Pickles in tuna salad

[Dave the Cook]

What's the point here?

A sweet note amid the fishy astringency? Totally out of place. Piquancy? Use lemon juice -- or capers, if you must. But not pickles. They stand out like little sweet 'n' sour jujubes.

Here's another one: soft-shell crabs. Fingernails that taste like crab are still fingernails -- fingernails the size of a Kosher pickle.

[Varmint]

Sweet out of place? It's canned tuna, fer chrissake. My grandfather always added some type of relish to his tuna salad -- primarily for the sweet. I often do the same thing, but if I have green tomato relish, that's going in before the pickles!

[Fat Guy]

I'm still emotionally scarred on account of a childhood tuna experience. Growing up in a home where good food was always served, it was always rough for me to spend, say, a weekend at a friend's house in the country in the 1970s. Invariably the food would be horrible compared to what I was used to. But nothing could have prepared me for a particularly alarming tuna sandwich I was served one weekend: "chunk light" tuna with the nasty oil left in, most of a jar of the most distant relative of mayonnaise imaginable, m&m-sized chunks of sweet pickles, celery, carrots, tomatoes, and chopped hard-boiled eggs all in one. These people honestly believed they were brilliant for coming up with this concoction. That weekend is the last time in my life I can remember actually being hungry.

[Special Ed]

That weekend is the last time in my life I can remember actually being hungry.

[Dana]

The only way I can stomach canned tuna is if it is almost unrecognizable- i.e. covered up with a lot of other stuff. My mom used sweet pickle relish, so the pieces were pretty small, along with HB egg, some store brand of mayo or other spread, and sometimes celery. I can hardly choke down a tuna sammich ---maybe that's why????

It does help to use white albacore and not the 3 for $1 stuff. I'm sure that's all she used while we were kids.

[tommy]

what you mean by "pickles". there are hundreds of styles and types. many of which ain't too far from pickled capers. you're just pissed off.

and if you say another bad word about softshell crabs, well, i just might do something horrible.

[Jinmyo]

I'm with Dave on this.

[Adam Balic]

I can see that a sweet cured pickle may not be that nice, but a nice cornichon goes very well with tuna.

[Carlovski]

Sweet out of place?  It's canned tuna, fer chrissake.  My grandfather always added some type of relish to his tuna salad -- primarily for the sweet.  I often do the same thing, but if I have green tomato relish, that's going in before the pickles!

Give me decent canned tuna over 90% of the dodgy, overcooked 'Fresh' tuna you get served.

A decent, fresh piece of tuna steak, lightly cooked can be delicious. But keep it away from my Salad Nicoise! (Although I know people who would shoot me for liking Tuna in it at all!)

[hjshorter]

I can see that a sweet cured pickle may not be that nice, but a nice cornichon goes very well with tuna.

I love diced cornichons in tuna.

Now, hard boiled egg in tuna salad is another issue. Whose idea was that anyway?

[Adam Balic]

When we are talking about 'tuna salad' are we talking about 'high quality tuna, packed in olive oil and in large flakes in the salad' or 'vague tuna flavoured mush with mayonaise'?

[fresco]

Tuna salad at home is fine, I guess, however you want to have it, but whenever someone I know gets food poisoning after eating out, tuna salad seems to figure in it an awful lot.

[hjshorter]

When we are talking about 'tuna salad' are we talking about 'high quality tuna, packed in olive oil and in large flakes in the salad' or 'vague tuna flavoured mush with mayonaise'?

I always buy tuna packed in olive oil. Diced celery, good quality mayo, cornichons, maybe some onion, large chunks of tuna.

[coughy]

When my husband and I first moved out to suburbia from NYC we didn't know where to go first for a decent meal. I took a new route home from work one day and spotted a restaurant that had very upscale cars in the parking lot. We ventured there only to come to the conclusion that you don't necessarily have taste if you have money. It was a large restaurant that I learned was an area institution. I ordered a tuna sandwich and it was vile. It had the sweet bread and butter pickles chopped into dark tuna. Eventually we bought an upscale car but needless to say never went back to the restaurant. It has since gone out of business but every time I pass the area I get a sour taste in my mouth.

[maggiethecat]

I can see that a sweet cured pickle may not be that nice, but a nice cornichon goes very well with tuna.

I am glad to be in such august company here. I dislike most pickle products, especially pickle relish, but the addition of a small amount of finely diced cornichon is something I really like in tuna salad. If the jar of cornichons I buy approximately once every year and a half is empty, in go the capers.

(Solid white tuna, water packed.)

I have never, ever seen the point of hotdogs, and I don't care if they are Hebrew National, Nathans, or hand-cased by virgins.

[sagestrat]

I'm not sure if I'm correct about this, but I tend to see tuna with pickle relish more in the Southeast than other regions. Hard-boiled egg too. It was the tuna of my childhood, and I still make it occasionally, although I tend to be a member of the celery-red onion-caper-lemon juice tuna club now.

