Hot Potato Salad: or, A salad is only a main dish if you really, really need it to be

Wonderful news everyone! In theory, everyone's SNAP benefits will soon be restored. Clearly, no one will ever starve in this country again. But just in case, let me suggest donating money instead of cans to your local food bank. Food banks often get food at bulk rates, so your money will feed more people than if you did the shopping yourself. And of course, the people working at food banks have a firsthand view of what foods are needed.

With that happy thought in mind, let's look at a recipe from the long-gone days when food was hard for most people to get in this country. Of course, those days of American food insecurity are long gone. This week, I've seen a lot of nonprofits closing their doors and declaring their missions complete. 

This recipe is a lot better if you chop off the first word of the title.

Hot Potato Salad ¼ cup bacon drippings 1 egg, beaten ¼ cup vinegar Salt and pepper to taste 4 cups cubed potatoes ½ cup chopped green bell pepper* ½ cup chopped sweet onion* 1 (12-oz) package frankfurters Boil the potatoes until tender. Meanwhile, cover the hot dogs in boiling water and simmer for 8 minutes.† Partially melt the bacon drippings in a large skillet. Then turn off the heat and stir until it is completely melted. (You want it melted, but not too hot.) Then mix in the vinegar and the beaten egg. Drain the potatoes and add them to the pan, along with the bell pepper and onion. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens. Then put on a serving platter and arrange the hot dogs on top. *You won't use the entire bell pepper or the whole onion. Just chop the whole thing and save the rest for another recipe. †If the rest of the recipe isn't ready when the hot dogs' simmering time is over, just turn off the burner under them and let them wait in the water. Note: This potato salad was a lot better served cold-- and without putting hot dogs on it. Source: Armour advertisement, Chicago area newspaper, 1943-1945

We know this recipe comes from the era of WWII food rationing because the writers proudly say that frankfurters are "a real point bargain!" The opening paragraph deploys the phrases "an old favorite" and "an old-fashioned meal" in the first two sentences, using exclamation points to try to convince you that you really did used to eat like this before the war started.  

Food must have been tighter than I thought on the home front. This recipe only uses a half-cup each of non-potato vegetables. I economically put the extra vegetables in the freezer to use another time. We may not be on ration points in this decade, but we are getting unnervingly close to calling our time "the prewar years." 

Only the onion in the cup goes into the recipe. We have to carefully measure and count out our onions.

Setting aside ration cards, I think this recipe was printed during the summer. Out-of-season bell peppers seem impossible with a war on. But on the other hand, we had to use three stove burners as soon as we were done chopping.

We're directed to load the frying pan with bacon drippings. That was pretty easy since I have not thrown away any fat since grocery prices shot up.

After melting the bacon grease, we are directed to dump in one beaten egg. I briefly thought that I should temper the egg like a good cook would do. Then I decided "The heck with it! If they wanted me to bother with that, they would have written it down!" So instead of detouring to do things the "right" way, I followed the directions. Besides, at the very worst I'd have hot potatoes with scrambled eggs in them.

To my surprise, the egg didn't scramble at all. Well, it curdled a little bit when I stopped to grab a picture, but I think the people at Armour and Company's recipe development department figured that people tend to cook without pausing for a camera break.

The rest of the recipe went agreeably fast. We only needed to dump everything into the pan and start stirring. (As always, I omitted the sugar. I don't see what it's supposed to accomplish anyway.) I wasn't sure if we were meant to cook the onion and bell pepper before adding everything else. It felt like we should have, but the recipe didn't tell us to. I thought they might be cooked by the time everything thickened, but was ready to eat after thirty seconds. 

I didn't feel like getting all presentational with a big serving platter and artistically arranged hot dogs. But after our previous hot potato salad seemed like it'd be really good as a side dish with hot dogs, I decided to at least cook a few for this one. 

This honestly wasn't very good served hot, mostly because of the still-raw bell peppers and onions. The other hot potato salad was a pretty good main dish, but this one tasted like a salad that got warmed for no reason. I wouldn't be surprised if the Armour people pulled a potato salad recipe out of of their files and hastily turned it into a wartime main dish. And as a main dish, this reeks of "it's the best we can manage in these times." I can easily imagine parents carefully counting out how many wieners each person gets when they dish this up at the table (after all, the meat ration stamps might not make it to the end of the month).

I did try slicing up some of the hot dogs and mixing them in to make a single-spoon main dish, which felt oddly like I was feeding babies. (Slicing hot dogs always does.) Mixing everything together definitely made this easier to serve, but I don't think it was an improvement. It just made things saltier.

I think portion-stretching explains why we didn't cook the onion and bell pepper. If I sauteed them, they would have shrunken a lot and left everyone with a half-spoonful of vegetables per serving (reminder: this is supposed to serve 4 to 6).

But setting aside the hot dogs, the leftovers were fantastic after spending the night in the refrigerator. Like, this is even better than the potato salad with covert gelatin-- and that one was amazing once you got past the strange experience of making it. If you don't like mayonnaise in potato salad, this could easily be the recipe you've been looking for. It has enough vinegar to give it tang without making it too sour. And it has just enough onion and bell pepper to make it flavorful without seeming like you accidentally spilled the whole crudite tray into the spuds. 

If you don't bother with the hot dogs on top, it's surprisingly quick to slap together. Assuming you're at least half-decent with a knife (you don't need to be that good), you can cut up the potatoes and get them cooking, then chop the onion and bell pepper, and have everything ready for the frying pan before the spuds are done.

In closing, I would definitely serve this again. In fact, I'm going to keep this recipe on file for when summer grilling season returns. However, I won't try to force it to be a meaty main dish unless food shortages come back.

Basically, imagine this without the hot dogs. It's really good.