Does Popcorn Salad Deserve Our Respect?
Sometimes in the morning I wake up with a willingness to hate, and I was in that mood that morning when I saw the Molly Yeh popcorn salad video – a video that sparked a storm of angry and repulsive tweets.
As someone who has spent a lot of time in the North Mississippi, I am very familiar with this genre of salads. Covering anything – often canned or otherwise processed – with mayonnaise and calling it “salad” is perfectly acceptable in my opinion, but I’ve never heard of this particular recipe. Interestingly, none of my Midwestern colleagues or any of my Midwestern Twitter followers except one person who read about it in the Church Lady’s cookbook (the best cookbook) and another who found it in a deli drawer. in Madison, Wisconsin. (I suspect it’s hyper-regional, but it’s definitely not something that Molly Yeh came up with herself.)
Anyway, as the day went on, my hatred of “wet popcorn” subsided and I began to think that popcorn salad could be really good, so I suggested that Joel and I try it and find out for sure. I tried this bacon and cheese recipe from AllRecipes and Joel opted for the Molly Ye version.
Joel and I dined a lot, both in person and online, some of which were quite pricey and expensive, but this was by far the most amazing dish we have ever eaten together. In short, it worked much better than it was entitled to. It was a corn salad, except the corn was whipped and the kernels covered in mayonnaise were both crunchy and chewy. I was delighted. I was fascinated. I apologized.
In fact, I think we should all apologize to Molly Ye. The popcorn salad is actually good. (So good that I add it to my green salads, letting the French dip in for a more delicious toast variety, and I think you should do the same.)