As I was standing here making my mother's fruit salad that has graced first hers and now my Thanksgiving table for no less than 47 years, it occurred to me just how ghetto/retro this dish is. Are any of you still eating hand-me-down recipes from the 50's and 60's?
Be honest! I know somebody is eating green Jello salad with cottage cheese and pineapple, ha!
Riki's Mom's Fruit Salad
Drain 2 large cans of fruit cocktail (the kind with the random maraschino cherries in it) and 2 small cans of mandarin orange slices in a colander. Transfer to a big mixing bowl.
Add 4 bananas, sliced. Add 3 apples, cored and diced, but not peeled. Add a good bit of red seedless grapes, cut in half. Toss with one container of Cool Whip and 1/2 bag of mini-marshmallows.
Serves 24. Can be halved. Consume by day three or bananas get really brown.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
We never did those kinds of recipes, but...
we did have all kinds of weird Swedish foods. Jansen's Temptation comes to mind. Potatoes, eggs, cream and anchovies...an acquired taste, personally I love it.
My mum was a foodie even back in the 60's. Homemade granola, home canned tomatoes, that kind of thing. She would never have allowed Cool Whip in the house.
No Cool Whip here
Though it is dairy-free and I do confess to using it a few times to make stuff for my lactose-intolerant kids. You can do stuff with it that real whipped cream would never allow. (NO, not that. Jeez, you guys.)
I cook Christmas dinner every year and it kinda morphed into a traditional Danish holiday meal after we lived there. So no ambrosia or other 50s glop. BUT...one thing that really mattered a lot to me was to continue my grandma's tradition of making a whole lotta dinner rolls from scratch. She made the best rolls. My brother ate thirteen one Christmas. I finally found a recipe that tastes just like hers and now MY kids (and little grandson!) are totally hooked on them. Every year I tell them in an offhand manner that rolls are not on the menu because I have too much other stuff to do, just to hear their howls of protest. (It's Marion Cunningham's Dinner Roll recipe from her Fanny Farmer baking cookbook, if anyone's interested.)
One thing that is very 50s/60s that I LOVE but rarely make are those peanut butter cookies with the Hershey's Kiss in the center. Damn, those are good.
We called the green jello...
We called the green jello with fruit, cheese and mayo "congealed salad." I have never thought of there being "mid century recipes." I have no idea what came out when.
family favorites: buttermilk biscuits, deviled eggs, salmon croquettes, chess squares, homemade ice cream...
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