My First Authentic Canadian Food Experience aka My mom’s is better ‘n your mom’s
The first potato salad of the season said it all: Summer had arrived. Concocted with the Spring harvest of radishes, farm fresh eggs, chives from the garden and a luscious batch of lustrous homemade mayo, the Melmac robins egg blue bowl crowned our little chrome kitchen table in all its homemade glory and heralded in the onset of Summer. That is just how it was. Simple. Delicious. Woven so tightly into the fabric of my Canadian prairie identity and so intertwined with the melodies of my childhood memories that my mom’s potato salad and the celebration of Summer and sun are folded into my taste memory, literally seasoning the flavours in the bowl.
Mom’s ancestors landed on Plymouth rock in 1729: both sides at almost the same time. Nebraska farmers immigrated North to Canada in the 1800’s, settling in the Central Alberta Prairies near Lacombe. She rode her horse to school, uphill both ways, cooked for Thrashers, finished high school in Red Deer and went into banking. Kept an immaculate urban home, cooked from scratch every evening, and took exceptional pride in her mid-century modern married life. Dad was a first generation Canadian from Irish parents who emigrated to Canada just before the dirty thirties and settled in the then barren, dust filled and wide skied Saskatchewan prairies, near Bengough. He was pulled out of school to work on the farm at 13, left home at 17 in search of a better life, leaving barrels of salt pork and cans chewing tobacco behind. They met in Red Deer and fell in love. He looked like Jimmy Dean; she a brunette Marilyn Monroe. They had the incredible Canadian farm work ethic in common, settled and etched out a life together motivated by all the promise the world offered at that time: if one works hard, you can achieve it all.
Potatoes were on the dinner table every evening: meat, potatoes, a vegetable and a salad. I swear that my Mom wrote the Canada Food Guide. The only season that pattern changed, was Summer. Ah, Summer! There was an adventure on the table every evening. Mealtimes were not predictable as the bounty of the season was laden high upon our plate: vegetables harvested from my grandmother’s garden. But first, and always first, was the potato salad.
It wasn’t until a large extended family potluck picnic that I realized that all potato salads were not equal. Those family potlucks were feasts that medieval kings would have envied. Most relatives still farmed. We would get together at least once a year, toting culinary triumphs in coolers or cooking them up on Coleman stoves on site. Picnic tables were pulled from all corners of the park, lined with all pattens of cloths. I am sure that picnic tables are now cemented in because of our extended family outings. Children would play hide-and-go-seek, tag, and swing for hours. The adult men would play horse shoes, visit and smoke too much. The women? Finished the onsite food preparations and laugh a lot. There was always fried chicken, potato salad, chocolate cake and apple pie. Too young to know better, I asked: “What is that?” pointing to other potato salads that would obviously be a potato salad to a more experienced eye. Mom placed some of each on my plate so that I could sample them all. One was so yellow it looked like a lemon salad. Another had hardly any mayo and was very dry and crumbly. One just tasted so terrible that I had to turn my head and spit it into my napkin when no one was looking. Of course, my mom was looking. One thing they all had in common were potatoes, eggs, radishes, onions, celery and mayonnaise. It was remarkable to me, even then, that with so few ingredients, each salad could taste so different. My mom’s was better ‘n all the others. No question.
Over the years, I have enjoyed creating all kinds of flavourful potato salad concoctions from hot to cold, oil and vinegar to mayo with all kinds of herby flavourings. Yet, the quintessential Canadian prairie potato salad that is the first one to hit our table at the onset of the new season is still my mom’s, though I have altered it by not peeling the potatoes. Can you see me duck? Unpeeled cooked potatoes were a sign of uncleanliness in the days of my childhood.
The Canadian Food Experience Project began June 7 2013. As participants share stories across the vastness of our Canadian landscape through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity through the cadence of our collective Canadian voice. The first topic for this, our first challenge was: My First Authentic Canadian Food Experience. Though this is not my first, it is most definitely the first of this season and vastly more useful than my tirade about the rapid decline in breast feeding that commenced in 1955 when I was introduced to Carnation Evaporated Baby Formula in a sterilized jar, with a hard rubber nipple. My mother was most certainly the leader of that trend, as well.
