Another intriguing reference in AtD: state picnics

[Michael Bailey]

On Mon, Dec 16, 2024 at 3:25 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

>  I think the state picnics potato-salad recipe section of AtD is one of
> the deepest visions of the best America, the
> vision and meaning of America......
>


Amen, Mark!


Lew found Merle discussing potato-salad recipes with a bunch of Iowans.
“Gettin up early is built into it, you need to have ’em cooked and
marinating in oil, vinegar, and mustard for at least three or four hours
before you even start thinkin about mayonnaise and spices and all that,”
whereas other philosophies held add-ins like bacon and celery to be of the
essence, or sour cream preferable to mayonnaise, and by now it had turned
into quite the lively discussion, with everybody who came wandering into
earshot eager to put in a few words of comment, otherwise easygoing wives
and mothers, thresher-dinner veterans from way back, getting into screaming
matches with roadside-diner cooks who handled easily five hundred pounds of
potato salad a day for truck drivers who’d forgot more about job-related
eating than seasonal farm laborers ever knew to begin with . . . and
everybody with an opinion also seemed to have brought along their own tub
of potato salad, and each punctuating his or her argument with a huge
forkful of a particular recipe, all but forced into the face of some
potato-salad heretic—“Here, just try this, tell me these li’l red-skinned
potatoes don’t make all the difference.” “Hard-boiled eggs are all right ’s
long as you don’t use the whites, just the yolk part, mash it up in with
your mayonnaise, not only makes it taste better, it looks better, and if
you can find those green peppercorns . . .”