Christmas in the Potato Salad

Hello and welcome to a Christmas Eve Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is December 24th.

Everyone's excited today, as we work together to prepare for our Christmas feast. If you've known our family for a while, or have been a steady reader of the Wannaska Almanac, you already know that our Christmas traditions look a little bit different than those of the Wannaskan natives. The two major ones include the Christmas decorating and the dinner.

Per Czech tradition, we decorate today, on Christmas Eve. Now, I know that just the thought of decorating on the eve of Christmas is enough to put organizers and party planners into cardiac arrest, but I've gotten used to it. Today is a big blitz, bustling kind of day, filled with cheer and charge. Just now, my husband is scurrying around the kitchen vacuuming corners with his favorite handheld vacuum. Admittedly there can arise a scattered snow shower or two of shouting, but I've learned to be like Elsa and let it go. Experience has taught me that the harder I try to stick to a clock and a timeline, the later we are. However, when I succumb to the day's natural flow, all preparations come together - including the Christmas tree - and the celebration commences at about 5:00pm. I can't explain it other than to say it is the physical manifestation of the grace of God.

Also per Czech tradition, our Christmas dinner is fried fish and potato salad. While the Scandinavian countries enjoy their lutefisk, carp is the Czech fish of choice. It's been quite a few years since we've been able to find carp in Wannaska, so we go with pretty much any fish that makes a nice breaded fillet that can be fried. But the real Christmas is in the potato salad.

"My favorite part of Christmas is the potato salad," the Oldest said multiple times since she got home from college. Up until I met my husband, I had never been a fan of potato salad. The creamy consistency and the shade of yellow used to make me shudder. But in the early days of our budding romance - which happened to be just before Christmas 1998 - I was in a state of amour that would make me try anything.

My Czech sweetheart was in his second year of a study abroad program through the University of Minnesota and feeling especially homesick and nostalgic for his Czech Christmas traditions. To get just the right taste of home, he called home, got his grandmother's potato salad recipe which his parents faithfully faxed to him. (Yes, you read that right. They faxed him the recipe.)

This was a salad that had no creamy components. Instead, it had vinegar, mustard, eggs, and pickles. I loved it!

I'm sure my husband still has that fax somewhere in his memorabilia, but today I use a recipe from the Czech cookbook his grandmother gifted us on our wedding day. I don't measure exactly, but here are the ingredients. A note before you take a look, Czech cooking is largely guided by the phrase "podle chuť" which means "according to taste. So for every ingredient, mentally tack on "according to taste."

- Enough potatoes to fit my pressure cooker (Pressure cookers are another thing I learned how to use from my Czech in-laws.) 

- 8 or so hardboiled eggs

- 1 onion diced

- pickles finely chopped (Are you hearing that "according to taste" in your head after each ingredient yet?)

- Marjoram generously sprinkled on the potatoes after they've been peeled and diced. (I use a potato ricer) My cookbook says parsley, but my mother-in-law uses marjoram, so....

- A "cup" of water (I have Czech mugs like my MIL has that I use for this. It's bigger than a teacup, more like a large coffee mug, but not like those crazy coffee cups that are soup bowl size.)

- To the water, I add: 4 large spoons of vinegar, 1 large spoon of olive or vegetable oil, 1 large spoon of sugar, and stir, stir, stir then pour onto the salad.

- Mustard

- Salt

- Pepper

- Pickle juice (as needed)

And if you're wondering how much - always refer back to "according to taste." This is actually really important because after we slap all the ingredients together and mix the salad, we continue to doctor it until it tastes just right - "according to taste."

Dobrou chuť!