One seriously representative - and very tasty - 1950s potato salad recipe

Vintage loving soul that I am, I can't help but have a special spot in my heart for yesteryear recipes that not only telegraph the era they hail from, but which shout it out, loud and proud, from the rooftop!

Typically these sorts of foods include a combination of ingredients that seems a touch dated to the average diner, but which we as vintage fans have a deep respect and adoration for, even if they're not exactly what we're plunking down in front our families each night these days.

Chances are such dishes, when they hail from the 1950s and are of a savoury nature, are apt to include at least one of the following things: mayonnaise, hard boiled eggs, pickles, olives, mushroom, pimentos, tuna, and/or celery, to name but a few iconic ingredients of the age.

Today's vintage recipe for hearty, delicious sounding Ripe Olive Potato Salad hails is from 1952 and houses five of those very ingredients, a point that made this passionate old school epicurean smile ear-to-ear.



{Talk about a meal in a side dish! This lively, flavourful mid-century potato salad combines pickles, olives, pimentos, mayo, and a handful of other ingredients with spuds to create a stick-to-your ribs potato salad that is bursting with 1950s charm. Vintage recipe image source.}


I fully get that this combo of ingredients might not elicit squeals of delight from everyone, even though I do think they harmonize together fairly well. By all means, pick, choose, and disregard as needed. Being allergic to eggs, I need to skip the hard boiled ones here and use GF vegan mayonnaise (the vegan offerings from Follow Your Heart are by far my favourite store bought options on that front), and would likely use cucumber over celery, as I have an easier time with it, but aside from that, I'd totally give it a go as is.

If I wanted to switch things up a bit though, I might ditch some of the veggies (pickles included), leave the black olives in place and use some sun dried tomatoes and marinated artichoke hearts for a thoroughly Mediterranean influenced potato salad, or maybe some black beans, corn, and cilantro for a fun Southwestern take on this staple summer side dish.

Potato salad is a seriously versatile food that you can play around with endlessly, making it as mid-century or present day as your heart desires. You can even sub in sweet potatoes, yams, taro, sunchokes, parsnips, or rutabagas for the standard spuds themselves.

As summer is but a stone's throw away, picnic, grilling, camping, and al fresco eating season in general are all starting to really hit their stride, so I wanted to share this delightful, adaptable vintage potato salad recipe - which really does scream 1950s in the best kind of culinary way - with all of you here today, on this gorgeous sun-kissed Saturday.

With lots of family events, birthdays, barbeques and other enjoyable events in the cards throughout the next three to four months, I know that dishes like this great mid-century offering will be a common sight on our table - be it indoors or out - and one that I'm really, really looking forward to, as I rarely make cold pasta or potato salad during the snowy half of the year. That’s baked, mashed and roasted spud season! :)

Liven up your Labour Day menu with this fun vintage pasta salad recipe

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Labour Day falls early this year - the earliest date it can in fact, September 1st, and as such that means that this weekend is the last before the unofficial end of summer. Soon life will become a joyful hustle and bustle of school books, raking crunchy leaves, baking pumpkin pies, nights that get dark nearly as soon as work as wrapped up, and the switching over of our warm weather wardrobes to our winter ones (or vice versa if you live south of the equator and gearing up to say hello to spring once more). And you know what, a good part of me really and truly looks forward to that, but for now I'm very keen to continue celebrating summer (as I talked in greater detail about in this month's edition of Flickr Favourites) and soak up every last precious, golden sun-kissed moment of it while I still can.



{Instead of viewing Labour Day long weekend as the beginning of the end of summer, I prefer to see it as one last big celebration of all that is great, food very much included, about this fun filled, vibrant, awesome season.Image source.}


This sentiment definitely extends to my menu choices, especially since the Labour Day long weekend has always been one of the most revered on the barbeque and al fresco meal front of the whole season. There's hefty ears of sweet corn, plump ruby red tomatoes, scores of crisp garden greens, early season apples and pears, freshly caught fish, homemade ice cream, and gallons of lemonade still to consume before we don our Thanksgiving finery and tuck into a squarely autumn harvest centered feast once more.

Undoubtedly one of my favourite warm weather eats of all time is pasta salad! I have a dozen or more favourite recipes that I enjoy whipping up as the mood and menu call for, and am certainly not opposed to trying new ones or simply tossing something together on the fly based on what I have in the fridge and pantry at any given moment. It's precisely that kind of spirit which I feel today's vintage pasta salad recipe that originally appeared in a Good Housekeeping magazine ad for Somerset Luncheon Meats channels. It has a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot of mid-century mealtime fun.




