When a Salad Is Not a Salad

Merging two families into one can be flat-out funny.

“Some salad?” my mother asked him, holding out a Pyrex dish full of delicious spicy, jiggly redness.

My husband, Hans, grew up in a family that knew the names of lots of weird veggies as well as how to cook them. When they say they’re having salad for dinner, they mean salad IS dinner—it will be healthy, with sprouts, nuts and vinegar dressing. We are more of a meat-and-potatoes crew in my family. We have veggies with every meal, but they are side dishes. Without this knowledge, I led my future husband to that minefield known as the meet-the-family dinner. My young son, my parents and sister, my aunt, uncle and cousins, my 90-year-old grandmother, and my fiance and I gathered around a table to indulge in prime rib and sides of baked potatoes, green bean casserole, dinner rolls and our traditional Jell-O salad. There are many ways to make Jell-O salad, but my grandma’s version combines applesauce, lemon Jell-O and melted-down cinnamon Red Hots. A middle layer of cream cheese, mayonnaise, walnuts and celery is sandwiched between the Jell-O. When this amazing concoction was presented to Hans, we got a family story we will laugh about for years to come. “Some salad?” my mother asked him, holding out a Pyrex dish full of delicious spicy, jiggly redness. “Yes, please,” he replied. He took the dish and looked down. Uncertainty flashed across his face. His future mother-in-law definitely said “salad.” But there was no lettuce to be seen. He wrinkled his brow and lifted the glass dish to check the bottom. No vegetation on the bottom, either. He cautiously took a spoonful, plopped it on his plate and tried a bite. Everyone at the table paused to watch him chew. “It’s good,” he said. “But this is not salad.” To this day, Hans tells everyone that he married into a family that calls a dessert a salad. No matter what you call it, it’s delicious.