Why do they call these hard boiled eggs when they cannot be boiled to be this lovely?
Now my question for each of you. How does the potato salad in your Canadian region differ from mine? Please chime into the conversation in the comments section. I realize that potato salad is not a Canadian “invention”, yet, it is definitely a significant dish within Canadian prairie food culture and a profoundly personal seasonal food memory of mine.
Canadian Prairie Potato Salad
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs, hard “boiled”
- 5 pounds of potatoes, or so (2.3K)
- one bunch of small radishes, and if you pick them from your garden, one bunch
- one small bunch of chives
- 2-3 stalks of celery
- 1 small onion
Ingredients for the Dressing:
- 200g homemade mayonnaise
- 20g Dijon mustard
- 10g salt, or to taste
- 5g pepper, or to taste (I like lots)
Instructions:
- Clean potatoes well, ensuring similar in size for even cooking
- Simmer at a very low temperature in a heavy pan, covered with water until pierced with a fork; do not overcook
- Meanwhile, cover eggs with water in heavy pan; bring to an “almost simmer” (do not let the water boil)
- Let eggs “cook” in hot water for 20 minutes; shock with ice cold water, peeling immediately: do not boil!
- At the same time, prepare the dressing: place all ingredients into one bowl; combine
- Wash radishes well, slice thinly, maintaining their round shape
- Clean and slice celery lengthwise; chop thinly
- Clean and slice onion; chop thinly
- Mince chives into a confetti
- Once potatoes are cooked; shock in an ice bath until completely cool
- Dry potatoes; chop into small bite-size cubes
- Combine all salad ingredients, toss
- Add the dressing: half at first, and season to taste; adding more, to taste
- Chill salad a couple of hours to meld flavours and serve with fried chicken and apple pie, of course!
Note:
- Choose a waxy potato to boil for this salad; as russet, or a mashing or baking potato will not do.
Remember these? The fashionable Melmac Dishes in Robins Egg Blue: we had them!
I wish my memory was good enough to have a “First Canadian Food Experience”.
I’ll share one that my mother told me recently…
We were harvest rhubarb from my Baba and late-Gido’s farm. There was one bush that looked very different from the others… very thick and green. Hardly any red. Nothing like the ones that are commonly found in stores and farmer’s markets.
She tells me that bush is from a root (as rhubarb roots are huge and last forever) that was there BEFORE my grandparents moved to that farm – over 50 years ago. That root (and it’s descendants) could be close to 100 years old. A variety that has been lost from modern seed catalogues.
She remembers being a young girl picking then peeling the skin off before chopping it for pie/jam/cake/etc.
Canadians sure do love their rhubarb 🙂
Note: I took a couple bundles of that thick green rhubarb to the Market on Thursday – just to see if anyone would buy or ask about it – and a sweet little old Baba knew EXACTLY what it was! She held it and talked about how she hadn’t seen that type of rhubarb in a long long time… She walked away a happy woman 🙂
Deb
That is the kind of rhubarb I grew up with, too. Never saw the real red rhubarb for years….
When were you in town? Call me when you are at the market. Don’t want to miss any of your good produce.
🙂
How are my tomatoes and peppers coming?
Valerie
We just had our first time at 124st Grand Market. It’s the only one we’re doing this year.
Everything Thursday evening from 4pm-8pm I’ll be there 🙂
They’re doing great! A wet spring put a couple things behind but this steady warmth has been good for the soil.
I’ll bring you some rhubarb next time I’m heading to your part of town 🙂
– Deb
I MUST get to that Market this Thursday, Deb!
XO V
My Mom’s potato salad is very close to your recipe, however the eggs were mashed fine as none of us kids liked eggs. And she always used SaladBowl salad dressing, maybe it was the closest taste to the homemade mayo. Add green onions and radishes, no mustard. She always prepared the salad the day before and left it sit in the fridge over night without the dressing. For our birthday’s we could request our favorites and she would make them. Potatoe salad and baking powder biscuits were always my request. We all still ask her to make potato salad when we visit – it’s now her grand kids favorite too.
Belinda,
Where are you from? Are you from Alberta, Canada, or elsewhere? Working to determine if this is a rendition of a more modern take on the prairie staple altered to hide the eggs from the kiddies.