{A tasty hodgepodge of mid-century ingredients comes together in this cheerful, filling 1950s pasta salad recipe, that is sure to find favour with kids and adults alike at your long weekend dinner table. Image source.}


Now, by all means, feel free to forgo or swap out anything that not to your liking. If you're a gluten-free eater like myself and are keen to still use rainbow pasta here, I highly recommend Rizopia's Vegetable Brown Rice Fusilli (which I've found here in Canada at Bulk Barn and online on Well.ca), which I'm rarely without a bag of in my cupboard for pasta salads just like this. For the mayonnaise, needing to avoid eggs all the time, too, due to the fact that I'm allergic to them, I reach for Reduced Fat Vegenaise (which also happens to be vegan).

Pasta salads are one of the most versatile, crowd pleasing foods around. You can serve them cold, at room temperature or even warm, just depending on what your star ingredients are. They often taste even better the second day after their flavours have been mingling and snuggling up together for a while, and they can be either the main attraction of the meal or simply a lovely, filling side dish.

If you have leftovers, why not stir in some cooked chicken breast, salmon, strips of steak, further vegetables, or cubes of cheese and extend it for a second meal the next day? They can also be stuffed into pitas, wraps, or buns, as well as scooped up onto corn chips, potato chips, melba toast, or wedges of cornbread - all of which children in particular are fond of.

Let your imagination run wild when it comes not only to creating pasta salads, but also with your Labour Day meal choices in general. Take advantage of summer's incredible eats while they're still here, have a second (or third) helping of sweet, juicy watermelon, toss some more burgers on the grill, and relish (food pun intended) the tail end of awesome quarter of the year while it's still going strong.

Liven up the summer grilling season with this great vintage Tabasco Barbecue Sauce recipe

The birds are chirping merrily, the sun is shining like mad, and all eyes are gazing out the window. After another long winter and soggy spring, it's time! Time, that is to put on our favourite vintage sundresses, patio ensembles, and open-toed shoes and head outside for a fabulous al fresco meal, be it cooked indoors and brought out in Mother Nature's living room or prepared under the wide open June sky.


{Bust out the corn skewers, checkered table clothes, acrylic dishes, and charcoal briquettes, it's time to fire up the grill and settle in for a season of thoroughly scrumptious outdoor eats again. Image source.} 



So long as one isn't plagued by too many pesky insects, I could happily eat every last one of my meals outdoors all the way until early October, when autumn's distinctly nippy chill returns to the air. I'm by no means the first person to make this observation, but, I swear, food just tastes better outdoors - especially it happens to be accompanied by a soothingly warm summer breeze and a stunning sunset waltzing across the horizon.

Today's yesteryear recipe is one of those handy mid-century gems that we'd all do well to add to our cookbooks, especially at this roasty, toasty time of the year when grilling and campfire cooking come out in full force once more.

Hailing from the 1940s or 50s, based on the illustration on this recipe page (no background information was provided for it by the person who shared it on Flickr), this lip-lickingly appealing vintage Tabasco Barbecue Sauce recipe would be scrumptious way to dress up everything from chicken beasts to beef steaks, pork chops to veggie burgers, kebabs, hot dogs, seafood, meatloaf, even pizza cooked on the grill.



{Tangy, aromatic, and seriously tasty, with a good hit of spicy kick to it as well, this great mid-century Tabasco Barbecue Sauce recipe is a breeze to whip up and easily be multiplied however many times you need to feed the hungry crowd of diners you'll be feeding this summer. Image source.}



If you're not a fan of (or aren't, as is the case for me, able to safely eat spicy foods for medical reasons), fear not, you can leave out the Tabasco, and this sauce will still sing! I usually up the brown sugar to three or four tablespoons, reduce the vinegar by a tablespoon, and add in a little more (1/4 cup) ketchup, as I generally prefer a sweet, moist barbecue sauce to one that's searing with spicy heat.

You could easily toss in some of your favourite dried or fresh herbs here as well. Switch out the white vinegar for a flavoured one, opt for shallots or scallions instead of the onions, use oil instead of butter or margarine (especially if you wanted to ensure this sauce was vegetarian or vegan), use honey instead of white sugar, give it a good grinding's worth of freshly cracked black pepper as well (which I always do and it makes a noticeable improvement here). Or, of course, you can just as easily leave well enough alone and enjoy it precisely as it appears here.

After years of living in places that didn't permit one, very shortly after we got our own condo here in Penticton back in 2012, we invested in great barbeque and it's been one of my all-time favourite home related purchases we've ever made. It's already been fired up multiple times this spring and will continue to help us get many a tasty meal on the table all throughout the coming summer months.

Even if you don't have a barbecue of your own or ready access to one, you can still grill indoors with an electric grill, griddle, or under the broiler, and top your tasty creations with this wonderfully flavourful vintage barbecue sauce.

In fact, you can apply it to food cooked any old way you prefer (grilled or otherwise). Like any good sauce, this one is as versatile as the day is long and as a fabulous as summer is sunny, meaning it will work just as well drizzled over breakfast burritos in January as it does on plump rib eye steaks in June.