Tuna fish.
I really like canned tuna fish (although my one occasion of freshly-caught deep sea tuna opened a whole new world for me). I grew up eating tuna fish made with mayonnaise, dill pickles, and boiled egg. Later in life my mother started putting in apples and sweet pickles, which was an absolute desecration of a good dish. Not that I said that, in so many words, to my mother.
Recently I came across a great recipe for grilled tuna-fish sandwiches, along the lines of grilled-cheese. It even froze well (pre-grilled, of course). I'll look for the recipe.
Nowadays, I do half and half mayonnaise and sour cream, and throw in a dash of garlic and celery salt. And dill pickles, of course. If you cut the sandwiches into little triangles and have a picnic on the living room floor, it suddenly become delicious to kids, too.
-- SJ
2 comments:
It has been a family tradition for generations on my mother's side to add apples to tuna salad. Naturally I think it's the only way to go. (Dill pickles only, though. Sweet pickles are gross.) But it led to one of the great family legends:
When Mom and Dad were dating, they went skiing with a group of friends and then Mom brought the whole crowd over to her parents' house. Faced with impromptu guests, Grandma started fixing tuna fish sandwiches. Dad followed her into the kitchen and watched what she was doing. "Apples? Why are you putting apples in the tuna fish? That's gross."
The next day, Mom came back by (she was living on campus at the time) and asked her parents what they thought of Bob. As it happened, there were two young gentlemen of that name in the group, and so Grandma said, "Oh, that nice, quiet young man that sat in the corner?" Alas, no.
Judging from my mother's diary entry, Grandma's response was none too positive. But she was sewing a wedding dress a few months later. (And Dad and Grandma get along fine now.)
Once when we were visiting the Brownells, my mom mentioned that she liked adding grated carrot or zucchini to tuna salad in order to stretch it and bring down the cost. Roger didn't miss a beat. 'Yes, sometimes I'll add gravel from our driveway when I make tuna salad, and then nobody will eat it. It lasts forever.'
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