Mommy Make Me Some Tuga Fish

Comfort food is supposed to be food that is easily prepared, inexpensive, and provide a pleasant emotional tie associated with childhood. Some of my favorites include PB&J on white bread, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, real mashed potatoes, pizza, meatballs, fish sticks, and tuna fish. To me, they’re comforting and the most important factor is they’re inexpensive. As a single, working Mom, I was always more concerned with having something to eat and didn’t worry too much about serving healthy foods. I thought it more important to have food around that was quick to prepare, cheap, and tasted good. Things that both my daughter and I would eat and still feel satisfied.

Whenever I asked my daughter, Libby, what she wanted to eat, most of the time her answer was “tuga” salad sandwiches. At first “tuga” salad consisted of canned tuna fish, hard boiled egg, celery, and mayonnaise on white bread. As she got a little older, I was allowed to put other ingredients in the dish to make it not so bland. Plus, we no longer had to just put tuna salad in between two slices of plain white bread. I could now add a little onion and lemon juice to the salad mixture and some lettuce leaves to the sandwich.

Over the years, we’ve experimented with a multitude of ingredients to add to the tuna salad mixture; curry, dill, cranberries, grapes, green onions, red onions, no mayo, flavored mayo, or mustard. We’ve tried it cold, heated, on a bun, in a wrap, inside a pita pocket, or with crackers; you name it, we tried it. I could write a book; “One hundred and one ways to make and eat tuna salad.”

In the end, the old tried and true, simple ingredients have proven to be the best.

Dorothy and Libby’s Favorite Tuna Salad

Ingredients:
4 cans of White Albacore Tuna
4 Hard Boiled Eggs
2 Stalks of Chopped Celery
2 Finely Chopped Green Onions
½ Tsp. Dill Weed
1 Tblsp. Lemon Juice
2-3 Heaping Tblsp. Mayonnaise
Pepper to taste

Mix well, chill, and sandwich it up between your favorite bread slices with lettuce leaves, sliced tomatoes, and American cheese. (I personally like it on crackers.)