Why is Miracle Whip labeled as salad dressing? I have never seen anyone use as such, only as a sandwich condiment.
Molded salads are made with gelatin or mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip), or both, holding the ingredients together. Think tuna salad. Or chicken salad … egg salad … coleslaw. There’s a recipe for a molded spinach salad at:
http://food4.epicurious.com/HyperNews/get/archive_swap17301-17400/17330/11.html
In addition to the chicken/tuna/egg salad kind of salad that we are more familiar with now, the substance of the salad can be almost anything – veggies, fruit, ham, olives. Women’s magazines from the 1910’s (and other time periods too, I’m just more familiar with that particular era), promoted these salads to housewives as “fast yet fancy” additions to a dinner party menu.
Here’s the link to Miracle Whip’s history…more than you wanted to know but maybe it offers some tid bits as to why it’s evolved to primarily a sandwich topping.
i have a friend whose gramma used to eat it all the time. anyway the switch aint so crazy. try a little thousand island on yer burger. i find it suspicially close to what ronald mcdonald refers to as “special sauce”
1 cup mayo (or ‘salad dressing’) + 1 cup milk + 1 packet of Hidden Valley Ranch powder = Ranch Dressing.
I know this is a little off-topic, but…where IS Hidden Valley???
Cartooniverse
…because they’re crouching and hidden!
Bwa haa haa!
No, wait a sec… That’s not right.
Surely a better question should be:
Why is Miracle Whip?
From the site techchick68 linked to:
They advertised for 22 weeks on TV in 1933?
Sounds like a waste of money considering nobody much would be watching for another 20 years.
They must have left the Miracle Whip out of the fridge too long.
Mayo is also a “Salad Dressing.” My parents were from Europe and they used it as such.
If you stop to think about it Mayo is basically an egg and oil.
And typical dressings are vinegar and oil of some sort.
Dunno, must be well hidden.
My mom has in fact put miracle whip on salad. It was one of those “you’ll eat it and like it” things kind of like liver. Her mom went though the depression so that probably explains it.
Also from the site Techchick provided
Most consumers relate MIRACLE WHIP recipes to the salads they love – potato salad, coleslaw, pasta salad, and tuna salad.
So delphica covered the salad part.
But if you want to see MW as a salad dressing on the
salad you’re used to, just order a grilled cheese
sandwich at the cheapest bistro in town.
They almost always come with a little lettuce and slice
of tomato with a dollop of MW on the side.
And from another website:
Hidden Valley® Original Ranch® dressing was developed by a real rancher at a real ranch - the Hidden Valley® Guest Ranch near Santa Barbara, California.
If ever there was a place to turn to for answers, this surely is it.
Great link Techie!
*Aenea, who is now sanguine about her sammie.