No Small Potatoes When It Comes to Salad

Memorial Day typically marks the onset of barbecue season – and the time to start thinking about potato salad.

I grew on the mayo-heavy style made with cold boiled potatoes, celery, hard-boiled eggs, vinegar, and celery seeds. I took every opportunity to beg for the warm German style, which was a bit more complicated to make, but my favorite. Overall, potato salads tend to be family recipes. It’s very likely that your go-to recipe is similar to the one you ate at your family table growing up.

The original potato salad had European origins, but the history is murky. When the Spanish first brought potatoes to Europe from the Americas in the late 1500s, most people feared and avoided them because potatoes are a member of the nightshade family. Eventually, the spuds became food for the poor. The earliest recorded recipes described the potatoes as sometimes boiled and sopped in wine or boiled with prunes. Like the humans who consumed them, this first “potato salad” evolved over time. Sometimes, the potatoes were dressed in oil and vinegar and salt. Eventually, the Germans began making a more popular potato salad that spread throughout Europe with onions, a vinaigrette, and sometimes eggs.

When in Germany

When I think about German potato salad, I think about the version made with bacon, bacon grease, red onions, vinegar, and a touch of sugar, served warm. That’s the style typical in Bavaria in the south. But there are others: In Swabia in the southwest, the regional version is typically served warm and includes vinegar, broth, onions, and mustard. In the north, they use mayonnaise and serve it cold, more like the standard U.S. picnic favorite.

Across Europe, that practice was mirrored with local versions that make use of regional specialties. Nordic countries include pickled herring, smoked salmon, or similar fish seasoned with sour cream, mustard, and sometimes juniper berries or dill and horseradish. Russian potato salad includes boiled eggs, cooked carrots, pickled cucumbers, and sometimes corn, peas, or chopped apples. A Greek Island potato salad features octopus in red wine tossed with the potatoes and vinaigrette.

When concocting your own

The lesson I take from this is that when it comes to potato salad ingredients, all bets are off. These days, our household prefers a simple French-style recipe with small boiled potatoes in an herby Dijon mustard vinaigrette with chopped scallions or chives and parsley or tarragon. Sometimes, the French might add green beans and even sliced chicken for a heartier dish. And though you might find it odd, Japanese restaurants often serve potato salad as a side dish: a coarsely mashed potato mixed with rice vinegar mixed with a sliced cucumber, chopped hard-boiled egg, minced onion, thinly sliced ham, and mayonnaise.

As for your own potato salad this summer, what might you include? If your version is more like the French, The Ultimate Potato Book suggests adding one or two of the following: chopped celery, minced shallots, diced red pepper, green grapes, sliced cherry tomatoes, corn kernels, diced fresh pineapple, dried cranberries, chopped apricots, or pecans, almonds, or toasted pine nuts. If you’re partial to the version with mayonnaise, I recommend adding chopped dill pickles, but maybe also consider a dash of horseradish and peas, shrimp, or smoked salmon. If you like the hot German version, how about adding some chopped grilled hamburger? If you go with the smoked salmon version, The Ultimate Potato Book suggests including cooked broccoli florets, corn, chopped dates or fresh cherries, canned mandarin orange sections, diced pear, currants, corn or pickle relish, and even a few dashes of Tabasco. Needless to say, the possibilities are endless.

When you put it all together, aim for the perfect balance of sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and umami. It should be the star of the cookout.

When we think of Memorial Day

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion.” Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863

In honor of Memorial Day, I’ll be taking the week off. Look for a new blog June 9.

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