Some Dahnke Salads

I had better hurry up and get to Marye Dahnke's Salad Book (1954) before summer slips away! (Yeah, I know it's only late July, but also, IT'S ALREADY LATE JULY!)

And just in case you're worried about pronunciation, the back cover assures readers that the author's name is pronounced "Mary Dank." I guess she was just a big fan of extraneous letters.

The book has what I expected-- recipes for leafy green salads like chef's or Caesar, recipes for the jiggly standbys like sea foam salad and sunshine salad. And of course, it has plenty of salads that reflect the trends of the time, like throwing olives and celery into absolutely everything.

Can't say I've ever looked at a peach half and thought what it really needed was celery and olives bound with some mayonnaise. (I'm almost always okay with nutmeats, though! 😄)

And of course there are salads attributed to other countries and cultures for reasons that are elusive at best. I have no idea how "Fiesta" got into the title of Fiesta Peach Salad.

I thought there might be avocado or cinnamon in there somewhere, but nope!  The peach halves, cream cheese, and maraschino cherries are just "fiesta-ed" for no apparent reason. The Mexican Vegetable Salad similarly has no real indications of how it got that name.

It's just a pretty unremarkable mixture of super-common salad ingredients. You could just as easily simply call it "Vegetable Salad," and diners would be happy not to expect something at least mildly spicy and instead get a plate of mayonnaise and otherwise-plain green peppers, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, and cucumber.

The Oriental Salad--aside from the less-than-ideal name-- is just as confusing.

I initially understood the naming-- almonds and peas are pretty common in American-style Chinese restaurant food-- but then I got to chopped dill pickles and cubed American cheddar cheese. And it's of course all coated in that most Asian of sauces-- mayonnaise. 

Speaking of Americanized Chinese food-- this one doesn't say it's sweet and sour, but it looked like a 1950s attempt to turn popular sweet-and-sour recipes into a gelatin salad.

I just can't see that pineapple-and-green-pepper mixture without thinking of all the sweet and sour recipes I've read. And if you've ever wondered what it might taste in a cream-cheesy lime Jell-O with Worcestershire sauce in it, well, this would be your chance to find out!

While there are plenty of recipes that surprised me, the book seemed to have a very poor gauge of what would be shocking. The headnote for Hot Chicken Salad starts with "Alice in Wonderland might exclaim: 'What, a hot salad?'" I'm not sure why readers at the time would be shocked, though, as plenty of old cookbooks have recipes for hot potato salad and often a hot slaw, too. 

I think readers are more likely to wonder why the hot chicken salad has to be served in grapefruit halves and topped with a mixture of cheese and crushed potato chips. (Okay, the second question has an easier answer-- It would taste good! The first question is more elusive, though. Maybe the grapefruit shells are just supposed to lull you into thinking this chicken-mayo-walnut-cheese-potato-chip concoction is light and healthy?)

My biggest surprise may have been that a salad book has a recipe for a salad that it compares to refrigerator cookie dough.

Just don't get confused, slice off the "dough" of cheese, pecans, hard-cooked eggs, chopped pimiento, pickle relish, and mayonnaise, and throw it in the oven! I could imagine a harried and distracted mom making disastrous "cookies" as an after-school snack and/or serving a plate full of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-topped lettuce. At least the family would have a hilarious story to tell for years to come.

I loved going through all these old-timey salad recipes, even if I never found my grandpa's favorite: Honeymoon Salad. (If you don't know what it is, the recipe/ punchline is "Lettuce alone." I imagine that joke is at least as old as this book.)