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Peach Salad
1 can peaches Salad dressing 1 pint cottage cheese Place halves of peaches on lettuce leaves. Make cheese into small balls, roll in chopped nutmeats and place in peach halves. Serve with dressing.
Mrs. Dean Bennett. 2½ bananas 3 slices pineapple 3 halves peaches
A church-supper fruit salad from the era when canned peaches counted as a luxury and "salad dressing" meant something sweet and cooked. The whole thing hangs on getting the cheese dry enough to hold a ball.
- The cheese is the hingeModern small-curd cottage cheese is generally wetter than the drier pressed curd such recipes seem to assume, and it will not roll. Drain a pint in a fine sieve or cheesecloth for at least an hour, or use dry-curd cottage cheese or farmer cheese, before attempting balls.
- "Salad dressing"In books of this kind it usually does not mean vinaigrette. It generally means either a cooked boiled dressing thickened with egg and flour, or one of the sweet commercial spoonable dressings. A mild mayonnaise thinned with a little cream and lemon is a workable substitute.
- 1 can peachesThe recipe gives no size. The can most commonly used for peach halves held roughly 28 to 29 ounces, which would give about six to eight halves in heavy syrup. Drain them well and blot the cut side dry or the dressing will slide off and the plate will pool with syrup.
- NutmeatsSimply shelled nuts. Walnuts or pecans are the period default; toasting them briefly improves a salad that is otherwise entirely soft in texture.
- LettuceIceberg or leaf lettuce cups, used as an edible plate rather than as something to be eaten with a fork. Choose whole cupped leaves so the peach half sits level.
- YieldSix to eight servings, one peach half each. A pint of cottage cheese is generous for that count; expect leftovers unless you make the balls large.
- The stray last line"2 1/2 bananas, 3 slices pineapple, 3 halves peaches" does not belong to this recipe. It appears to be an orphaned ingredient list from an adjacent recipe and can be ignored.
Community and club cookbooks are thick with salads like this one, from the period when canned fruit had become cheap enough to serve to guests while still feeling like an occasion. The formula -- a lettuce leaf, a half peach or pear, a ball of soft cheese, chopped nuts, a spoon of sweet dressing -- circulated widely under names like peach salad and pear salad, and no single origin can be traced for it. The cottage cheese ball suggests a firmer, drier curd than what is generally sold today, since the recipe assumes it can be shaped by hand without any draining step. The attribution to Mrs. Dean Bennett is typical of contributor cookbooks of this kind.