The Mysteries of Salad

I have a collection of salad recipes, many of which I do not truly understand. I don’t know why anyone would create them, make them or eat them. Never mind write them down and then publish them. But there you are. And there they are. These are from 1968, and they both involve celery, which would be enough to put me off right there. I will tolerate celery in bread stuffing at Christmas, and maybe deep in the mix of a vegetable soup, but I don’t really want to know about it in a big way. But then I am not a man. Women, you see, will not like the next recipe at all. That explains – well, it doesn’t really explain anything.

Men Like It Salad1 pkg. cream cheese
2 sm. cans crushed pineapple
2 pkg. lime Jell-O
1 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Cut cream cheese fine with knife dipped in hot water. Drain juice from pineapple and add enough water to juice to equal 3 cups liquid. Dissolve Jell-O in liquid; hear. Add cream cheese, pineapple, celery and nuts. Mix well and chill until firm. Serve with pink-tinted salad dressing and red cherry, if desired. Yield: 8 servings.

And why exactly do men like this? Are we talking about all men, everywhere? That is a pretty sweeping statement. Also, maybe some of them would prefer the dressing to be tinted another color, or just left alone. If some men you know don’t like it, you can offer them this instead, which is even more mystifying:

Krunchy Goo2 cans English peas, drained
1 cup diced celery
1 small onion, diced
1 cup diced sharp cheese
3/4 cup Miracle Whip
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine and mix above ingredients. Yield: 8 servings.

Out of all the possible names you could give to a conglomeration of comestibles, why – why would you call it Krunchy Goo? I get the contrasting-textures idea, but this is not a name that encourages consumption. And why spell crunchy with a ‘k’? Possibly to show that you are whimsical, you are kidding, you don’t really expect people to eat it. Surely not. And yet it is in a salad cookbook.

We may never know the answers to the questions these salads bring to mind. (And come to think of it, we may not want to).

Image from the Library of Congress American Memory collection.