Editors’s Note: The Weird and the Wonderful

While I have too many holiday favorites to fit within the small space of this column, there is one — and it’s a bit of an outlier — that I’d like to share. In our family, the top requested dish is called, innocuously, marshmallow stuff. It’s not groundbreaking and the dish goes by a variety of names ranging from pineapple marshmallow salad, pineapple fluff to marshmallow fruit salad.

Some versions are made with Jell-O, maraschino cherries, mandarin oranges, shredded coconut, macadamia nuts, cottage cheese or whipped cream. One person wrote on Reddit, asking about “this kind of gross American (possibly Southern?) white mush.”  Sir, I take offense. There’s nothing gross about marshmallow stuff and even the most skeptical come to the fluffy side after they’ve tasted it.

Here it is. Feel free to add it to your recipe book. A bag of mini marshmallows, a can of crushed pineapple (strained of juice), a cup of toasted pecans, broken up (to be added the next day), and as much sour cream as needed to make the whole thing nice and creamy. Usually that’s about two pints of sour cream. Now here’s the secret. You’ve got to put that marshmallow mixture into the fridge overnight for the marshmallows to melt into a glorious gloppy mess. If you serve it right away, it will be a weird, disjointed dish. When you take the marshmallow stuff out the next day, add the pecans so they’re still crunchy when served. It’s not as good if you skip the late-added pecans, and I’ll be honest, there would be some cranky people at my holiday table if I did.

Admittedly, it’s not the most attractive dish you’ve ever seen, but there’s something about the tang of the pineapple, the sweet of the marshmallow, the sour of the cream and the crunch of the pecans that makes it perfect. I have mine with my meal. That and the cranberries are the two sweet spots on a plate otherwise brimming with savory goodness. My dad had it as a palate cleanser. After dinner but before desert, he’d get a bowl and a spoon, serve himself a hefty portion of marshmallow stuff and eat it slowly, savoring each bite, never failing to say how much he loved it year after year.

If I ever mention that I might bring some other dish, my family is up in arms. It’s tradition! And it’s delicious. Marshmallow stuff has gone from  a Thanksgiving dish to showing up on the Christmas menu as well. But those are the only times of the year we have it, so it’s extra special.

What’s your family’s favorite, possibly weird, holiday dish?

Reine Dugas
Editor
Reine@Louisianalife.com