Hurrah for the Fourth of July

For the Fourth we took the train to the state capital (big excitement for Pete, to board the train instead of just waving at it).  We heard a reading of the Declaration of Independence (remember the scene in Little Town on the Prairie when the Ingalls girls recite the Declaration along with the reader? can you imagine an educational system in which that kind of memorization was routine?) and saw some well-done Civil War exhibits, which provided me with a little perspective on my angst about the current situation.   We picnicked on the capitol grounds, with watermelon and potato salad.  I believe the eating of potato salad on July 4 is mentioned in the Constitution as a requirement for US citizenship.  If it's not, I propose an amendment.

Though my amendment is likely to fail, my recipe is not.  Give it a whirl.

Thomas Jefferson's Favorite Potato Salad and Probably Abraham Lincoln's Too

My very favorite potato salad includes bacon, so I usually start by frying up a couple of slices.  This is optional, though.  I cube eight medium potatoes and boil them for about ten minutes in heavily salted water.  Salting the heck out of the water is one of the keys to delicious potato salad -- I don't think you can get boiled potatoes salted properly after they're cooked.  I usually boil my eggs, about three of them, in the same pot with the potatoes.  While everything's aboil, make the dressing.  Combine a cup of mayo (or a mix of mayo and sour cream, or I suppose you could use yogurt if you were so inclined) with the juice of half a lemon and a healthy shake of Old Bay -- enough to tint the mayo a pretty pale coral. [ETA: I love lemon and have a high tolerance for tart. You might want to start with less lemon juice and see how it suits you.]  Drain the pot and fish out the eggs.  While the potatoes are hot, if you are feeling decadent and are not expecting any cardiologists at your party, you can sprinkle a spoonful of bacon fat over them.  If this strikes you as repulsive or if you worry about saturated fat, skip that step and just toss them gently in the dressing while they're still warm. Finely mince a stalk of celery (for crunch) and about three green onions (for punch).  When the eggs are cool enough to handle, crumble them in along with the bacon.   Stir it all together and save some for me!

Comments

[amy]

I think the right to good potato salad was originally guaranteed just after the right to bear arms.

I have seen this somewhere, Wikipedia perhaps:
"A well regulated and well fed Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms and eat delicious Potato Salads, shall not be infringed."

That might have been an early draft, now that I think about it.

I intend to try your recipe because it sounds both delicious and patriotic. Thanks!

[Jody]

We have just embarked on our SIXTH reading of These Happy Golden Years in the past twelve months, after I insisted that we read something DIFFERENT, even if there are chapters and chapters WITHOUT Almanzo (seriously, why are my six-year old daughters so OBSESSED with this romance, anyway?), which translated into Little Town on the Prairie, with the picture of Almanzo tipping his hat to Laura outside the revival meetings bookmarked (with an oval print-out of a childrearing affirmation from Growing Up Again, of all things).

All of which is just evidence to back up my assertion that I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about the public education system back then. I mean, it appears to have been ALL memorization, really. And then there was just a review of a recent book about the role that "reciting pieces" used to have in American culture, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/books/review/Sleigh-t.html

Of course, this starts to stray very close to my low-level embarrassment that I haven't ever memorized Bible verses, and my children have only memorized a few -- and those so haphazardly, typically as part of the VBS curriculum, that they can't still remember them now.

I think there's immense value in memorization, for its own sake and to make oneself an inheritor of an oral culture, but I don't value it enough to make the effort, apparently. Hmmmm.