[Dave the Cook]

what you mean by "pickles".  there are hundreds of styles and types.  many of which ain't too far from pickled capers.  you're just pissed off.

and if you say another bad word about softshell crabs, well, i just might do something horrible. 

You're right. Capers are out, too.

I'm not really asking to be convinced pickles in tuna salad (or soft-shell crabs, tommy)are a good idea. But since no one has advanced a logical explanation, let's move on.

For instance: cold pasta salad.

And speaking of noodles, what about those clear noodles that sleep in the bottom of the vessel and make you think it's got nothing but water in it -- until you nudge the pot and it comes alive like a pool full of invisible snakes? Creeps me out.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who just plain misses the intent of certain conventions, or is stumped by the popularity of common foodstuffs. What don't you get?

[KateW]

I never put anything but mayo in my canned-white-albacore-in-oil tuna, but the only thing I use tuna for is occasionally in pasta, or a tuna melt. I'd like to be more adventurous with tuna, but I'd never put chunks of anything in it. I'd just like to play around with sauces and spices and such.

[maggiethecat]

For instance: cold pasta salad.

Now we're talkin'. My heart sinks when I see a bowl of pasta salad on a buffet, and living in the suburban midwest, I see it a lot.

Re: Artisanal weiners: PM guajolote! He has a high end source for everything!

On the subject of Not Getting it: Why lettuce and tomatoes on burgers? Yuck. Pickles, triple yuck. The flavours get lost, and they distract from the protein-fat bit of heaven that is a cheeseburger with bacon and some thinly sliced red onion.

And I don't care if the lettuce is grown organically by descendants of Luther Burbank. It's in the way.

[Varmint]

Try a fried egg on that bacon burger some time, Maggie, if you truly want to load up on the protein!

[maggiethecat]

Try a fried egg on that bacon burger some time, Maggie, if you truly want to load up on the protein!

Good God, Dean, what a fabulous idea! Is it Southern, or a product of your ever-nimble brain?

[Dave the Cook]

Try a fried egg on that bacon burger some time, Maggie, if you truly want to load up on the protein!

Good God, Dean, what a fabulous idea! Is it Southern, or a product of your ever-nimble brain?

Oh, that's Dean. Trust me.

Edit to add: this is something I do get. But I'd leave on the tomato, along with a crunchy, cool leaf of iceberg lettuce. And onion. No pickle.

Edited July 30, 2003 by Dave the Cook (log)

[KNorthrup]

I'm a huge fan of the fried egg on a bacon cheeseburger thing. Fortunately quite easy to find in the PNW.

My first thought about the pickles in the tuna is that it's for crunch, but maybe not. Thinking more about the sort made for small children, sweet seems to be the goal. Maybe as the only way to get them to try something besides pb&j. Squishy white bread is somewhat sweet. Miracle Whip is really really sweet. And even French's yellow mustard is somewhat. Just an all round sugarfest.

I do capers.

[Foam Pants]

I don't get the bread and butter / sweet pickle relish myself but I do like kosher dills with my tuna salad. I have to admit to really liking tuna salad. I make mine with some finely diced celery, onion, garlic, and parsley and add in some mayo, mustard, pepper, and dillweed. I can't take credit for this as I got the idea out of "Cook's."

I think sweet pickle relish is yucky in almost everything. I consider the pickles to go into relish to be the bad pickles they couldn't sell whole. Now, having seen some nasty ass pickles in my day, I can't imagine how bad the relish pickles had to be. I have no idea if this is true. BTW, I once got a big 'ol piece of corn cob in a jar of kosher dills. It didn't taste too bad.

[Toliver]

My first thought about the pickles in the tuna is that it's for crunch, but maybe not. Thinking more about the sort made for small children, sweet seems to be the goal. 

I think it's the opposite. My mom always used sour dill pickles in her tuna salad (and Miracle Whip...but that's a whole other story). I think you're right on track about it adding to the "crunch factor". Without the diced celery & pickle, it would be all mush and who wants that?

The dill pickle definitely adds a satisfying salty contrast to the all the sweet.

Yin and Yang in a lowly tuna salad....

As for canned tuna, I will add it to macaroni and cheese along with carmelized shallots, minced garlic, sun-dried tomatoes and a healthy dose of hot pepper flakes. And if my niece is having any, I'll omit the pepper flakes and add a can of corn (I know... a redundant starch) since she refuses to eat most vegetables and I need to sneak fiber into her food one way or another. No, it's not turned into a casserole. It goes from the stove top to the serving bowl where it's all blended together to the lunch table.

Has anyone started a "Miracle Whip - What the Heck is it?" thread before? Or perhaps a "Mayo vs. Miracle Whip" thread?