😉
Valerie
Valerie
My Mom who is 81, grew up just north of Brandon, Manitoba.
Belinda!
How did your mom make her potato salad? I would love to know.
🙂
Valerie
Ah! These silly comments don’t appear in the correct order in the back end, sadly! Good to know, and thank you, Belinda!
🙂
V
Well, my ethnic background is Southern Italian and Brazilian. Many ways to make potatoe salad in both cultures, but this is how my family liked it.
Peeled potatoes, boiled in salt water. When cool, chop. Add . green peas, yellow onion, and some real bacon bits. Salt, pepper to taste, olive oil and mayo then fresh parsley chopped very fine. Finally, good, sweet paprika. With this side we often had sauté escarole, in garlic and olive oil with squeeze of lemon. And of course nice crusty bread and white pino wine.
Maybe you will try this.
Laura,
That sounds like a deadly combination of delicious ingredients! What cultural base is this recipe from… or is it just a family concoction?
🙂
Valerie
There is nothing like prairie potato salad! This recipe is almost exactly like my grandma/moms excepting the onion, but the other ingredients are bang in. I can almost taste it.
Now I need my mom to make me some, I’m totally craving it.
Karlynn,
Do you think the onions were left out because of a personal family preference? Cannot imagine any potato salad without onions. It would be like no beef on my onion burger!
🙂
Valerie
Ours is loaded with green onions (and the white bulb part is chopped in as well) and no chives.
I’m hungry….
Actually, Karlynn…
My mom used green onions, too – as the chives were in grandma’s garden. None in the city, so the green onions worked well.
🙂
V
My moms potato salad consisted only of potatoes and mayonnaise and perhaps pepper.My mom has never been a great cook. Her own mother passed away when she was 11 so she will tell you that she never had anyone to teach her to use spices, herbs, etc in her cooking. I am not sure this reasoning is sound since for the reasons already mentioned I am self taught. You learn if you have a passion:D My next door neighbours growing up always made a mashed potato salad with grated carrots, here in British Columbia many seem to add tomatoes (does not appeal to me, but if I had have grown up with this type of salad I would probably carry on the tradition. My own potato salad is more like yours but I like to add peas.
Bellini,
So true, isn’t it – the excuse that no one was around to teach me, yet look what you have done! Russian potato salad has peas and dill pickles… and carrots and ham… no eggs. No onions. We love it, but it is significantly different that this one. I have a post on it as this is the traditional potato salad recipe from my husband’s country, too.
🙂
Valerie
It’s funny how attached we get to our mom’s versions of things. I’ve seen WW3 almost break out over who’s stuffing makes it into the bird every Thanksgiving. Love your recipe though. It’s very similar to mine though I hadn’t thought of using radishes. Definitely next time.
Valerie this is one amazing potato salad. My family settled much the same way but ended up in a different part of Canada. It’s amazing to me all they went through to get here. But thank goodness they did as I can’t imagine having grown up anywhere else but Canada.
I love this project. I need to see if it’s something I could come up with enough content for. It’s such a cool idea. I’m so sad I missed the FBC conference though. Hopefully I can go next year.
Dear Kim,
You could EASILY come up with enough content for a monthly post. You are a prolific writer. Please join us!
🙂
Valerie
Kim,
Please join us! What is your traditional family potato salad recipe like? Inquiring minds want to know.
🙂
V
Potato salad was another of my favourites. Every summer, after the heavy seeding season and before harvest we had a community picnic in someone’s most wonderful pasture. The meal was what we now call ‘pot luck’. I tried so hard to replicate the wonderful potato salads that the other farm women would bring because I loved it so much. The afternoon would be spent with children running 3 legged races and the men playing softball. The women organized the feast. Fond memories.
Sarah,
You grew up on the prairies, correct? Were the potato salads in Saskatchewan similar to this one? I have never seen one with tomatoes or peas anywhere in this province.
🙂
Valerie
Sarah,
What was your potato salad like? Love the potluck dinners – and they do appear to be a very Canadian practice. An Australian gal was invited to one, and brought an empty pot… she simply had no frame of reference.
