National Salad Month: Ruth Barnaby’s Watergate Salad

May is National Salad Month!

To celebrate, I perused the archives and am sharing with you one of my all-time favorite dishes, Watergate Salad. A version of this post first appeared on the DiS1972 blog in June of 2013.

You might know this dish by other names: ambrosia, Pistachio Delight, green stuff–but I prefer Watergate Salad because, well, hello–all that Watergate shit went down in 1972!

I am sure that one of my many cookbooks contains a recipe for Watergate Salad, but I did a little internet search and came upon this gem:

I wish I could tell you where this newspaper clipping came from. I imagine that it first appeared in the Altoona Mirror, June 29, 1978.

Ruth Barnaby is a retired schoolteacher. That photo is from the wedding of her youngest daughter, Andrea. Andrea and Paul got married at St. Luke’s Episcopal with a reception following at the Altoona VFW Post 10405. It was a wonderful party, only marred by a small disagreement between Ruth and Aunt Maureen regarding the use of paper doilies on the cookie table.

Aside from making molded salads, her interests are bridge, gardening, and watching Family Feud. She thinks that Richard Dawson is a handsome man.

Ruth’s recipe is all pretty standard. And with the exception of the Cool Whip and mini marshmallows, I had the rest of the ingredients on hand–because who doesn’t always have Maraschino cherries at the ready?

Since Ruth was vague about the nuts, I used almonds because that’s what was in my cupboard. And also ALMONDS. They were the star nut of the 70s, after all! (This is according to my anecdotal research–almonds appeared in the original 1972 cards more than a dozen times).

So I folded everything together. Now this is where Ruth got a little wacky–she said to pour it in a mold.

A mold? There’s no gelatin in this concoction! Why the hell would you put it in a mold?

Well, I wasn’t going to question Ruth Barnaby of Altoona. So I put it in a mold. But there was so much salad that I had to use my 6-cup double-decker. That was a bold move on my part. The higher the mold, the greater the fall.

So I was a little worried about it, although, by the time it was ready for it to emerge from its copper shell, my little salad had been in the fridge for about 8 hours. I thought that it was fall right out because it was sans-Jell-O, but this salad was a tough little bastard. I went through the normal steps of hot water and shaking and wiggling and jiggling and HOLY SHIT THE WATERGATE SALAD CAME OUT IN ONE PIECE.

And it was tasty, too! Because these picnic salads are always tasty!

I am quite proud anytime one of my molded dishes are successful. I think because I didn’t grow up with them—Jell-Os, puddings, mousses, aspics—there wasn’t a single copper mold in my childhood kitchens. Is that why I’m so into the Jell-O? I’ll have to think on that.