Ode to Ambrosia, a Salad Made With a Steep Whisk

My now ex-husband met his first ragweed salad at a buffet in Aberdeen, Mississippi after Sunday school at my grandparents church. He grew up in Virginia and Florida, two states that can be – but not always – the southern capital. His father lived near Washington, and his mother, who converted to Judaism when he was an infant, was from Pennsylvania, which meant that the intricacies of the post-church buffets were alien to him. “Shouldn’t that be with desserts?” he asked, pointing to a table with individual bowls of chocolate pie and bowls of waffle-topped banana pudding. “No,” I said, perfectly aware of the ever-growing line behind us. “Okay. Take some and keep moving.” He took none.

As a child, we never called it “ambrosia.” We called it “salad,” or, to be more precise, “cherry salad,” because my grandmother made her own with canned cherry pie filling. It was sweet and fluffy and full of fruit, but it was n’t dessert. We ate it with the rest of the savory food, a pale pink pile of fluff next to buttered beans and ham (or turkey).

Of all the different foods my people call “salads,” I find fluffy versus gelatinized the best. I ate ragweed (or ragweed-like “salad”) at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and at various buffets after Sunday school. I like it. I had a lot of texture issues as a kid and couldn’t stomach anything gelatinized, so whipped toppings based salads were often the only ones I could eat at church dinners and the like. I once tried to expand and try the ” pear salad “, but the canned pear mayonnaise was too much even for me.

Ambrosia means “food of the gods” and was originally a simple fruit dish. According to Serious Eats , the first version of the salad (published in a cookbook in 1867) contained nothing but “crushed oranges,” fresh grated coconut, and sugar, stacked together and topped off with a final layer of coconut. This original made a long journey over the next century and a half. Oranges and coconuts have become more readily available to people across the country, allowing home chefs and pastry chefs to contribute. Commercially available marshmallow fluff has been a game changer, although nowadays its individual mini marshmallows with spikes and whipped filling are much more common.

The version my family cooks and eats today has nothing to do with its three-piece ancestor, so we never call it “ambrosia.” It has just four ingredients: cherry pie filling, Eagle condensed milk, minced pineapple and a can of Cool Whip. It’s not dainty, but it tastes good. It’s sweet, spicy, and fluffy, and it could be argued that it serves the same function as cranberry sauce (although it doesn’t cleanse the flavor as well). It doesn’t do anything to get rid of the fat of a holiday dinner, but it does offer a sweet, sweet counterpoint to all salt.

The best way to enjoy a cherry salad, or ragweed, or one of the Jell-O-based ragweed cousins, is to stop trying to make sense of it. Cherry salad is joy, sweetness and overkill. There is an unlawful excitement about eating something that, by any standard, should count as dessert along with the rest of your savory meal. But even more excitement is to submit it (without comment or explanation) to someone who is not from the South. Then they have a choice: they can add joy to their life, or keep their plate 100% spicy and miss out on something special, as my ex-husband did almost 15 years ago.

I have two recipes to try. One is my grandmother’s cherry salad, which she handwritten and typed in a spiral bound cookbook that she gave to all her grandchildren for Christmas a few years before her passing. The other is the more traditional ragweed by Vaughn Stafford Gray , which we posted over the summer as part of our no-cook dessert review , although I’ve never eaten ragweed or any of its analogs as a dessert.

You are invited and encouraged to customize both, as their loose, cloudy nature means you don’t have to worry about causing any structural damage. Put the pecans and coconut halves in (and on top of) your cherry salad, use canned pineapple in your ragweed if you don’t feel like chopping, and feel free to add or subtract fruits, nuts, and mini marshmallows as you see fit. Without the riffs, Ambrosia wouldn’t be what it is today, although the original sounds good.

Granny Jewel’s cherry salad

Ingredients:

• 1 21 oz can of cherry pie filling
• 1 can of 14 oz condensed milk
• 1 8-ounce can of minced pineapple
• 1 16 oz can of Cool Whip (or 16 oz whipped cream)

Combine the pie filling, condensed milk, and pineapple (with its juice) in a large bowl. Add Cool Whip or whipped cream, then cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for at least an hour before serving.

Tropical ragweed Vaughn

Ingredients:

• 2 cups coconut flakes, divided into 1½ and 1/2 cup servings
• 2 cups ½-inch pineapple chunks
• 2 cups chopped strawberries
• 2 cups ½-inch apricot pieces
• 2 cups ½ inch thick kiwi, peeled
• 2 cups 1/2 ” diameter peeled mango pieces
• 1 15-ounce can dried mandarin slices (approximately 2 cups)
• Zest of one lemon
• 2 tablespoons Malibu rum
• 1½ cups heavy cream (for vegan version, use coconut whipping cream)
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon chopped ginger
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• A pinch of salt (trust me)
• 2 cups mini marshmallow (for vegan version, use gelatin-free marshmallow)

Toast ½ cup shredded coconut in a skillet over medium heat. Set aside to cool.

Wash fresh fruit, peel if necessary, chop and place in a large bowl. Add drained tangerine wedges, lemon zest and Malibu rum. Drop it and set it aside.

Using a stand or hand mixer, beat the cream for about three minutes, until a foamy consistency is achieved. Then add ground ginger, sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt and continue whisking until stiff peaks form (another two to three minutes). Don’t stir too much.

Place the fruit, whipped cream, and marshmallow in a large bowl and stir gently until the fruit is covered in the whipped cream mixture.

Place it in the refrigerator to cool before serving.