Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

[Kilinahe]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Sometimes Old Bay seasoning for a change but the traditionalist in the house does not like that at all!

Old Bay! Dang! Wish I'd thought of that. That's such a great idea.

There's a fine line between good mac salad and bad mac salad and I think many, many places cross it. L&L is okay. A little slimy, but tasty.

The stuff I like to make is macaroni, tuna and celery. Ryan hates celery, so I use peas instead.

[pzarquon]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Yep. Tuna and peas, okay, celery, not okay. Just a personal preference, though, not an assertion of The Way to make mac salad. I don't like bits of celery in anything. I will say I tend to like my mac salad dryer than average, whereas my mom likes it practically swimming in mayo.

Tani's Lunchwagon was the first place I came across where the mac salad's macaroni noodles were fortified with chopped spaghetti noodles. I'm still not sure if it was a stylistic choice or just a filler.

[Lei K]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

My family makes it with hard boiled egg chopped up, tuna, and quite a bit of mayo. My Auntie for family parties will buy L&L mac salad, bring it home, and doctor it up. I had no clue until I was let in on her little deception.

I could handle peas and tuna in mine but I'm with you on the no celery thing. A lot of people on the mainland just love onion and celery in their mac salad and I'm put off by it. But different tastes right, I totally understand that.

[waiz4kooks]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

OK Listen up people. The best place to get a Kalua Pig Plate Lunch, 1 scoop of rice, and the best mac salad is the little lunch truck that comes to Sandy's in the afternoon.

[p0id0g]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Lanie's Lunch Wagon on Hanua Street in Campbell Industrial has some darn good mac salad. what's even better is that they give you Mac AND tossed greens. $4 plate lunch that would rival any other....

[kupomog]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Tani's Lunchwagon was the first place I came across where the mac salad's macaroni noodles were fortified with chopped spaghetti noodles. I'm still not sure if it was a stylistic choice or just a filler.

My mom uses spaghetti noodles in her mac salad. Mostly because we always have spaghetti noodles and rarely ever have macaroni on hand. She puts the typical stuff in...tuna, peas, lots'o mayo, boiled egg, carrots...sometimes she puts olives. I like the spaghetti noodles more, actually, for texture mostly. I often subsititute my rice for her salad when she makes it.

I don't mind celery, though. My grandma makes salad with celery. I'd prefer if there wasn't celery, but I'd still eat it as long as it didn't taste like relish. I absolutely cannot stand onions, though. Can't have them in my mac salad or my hamburger patties. Just doesn't happen :x

[Da Rolling Eye]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

I just bought a container of potato/mac from Foodland. I'm not a potato eater, but I had to admit this was pretty darned good. Potato still had some crisp to it. Yeah, "undercooked". You can eat potato raw dontcha know. Better than overcooked and starchy. Had celery, onion, carrots, egg, macaroni, potato, Best foods mayo and some other seasoning and spices. For me, this was the best mac salad I've had in a long time.

Having spent my childhood in Texas, I find mac salad in these islands ridiculously bland and boring (and I still wonder why it has become such a standard in plate lunch boxes).

Chopped green olives, celery, etc., makes for much more interesting mac salad.

Well, Albert, having spent my childhood in Hawai'i, I ate "mainland" mac salad when I travelled up there. The one I tried, they put in diced dill pickles and chopped up pickled artichokes. People said it was the best in that area. Too dry, not enough mayo. Too vinegary or tart. Too me, that was ridiculously bland. Everything tasted only like.....sour pickles.

Mainland taste is different. We tend to lean more towards salt and sweet in our foods, probably due to the strong Asian influence we grew up with. Lots of mainland salads of any type seem to contain an abundance of vinegar or lemon juice, sometimes both. Also lots of "grassy" herbs and spices. They call that tasty up there. It's like the 3 bean salad. I hear mainland people rave about it and they have all these recipes for it. I tried it and hated it. To me it was too sour. In other words tasteless. Didn't help I don't like kidney beans.

The problem with mainland style salads and such is that they don't go well with rice. <LOL>

As for why the mac salad became a plate lunch staple, I haven't the foggiest idea where that came from, but it does go with rice in any "local" form it takes.

Btw, "plate lunch box" is redundant. It's either plate lunch, even though they put the plate lunch in a box, or box lunch, the latter referred to as a "bento". Plate lunch box...hmmm...I guess you can call the box that plate lunches are put into a....plate lunch box. <LOL>

Whoa. A revelation. I actually don't mind bland mac salads so long as it's eaten with teri beef or something with lots of gravy, be it stew or brown gravy over chicken cutlet ala Rainbow Drive in. Of course it would still taste better on it's own with the celery and onions and such. Hah! Whadaya know.

