In every family, at every picnic, someone always brings macaroni salad. The ingredients vary from family to family depending upon who will or won’t eat certain ingredients. Everyone has a favorite macaroni salad concoction usually based on whatever was traditionally served throughout childhood.
In my immediate family household, my brother, Alex, was a fussy, plain eater. So, mom made a separate bowl for him consisting of macaroni, hard boiled egg, celery, and mayo only. I hated the sweet pickles that she chopped up in the salad. She would put them in a little bowl and served them on the side for her and dad. When she had enough of me and Alex complaining about the ingredients, she would just mix it all together, told us to eat it, and it was up to us to pick out the stuff we wouldn’t eat. That drove her nuts too, so most of the time I ate the pickles to keep out of trouble. Not Alex, he could hold out a lot longer than I could. He could spend hours picking out little bits of “unjins” and sweet pickles. When all else failed we could always try the gagging routine, which usually ended up with a “backhander” across the top of the head; then, being sent to bed and no TV.
Mom varied the ingredients over the years; with or without grated carrots, sometimes the hardboiled eggs were sliced, paprika-ed and laid on the top, sometimes they were chopped up and mixed in. The dressing varied too. At times, sour cream or even yellow mustard was added to the mayonnaise. But, the three basic ingredients remained the same; elbow macaroni, chopped celery, and onions. She sometimes experimented with adding olives, shrimp, peas, or green peppers. Dad would eat anything she put in her macaroni salad. Alex and I dreaded any variation from the norm.
Over the years, I’ve eaten many versions of macaroni salad with every kind of crazy additional ingredients. What it all boils down to is this; we eat what we like and pretty much don’t care for the exotic additions. We’ll worry about the calories consumed at the family picnic tomorrow. I made macaroni salad today because it is traditionally on the Labor Day, end of summer, picnic menu. This is what I concocted.
Macaroni Salad
• 1# box of small sea shell pasta (because that’s what I had in the pantry) cook according to package directions
• 4 roughly chopped stalks of celery
• ½ of a large vadalia onion, minced
• 6 chopped hard boiled eggs
• 1 finely grated carrot
• ½ # salad shrimp
• 2 tblsp. dry parsley
Dressing: (all ingredients are equal - per Mom-Mom)
• 6 heaping tblsp. light mayonnaise (any mayo will do too)
• 6 tblsp. sugar
• 6 tblsp. evaporated milk (any milk will do too)
• 6 tblsp. wine vinegar ( I like to mix both wine and tarragon)
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and sprinkle top with paprika. Chill and serve.
