"Chicken" Salad

Long after the special dishes and tablecloth were put away, a carcass with a lot of turkey remained.  My favorite use of these leftovers has always been turkey stew, but turkey salad is a close second!  This recipe comes from Granny, who always called it chicken salad - except when she made it with turkey.  However, even then, she would say, "I'm using that chicken salad recipe to make my salad."  I once asked Mom whether chicken salad had ever been made and she assured me that she often had chicken salad for lunch while growing up.  While in college, I made it with a can of chicken that I had laying about.  (The Miracle Whip should be significantly reduced when using canned poultry.)  Granny's chickens were snatched right off of the roost!

I likely wrote this recipe down when I was in college and in the possession of canned chicken.

Turkey salad was always made a few days after Thanksgiving (or Christmas.)  My first real memory of it being made was when Sandy and I were fairly small.  Max, my grandmother's German Shepard was scrunched beneath the kitchen table in the house on Cherry Street in Middlesboro.  To mince the meat, Mom and Granny used a pewter-colored, hand-cranked grinder.   The old refrigerator, which is in my basement and still runs, has "zones."  One of these undocumented zones will allow meat to almost freeze.  Chunks of turkey were placed in these zones and then were ground.  In retrospect, I think the meat may have been easier to grind that way.

My little Cuisinart makes short work of this job!

Granny would feed the grinder while Mom cranked.  Sandy sat with Granny's big blue bowl on her lap catching ground turkey.  Her feet may have been holding Max at bay.  (Max was the most awesome dog.  He was one of Sheena's puppies, stole toys from kids in the neighborhood, and adored Fig Newton cookies.)  In hindsight, I'm not sure why we did not put him on the back porch.  Evenings were Max's time to visit in the kitchen, so perhaps that is why. Needless to say, the floor was spotless around the grinder.

Only green olives and sweet gherkins (midgets were preferred.)

 I remember peeling eggs.  I also remember Mom chopping eggs, celery, pickles and olives super finely too.  I don't remember them being ground up, but they may have been!  I'm really lazy and I have a Cuisinart so I chop mine finely there!
 

Turkey, eggs, celery, olives, and sweet pickle.

Though I am certain that real mayonnaise was used when I was growing up, I don't remember any recipe that required anything but Miracle Whip.  I'll even admit that I did not realize they were different products until I was nearly grown and made something that required real mayonnaise, and I was sad to discover the two items are not interchangeable.

Add Miracle Whip a bit at a time.

Add a bit of salt and some Miracle Whip.  Then mix.

Now, I do enjoy my kitchen gadgets and toys.  However, when it comes to mixing, nothing beats clean hands!  A food processor will turn this into turkey glue.

Use your hands!  Seriously!

The turkey salad will absorb some of the Miracle Whip, but more is easier to add than it is to take it back out.  Once everything is well-mixed, put it in a covered bowl and let it rest for a few hours.

Resting in the bowl.

Sometimes, it would be molded by the bowl and served with Keebler Club Original Crackers.  Other times, we would have it on toast with tomatoes, etc.  In either case, it is just plain yummy.  (There are some rebels among us who like this on Ritz crackers, but I've always believed that nothing tastes better when sitting on a Ritz.  Nothing.)