🙂
Valerie
For some reason I don’t remember eating a lot of potato salad growing up.
And any that I did try obviously did not leave an impression as I don’t recall ever enjoying it until I started making it myself.
My recipe is very different using lots of seasoning like celery seed, pepper, maybe a touch of cayenne and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also use whipping cream mustard, a touch of mayo and I will occasionally add bacon to the mix. Not every time but once in a while it is a nice change.
mmmmmmmm perhaps some is in order this weekend!
I am enjoying a glass of wine and have been reading peoples posts for the last hour or so. Loving the journey thus far.
I would say it has been a pretty fabulous first day of The Canadian Food Experience Project!
Lets keep the ball rolling.
Redawna,
I got through a couple and then had to pull away, but that is exactly what I plan to do this weekend. Enjoy these posts! Glad you are too – and hopefully, there will be conversations popping up inside of each post that truly explore regional Canadian food… the similarities across the country, and the differences region to region.
🙂
Valerie
Thanks for such a thoughtful response, Redawna,
Would you say there is a traditional prairie potato salad recipe?
🙂
V
Valerie, I think we must be Canadian soul sisters! Your description of family picnics brought back memories for me of family reunions spent in Arden Manitoba which was in the Strathclaire district of the province. We would have a big family baseball tournament and I always had to prove myself to the men who didn’t know I could hit a ball better than anyone there and catch pretty much anything coming at me 😉
I am also passionate about Melmac and collect it in any colour and pattern I can find to use for picnics. As for potato salad, yours looks just like what my mom used to make – love the radishes! As an adult I have also discovered the beauty of bacon and blue cheese in a potato salad. I love The Canadian Food Experience Project and can’t wait to read all of the contributions.
Lyndsay,
I must admit, I too, doctor the original version of the salad quite often, but the first time I make it every season, it is the traditional recipe… it just must be. There is a grainy Brassica Mustard that is local and to die for that I use. Sadly, my husband is not so adventurous. Blue cheese? YUM… not he, however. Even parsley is a problem for his sensitive palate. Love him anyway!
And now I see a little Jock in you… 😉
XO
Valerie
Valerie, my mother always made an outstanding potato salad… and yours reminds me of hers… YUMMO!!!
Such an interesting post with history, a good recipe and lovely photos.
There is no potato salad I have had that comes close to this one. Even if they mayo and mustard help as a binder, most times the potatoes are dry and mealy.The secret is in the history, and the love of food, using pure ingredients and knowing how to use them. The story, the pictures, all make me reminisce of our warm summer days at Sylvan Lake. xo
Would you believe I don’t HAVE a potato salad recipe in my collection? So I had to call my mom and ask her, and she says it’s because she never bothered to write it down. She uses prepared mustard (the kind with seeds in) and mayo mixed to taste with a little ground pepper for the sauce. She peels and dices the potatoes, adds diced cucumber in place of celery (for the crunch), and diced raw red onions. She thinks of diced hard-boiled egg as optional. In the Maritimes, the potatoes were one of the varieties grown on Prince Edward Island, unless your family grew their own – my mom prefers to use russet or a combination of russet and Yukon Gold. My English grandmother favoured a heritage blue potato that my grandfather grew, and added mustard. My South Shore German grandmother didn’t use mustard, preferred new white-fleshed potatoes with a dash of paprika on top for colour and served it in iceburg lettuce; in later years she’d add some mild curry mix to the sauce. One fancy variant from Nova Scotia: adding cooked cold lobster or crab meat (or flaked cooked fish) to the potato-and-celery mixture, and calling it a “seafood salad”.
So interesting, Deb.
Thank you so much… my recipe wasn’t written until now, either… 🙂
A lobster potato salad would be the ultimate!
Ethnicity literally does flavour our cultural dishes!
🙂
V
I believe this is the same recipe my mom used, but for some reason I think I remember a little pickle in there? I’ll have to find out about that one. we didn’t have that melmac, but I’m an avid antique shopper and I have been eyeing a set of those for some time now.. If only my cupboards had more room! Xx
i am so glad that you posted this! i LOVE this salad and want to eat it SO badly right now!!!
