Dad’s favourite ‘meat salad’ was the SPAM salad sandwich. The non-meat thing he made was peas-and-cheese salad. This was made by mixing a drained can of peas with Miracle Whip and diced cheese. Sometimes he used Kraft real American cheese, and sometimes he used mild cheddar. Good stuff, but rather heavy.
I thought about dad’s peas-and-cheese salad last week when I bought some from Fred Meyer. I didn’t know any store actually made it. The Fred Meyer version was peas, cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, and bacon bits. I think that Miracle Whip is lighter, so if I made the salad I’d buy a jar. It’s heavy enough already without mayonnaise! I don’t know if I liked the bacon bits. I mean, they’re kind of like bacon! But I’m not sure the salad needs them.
Peas ‘n’ cheese was one of Mom’s few standards. She never really learned how to cook but she could assemble peas ‘n’ cheese. Dad tried making it once when Mom was out of town for a funeral and made everybody sick! Us boys slept in a room with wood paneling and one area of the paneling, at bed level, got a permanent light spot.
“P’s and Q’s” - a pasta salad using cooked, drained alphabet noodles, thawed frozen peas, very finely diced gouda (you could use any cheese, I guess), and Italian dressing.
I was only a year old when this happened so I have actual memories of it, just a spot on the wall. I’m guessing Dad didn’t notice that the Miracle Whip had expired. Whatever the cause, nobody wanted him to make it again.
Mmmm, pea salad. You need to add a dash of basil vinegar and some chopped sweet or green onion, maybe even some sour cream. Let it meld in the fridge for a day and it’s even better.
Try it with canned (and drained and rinsed) kidney beans. You can skip rinsing, but the mayo and the mucilage and red grainy stuff from the beans will set up as it chills. Which is great if you like it, but I try to take other people’s tastes into account when I cook.
I’m trying to taste that. When I was a kid/teen, I liked hot kidney beans with chunks of cheese stirred in. (Coincidentally, I was just thinking about that a week ago.) I don’t dislike three-bean salad, which is, of course, cold. I’m not quite imagining a cold kidney bean salad with mayo and cheese.
elbow macaroni Miracle Whiup peas cubed chedda cubed ham green onion
you can leave us ham and cheese out and substitute those little salad shrimp so good drooling like Homer
My mom makes peas 'n peanuts for holiday dinners and it’s wonderful. So simple. A small bag of frozen peas, half a can of salted Spanish peanuts and 1/2 to 3/4 cup of Miracle Whip. If you don’t have Miracle Whip, use regular mayo and add a teaspoon of sugar. Mix and chill.