[Creative-1]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

I did some research into plate lunches and how macaroni salad came to have a place at the table for my book.

Plate lunches grew out of food that plantation workers took into the field. Rice, meat and pickled vegetables that did not need refrigeration.

Apparently, macaroni salad was invented at Delmonico's in New York City around the turn of the last century. It became a sensation in New York.

Out hotel industry was just getting off the ground then and many of the chefs were trained in New York and brought the humble salad with them.

Carts at the waterfront were serving plate lunches with macaroni salad in the late 1920s to dock workers.

Why it's still popular here is a mystery. Maybe it's the perfect complement to rice and meat.

[Da Rolling Eye]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Well, I gotta eat crow on this one. There are probably thousands of variations on the theme. Using stuff like green olives or dill pickles are just a couple of them. I still won't eat it, though. Just not to my taste.

C1, neat info. Gonna try and dig more into it. Some of my interests include learning things from the "cowboy" era, 1840's to the 1890's. Delmonico's falls into that time period. On another forum, there is a person who's somewhat of a food historian and he'll probably know more about mac salad and it's origins. His user name is Delmonico so I'm pretty sure he'll have the info. Will share for those interested.

[Pomai]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

This the PERFECT Mac Salad recipe

Da' 1/4 cup milk is the secret. Gives it that perfect creamy, cool flavor. Grated carrots give it just enough color and contrast without overpowering it.

Gotta' be simple. No tuna, peas, this or that. Most of all, make sure you use Best Foods (Hellmann's) Mayo'.

Aside of all this, in an effort to eat more healthy, I usually opt for tossed greens over Mac.

Star Bulletin article on Mac Salad

[Creative-1]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Well, I gotta eat crow on this one. There are probably thousands of variations on the theme. Using stuff like green olives or dill pickles are just a couple of them. I still won't eat it, though. Just not to my taste.

C1, neat info. Gonna try and dig more into it. Some of my interests include learning things from the "cowboy" era, 1840's to the 1890's. Delmonico's falls into that time period. On another forum, there is a person who's somewhat of a food historian and he'll probably know more about mac salad and it's origins. His user name is Delmonico so I'm pretty sure he'll have the info. Will share for those interested.

I think Emeril has a live episode on Delmonico's today. But that's Delmonico's New Orleans. There's no relationship to Delmonico's New York.

Delmonico's has a fascinating history. It was opened on December 13, 1827, by John and Peter Del-Monico. It was a small cafe and pastry shop in lower Manhatten.* They changed the spelling of their last name from Del-Monico to Delmonico.

One source says it was the very first restaurant in the US, and that it was a new thing in Europe.

They introduced the U.S. to the Delmonico Steak, Lobster Newberg, avocado, and macaroni salad.

They had many Manhatten locations, but closed for good in 1923, done in partly by Prohibition.

The family tried to stop others from using the Delmonico name, but the courts ruled against them. There is a Delmonico's today that tries to create to old world feel of the original.

A more detailed, fascinating history can be found at:

http://www.steakperfection.com/delmonico/History.html

It lists some Delmonico firsts:

Before Delmonico's opened, diners ate at cafes and boarding houses (inns), where the food was simply the food available that day from the farms. Diners had no choice of dishes but ate the food that was served. Delmonico's changed all that, including the following firsts:

The first diner called by the French name restaurant
The first diner where guests sat at their own tables
The first printed menu
The first tablecloths
The first debutante ball outside a private home
The first restaurant to offer a leisurely lunch and dinner
Oysters Rockefeller
Lobster Newberg, first called Lobster Wenberg
Baked Alaska
Eggs Benedict (according to FoodTV and Infoplease)
Delmonico potatoes
Delmonico steak
Hamburger (known then as the Hamburg Steak)

[helen]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Just came from a gathering that was held at Times Coffee Shop across Windward Mall. Their mac salad had sort of big chunks of potatoes and is served with a couple of slices of toast.

[pzarquon]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

The mac salad at Times wasn't bad at all. Simple, straightforward, hearty (owing to the giant potato chunks Helen mentioned). What I didn't get was the toast. Two pieces, toasted on one side, basically pressed onto the mac salad like some hat. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

[helen]

Re: Poll for Mac Salad - Where do you like?

Considering that they also served toast with the local moco, I wouldn't have been surprised that if one of us last night took the option of the green salad instead of the mac salad, the green salad would have also been served with toast too.