Snot very appealing

Apparently, my reading public is not completely satisfied with the caliber of Horrifying Foodstuffs I'm dishing up. According to them, merely being Inedible or Unappetizing isn't enough to warrant a recipe's inclusion in the HF canon.

Well, for these nose I mean nit pickers, I am pleased and proud to offer a dish I found skulking around the creepy dark "Salads" section of the Charleston Receipts Repeats cookbook. It just goes to show you that the right kind of Junior League cookbook is an equal opportunity offender, happily shoe-horning the Truly Revolting in with the Merely Inedible.

I am therefore pleased and proud to present Mrs. Edward J. Reynolds (May Robertson)'s infamous

Pistachio Salad

• Easy • Prepare Ahead • Serves: 8 to 12 • Chill: 4 hours

1 (3 1/2 ounce) box pistachio pudding and pie mix
1 (12 ounce) small curd cottage cheese
1 (15 1/4 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges
1 (16 ounce) carton whipped topping (cool whip) [sic]

• Combine pudding mix with cottage cheese.
• Drain pineapple and oranges and add to mixture.
• Fold in whipped topping.
• Refrigerate for four hours or overnight.

* Can be used as dessert.

It's breathtaking, isn't it? Judging merely from its ratio of fresh and unprocessed to canned and boxed ingredients, this concoction exemplifies Horrifying Foodstuffs. That the recipe includes a carton of Cool Whip™ is merely--you should excuse the expression--the icing on the cake.

But wait; there's more! Not only are the ingredients rather vague (we don't know whether Mrs. Reynolds wants us to buy a box of instant or cook 'n' serve pudding, so we are left wondering whether we might buy the wrong kind, and the salad won't come out right) but the name of the recipe is so wonderfully misleading. I mean, with a name like "Pistachio Salad," one would expect to find a pistachio or two on board, right?

But no--there is nary a nut to be found. The putative pistachio pudding preparation's purpose is apparently to lend the crucial thick green opacity to a recipe which is obviously meant to resemble nothing other than alien boogers.

--P