920s and 1930s as treats that went well with chopped salads and Jello salads. Bananas were tropical and exotic, and marshmallows were a novelty. I would assume here that one grates the carrots, dices the bananas and celery, and mixes all the ingredients together with a little mayonnaise dolloped on at the end, either to help bind it or as a garnish on top. Let's move on, shall we?
Carrot Salad
Salads based on grated carrots have been around for a long time. I remember my mom making a Jello salad with grated carrots and crushed pineapple suspended in orange Jello, and it was darned tasty. There's also a grated carrot salad with raisins and a sweet mayo-based dressing in one of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, as Ina Garten, the author, likes to delve back into the retro recipes of her youth from time to time.
Aunt Carrie notes "Radio" as the source for this salad, probably one of the many homemaker programs that were on the radio for decades in the mid-twentieth-century.
2 cups grated carrots
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup red apples diced
1/4 cup canned pineapple cubes
Enough mayonnaise to moisten.
Honestly, I would eat this. I might squirt a little lemon juice on it to brighten up the taste and keep the apple chunks from browning. Plain or vanilla yogurt to replace the mayonnaise would probably be an excellent and much more modern taste for this salad. Not something you'd want to eat every day, but a good way to get some vitamins and fiber in the wintertime, when fresh fruits and vegetables used to be a lot harder to come by.
urggh. Actually, #2 doesn't sound bad. :) Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI love this! So much fun to see what was made in the past. The second one I would try, too. However, I do like peanut butter with my carrot sticks, so that first one may be one I could get into...
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