Hello, My mother makes a non-traditional potato salad that I am pretty sure started out with her not liking eggs and then just adding what tasted good to her as I have never had it at either of my grandmas’ tables! Hers is now the family favorite though and is requested for many family BBQs and cook outs. She cooks her potatos and a “token” egg or two until soft and then mashes them up with mayonaise, sour cream, mustard, maybe some onion, loads of dill (preferably fresh), a couple dill pickles and salt and pepper. It tastes so good. Even better the next day. I grew up in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and my mom hails from the mennonite belt of Manitoba but I have never tasted another potato salad like hers!
Although my mom made a deadly potato salad not unlike your own moms, I always loved one of my best friends moms potato salads cause she always minced up some dill pickles into hers and I am a sucker for pickles!
I love this project of yours Valerie- I never thought about food being so regional, curious to see what your research shows. My family recipe is pretty much the same- like Karlynn, ours has green onion, everything else is the same. I’ve taken to cutting up the pieces bite sized and uniform (and my mom says mine is the best yet 🙂 My family roots and Red Deer, Calgary, and Edmonton with some summer at Sylvan thrown in. I would still love to meet you for coffee soon or a visit of your garden:)
-Liesel
Liesel
Why not join the project? Do you have a website? If not, you can post your writing on our Facebook page! My garden is so late this year – as all are – it is pathetic, but coffee would be great! Are you in town?
🙂
V
I have been ponder that… I don’t have a website but am on facebook. I am in town, in the west end 🙂
I love potato salad, it always brings back wonderful memories of my Grandma Resch and her beautiful garden. Her potato salad is legendary in our extended family. The salad is red potatoes with oil and vinegar,salt ,pepper,green onions and fresh dill ( when it was available from her garden), to me this is summer and family!
Where are you from, Angela? Your grandma’s salad sounds similar to the one my husband’s mother makes when the family has fish. It is traditional in his culture to have potato salad with oil vinegar, salt, pepper and onions!
🙂
V
As an American over the road truck driver I frequent Canada several times each year. I always ask the Canadians I encounter what is Canadian food as I am always up for new foodie experience. More often then not the Canadians I speak to really don’t know or don’t know how to answer that question. Finding your blog is wonderful and I plan on making some these dishes when I return home to San Antonio, Texas. Keep the posts coming as I’ll be reading! 🙂
Bill!
Thanks for stopping by. It is a problem for many Canadians to identify Canadian cuisine as we are an official multi-cultural nation. However, there is still a very strong regional Canadian cuisine in every area across the country, and some national dishes that vary slightly from region to region. These we will discover, and highlight through The Canadian Food Experience Project. Thrilled you have discovered it and us and will be following along!
🙂
Valerie
Happy Canada Day!
Thank you so much for starting this project! I was wondering for a while what Canadian food is and what is loved by Canadians, so I am following some participants to learn. I have made your potato salad for today’s lunch and it was great! It was also my first time making homemade mayonnaise and I was surprised how easy it was. The only thing that I added to the salad which was not in your recipe was dill. I am Russian, I love dill:)
Anya!
I am not Russian and love dill, too! ;0
It just wouldn’t be our traditional salad in the Spring, but I definitely experiment with many flavours of potato salad over the season and one with all skins on, dill, sour cream and chives is a favourite! So happy you tried it and enjoyed it, Anya!
🙂
Valerie
What an interesting post! Being a first generation Italian Canadian I enjoy reading stories about Canadians who have been living in Canada for generations. Your potato salad looks delicious. My mom’s version was so different – potatoes with onions, herbs and olive oil. Sometimes she would add green beans.
Liliana
I would love to read about your mom’s potato salad. Post it the next time you make it. My husband’s country- the former Yugoslavia – makes the Russian Salad for special occasions, and then there is a traditional potato salad they eat when they have fish: potatoes, salt and pepper, oil and vinegar. It is delicious!
🙂
V
Fresh dill is most definitely required for the most fabulous potato salad. Other than that, and my mom cut the eggs a little less small, they are pretty similar. She would often put some fresh lettuce for chunch instead of the celery since it was in the garden in the spring time.
Nicole,
That is so interesting. Never heard of lettuce in a potato salad, but that makes sense.
🙂
V