I recognize all these salads. My weird salad favorite is still the lime jello, pecans, pineapple, and cream cheese molded salad (you have to run it all through a blender when the jello is half set and then pour it in the molds.) we always get on Thanksgiving. If mom doesn’t have time to make it, I’ll volunteer.
I have never been able to bring myself to eat frog eye salad though. I think it’s the crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges that turn me off as much as the little round pastas that give the “salad” it’s name.
My mom (and aunts, too) still make a layered jello mold “salad” thingy for christmas. Layer of red jello, layer of whitish fluffy stuff that contains pineapple, cool whip, and possibly mayonnaise, then the green jello layer.
Jello is not food! I weep. And occasionally dry heave if I think about it too long.
I grew up eating most of these things. (Don’t blame me, I was just a kid.) Glorified rice? You betcha.
We also had a potluck fruit salad which was chunked up apples, pears, grapes, and maybe a few other things, tossed with cool whip. And sometimes chopped nuts. This was probably the least offensive staple dish out of all of 'em.
One of many, many reasons I’m glad I ran away to the city. Sometimes I’m just agog at how limited and generally unhealthy my staple diet was growing up, yet this was what everyone was cooking and eating back then.
We have them in Illinois. I seem to remember from Feasting On Asphalt that it originated somewhere on the Mississippi.
One thing I’m going to miss about Central Illinois is the Horseshoe. I know I’m right on the northern edge of horseshoe territory. I never realized they were such a regional thing until I noticed that none of my Chicago friends ever heard of one.
And I haven’t heard of anything else in this topic. I think people forget that the midwest is a pretty big area. It’s so boring that everyone spends their time coming up with new food. Sort of like the Pennsylvania Dutch.
No Cool Whip, she uses that creepy red-capped Miracle Whip that says “salad dressing” on the jar - who the hell is putting a gob of that crap on salad? shudder
Usually grapes, bananas, oranges.
Then she adds ONIONS.
So, when she’s done, it looks like a Cool Whip salad but it’s really this fake-mayo onion-y thing.
Wow. I’m a pretty adventurous eater. Up until this post, I think I’d at least try a bite of almost anything else discussed here. Some of them even sound pretty good.
But onions, fruit, and miracle whip? Together?! :eek:
My mom served Snicker salad at Easter this year. Even though I don’t really like to eat stuff like Cool Whip and Snickers, this is quite tasty. It helps to think of it as a dessert instead of a salad.
I remember eating cookie salad (mentioned in the OP) once, and it was extremely delicious. I’ll have to remind my mom about it for our next family dinner.
But the jello salads with mayo and/or vegetables? Never. Nasty.
My mom’s dessert making is characterized by the use of processed ingredients. Cool Whip, boxed pudding, cake mix, etc. It goes against my personal food philosophy, but most of the stuff she makes tastes really good. She has one dessert that’s store-bought angel food cake torn into pieces and layered with vanilla pudding, Cool Whip, cream cheese (I think), and Heath bar pieces. Yum.
I’m sure you are talking about your diet in general, but I think it is inaccurate to label a fruit and/or vegetable jello salad as unhealthy relative to many other desserts. They generally have much less fat (if any) and sugar than most pastries, pies, or cakes, or just about any other typical dessert… Not to mention exponentally greater amounts of vitamins and fiber.
I make AMAZING banana pudding. I make the vanilla pudding from scratch & do the whole meringue thing. I know banana pudding is trashy food, it’s just that it’s DELICIOUS trashy food. Best recipe ever found on the side of a box.
I think it’s a disease of church cookbooks in general. We do the nanner pudding and stuff here in the South, but I threw up a little in my mouth when somebody tried to sell me their church cookbook a few weeks ago and it had a whole section, with a little tab and all, for “Congealed Salads”. There were 24 of them.
The first time I met my ex-fiancees Dad, we had lunch at his place. He served a Jello salad (I’m not a Jello eater. Fruit flavored cattle hooves? None for me thanks . . .) made of:
Orange Jello
Diced carrots
Celery slices
Bean sprouts (He proudly informed me that he ONLY uses fresh, “never those La Choy things”)
Minced red onion
All artistically drizzled with . . . wait for it . . . bleu cheese salad dressing!
He considered himself to be quite the gourmet, and was constantly trying to establish himself as upper class by naming foods that he liked - such as black olives. (Then he’d pause, as if waiting for someone to say “But olives are green!”)
Strangest deep-fryer usage: At a German restaurant in Milwaukee I was once served deep-fried spinach. It tasted like seaweed, and fell to a desiccated powder in your mouth as if it were freeze dried.
Hehe. This thread is a hoot. Growing up in Michigan, I’m well aware of most of these dishes. Snickers Salad and Banana Pudding are both divine. I didn’t realize glorified rice was a midwest thing, though. I thought they had that everywhere. :smack:
I need to find out if any of the other local stores still do.