Pasta salads not all bad
All winter, some people long for summer. They curse frost-covered windshields, slippery sidewalks and bulky clothing. But let’s face it: Summer has its own set of negatives: insects, sunburn and pasta salad.
Yes, sad to say, pasta salads are often a big “minus” on the scoreboard of summer. They take over the neighborhood potluck, sully the picnic at the beach, and besmirch the backyard barbecue. They taste like bottled salad dressing and have too many peas. Most pasta salads are worse than bad. They are boring.
The “macaroni salad” seems to be an American invention. It is found in cookbooks as early as the turn of the last century, with dishes made of pasta (“macaroni”) and dressed with mayonnaise, and molded and chilled before serving. They transmogrified themselves into “pasta” salads in the 1970s and 1980s, when “gourmet takeout” tried to rise above its status as an oxymoron. In 1982, the New York Times intoned, “The pasta salad is here to stay.”
Every summer, I look for good pasta salads so that when the inevitable happens, and I am forced to make one, I don’t embarrass myself.
This year, I turned to “Simply Done, Well Done” (2011 Wiley) by Aaron McCargo Jr., star of the Food Network’s “Big Daddy’s House,” and a veritable font of tasty recipes. Here’s a chef with sound culinary instincts: When in doubt, add bacon. McCargo pairs bacon with chicken, potatoes, endive, even with pork chops. And when it comes to pasta salad, this proves to be a good instinct. I found that out when monkeying around with a recipe from “Fine Cooking Fresh,” from Fine Cooking magazine (2009 Taunton Press). The salad, a good one, transformed to greatness with the addition of crispy bits of pancetta (Italian bacon). You’ll find the mayonaisse-less recipe (another food instinct) at dailyherald.com/entlife/food.
Pasta salads — check. Bring on the bugs and the sunburn.
Ÿ Marialisa Calta is the author of “Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family” (Perigee, 2005). More at marialisacalta.com.