Pink salad is not necessarily pink

Pink salad is not necessarily pink, nor is it always classified as salad. The dozens of variations to the genre are variously known as “Five Cup,” “Fruit Delight,” “Angel Salad,” “Frozen Cherry Delight,” and so on for as long as the little spiral-bound church cookbooks shall last. Some float a raft of marshmallows, either cut-up-with-scissors big ‘uns or a whole flotilla of the little buoys.

One recipe, from a much-loved cook at the cafeteria at a local hospital, throws the poufy little pillows right into the boiling water WITH the Black Cherry Jello, to melt into a creamy liquidity which, before it congeals, is whipped with the mixer into a high-mounded mousse effect, studded with huge Bing cherries in surprising places. Bing Jello Day was well-attended by hospital personnel, almost as well as the rare day that Willie Mae would make her incomparable Paminna Cheese.

Some salads are definitely Jello-ish, with the addition of a scanty-watered box of any flavor, which may or may not congeal, but are still included in the “Congealed Salad” category, like last cousins still must be claimed, no matter what.

A few of the recipes call for the fruit/marshmallows/nuts, etc to be sprinkled with a whole or partial box of dry Jello, and woe betide the cook who fails to stir properly, thus setting down a freckled salad on the Church Supper buffet.

The single common denominator in the whole world of Jello salads, that universe of shredded cabbage and marshmallows, of floating bananas and sinking grapes, of mutilated mandarins and scary-dyed cottage cheese---seems to be crushed pineapple, which has been known to take on a garish hue on occasion, itself. Tall can or small can---that’s specified as the beginning, and then you go from there. The gooshy pineapple and its juice serve to moisten and plump the marshmallows for Five-Cup (one each of pineapple, marshmallows, sour cream, Cool Whip and whatever other canned fruit suits your fancy---all depending on the area you live in). And it's the cornerstone of almost every combination of marshmallows/Cool Whip/sour cream/Jello in any and all of its permutations.

And so Pink Salad is most of the above, with the addition of any red flavor of Jello---cook’s choice. I, myself, favor Strawberry, because I favor Strawberry for most things, have a meh feeling about cherry, and absolutely abhor raspberry anything. But that’s just me. I’m sure great crowds of church-goers and picnickers and families reunioning have consumed vast bowls of every flavor there is. And in the Bible Belt, with Southern Baptist a prevalent religious avowal, I find a gentle secret chuckle in the fact that "Do the Cool Whip" is practically a cultural dance.



sumber dari: lawntea.blogspot.com