Friday 26 September 2014

Reader Recipe: French Cottage Salad



We finally made it! The last recipe of Reader Recipe Month!

Wait. Monday is September 30. Crap.

While I sort out the logistics, here’s something (and I really mean some thing) that reader Martine sent to me. Martine is Jewish and asked if that made her a "cacher" instead of a caker. I don’t know about that, Martine, but any culture that invented bottled fish can bring their paper plate to my dinner table any time.

Apparently, Martine’s dad invented the recipe for French Cottage Salad. Folks, I don’t know what the what this is. I mean, why would you ever want to bring these three ingredients together? It’s like an unholy trinity of taste. I couldn’t finish it, and for anyone familiar with this blog, you know that’s saying a lot. (Of course, the fact that my cottage cheese was past the due date and looked more like blue cheese might’ve played a factor.)

But who am I to judge? Martine's father apparently suffered from food trauma, including a bad incident involving a white fish and a large blue pot. (I had a similar traumatic incident, only it involved a white fish and a large blue woman.) I’m just glad Martine’s father enjoyed this dish. Because I’m sure no one else did.

Thanks, Martine! Everybody come back Monday for our (really) last recipe. Guess I better get the can opener out again.

2 pineapple rings
Scoop of cottage cheese
Wishbone French dressing (the creamy, orange stuff – otherwise he wouldn't eat cottage cheese and pineapple) (See note)

Place pineapple on a plate, top with cottage cheese and then top with dressing.

Note: I can relate. I can't tell you all the times I've announced, "I am NOT eating pineapple OR cottage cheese without salad dresssing on top!"

Source: Caker Martine via Caker Martine’s dad

Update: Sadly, Martine's dad passed away from cancer a few years back. She's running in the LA Cancer Challenge in his memory. If you'd like to help her out with her fundraising, click here.

15 comments:

  1. I could never eat it either, but you sure made it look purdy

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  2. I may be wrong, but I think you could serve this next to Candle Salad at an erotic toy party.

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  3. Maybe it is some kind of elderly Jew thing because my Dad ate salad dressing on cottage cheese too. The only thing was, he'd put sour cream atop the cottage cheese first (A holdover I think from when you had to buy dry curds and add your own cream) and then douse it in dressing. We didn't get much pineapple (It was expensive) but I can see most of the older relatives thinking this would be a nice salad (and nutritious, because it had dairy).

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    1. Sour cream on top of cottage cheese? I haven't heard that one before. My dad always put sour cream on bread and then sprinkled it with sugar. Why? I have no idea. He also put maple syrup on rice. I think this explains a lot about my eating habits today.

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  4. Does this even count as a salad? It's seems more like an amuse-bouche served in an upscale restaurant that specializes in practical jokes.

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    1. There are a lot of things on this blog that are called "salads" but don't come even close to resembling a salad. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as the directions use the phrase "tear open envelope," it's not a salad.

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    2. Funny you should say that; I was just thinking the other day that the only envelope of something a recipe should call for is gelatin powder. And speaking of gelatin powder, I wanted to thank you for your link to Mimi's Retro Weight Watchers blog. All my life I thought that my mother, who did WW back in the late 70s and early 80s, had conjured up all those strange recipes herself: strawberry fluffs, rubbery gelatins made with root beer extract, and not-exactly-food too fierce to mention. But Mimi's blog revealed that my mother had only been bringing to life the terrors in the WW recipe collections, and I take a certain comfort in that. My mum is quite a good cook and an even better eater, and it disturbed me to think that those nightmare foods came out of her own low-calorie imagination.

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    3. I love Mimi's blog, too. She's a brave person to make - and eat - those low-calorie dishes. I seem to remember her featuring something with bean sprouts once. Eesch!

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  5. I want to hear the story about the white fish and the large blue woman. Or at least I think I do.

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    1. Trust me, you don't. I've still got the bruises to show for it.

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  6. Rarely does a recipe picture make me grimace, but this one sure did. GROSS.

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    1. AIison, I got a lot more than that. Search "mushroom fluff" if you're feeling adventurous.

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