Candle salad or candlestick salad is a fruit salad that was popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s, assembled to resemble a lit candle. The salad typically includes a base of lettuce and pineapple supporting an upright, cut banana, with an almond or a maraschino cherry fixed on top to resemble a flame.
Early publications of candle salad recipes appeared in the 1910s, and by the 1920s it was popularly served at holidays and among women, away from men prone to make jokes about its appearance. During the 1950s, the candle salad was associated with children and recipes were published in cookbooks written for a young audience. At this time, the salad was understood as an effective way of facilitating fruit intake with its unusual appearance and simple preparation. By the middle of the decade, segments of the population were beginning to view candle salads as old-fashioned, and over the next few years they fell from popularity. Today, its appearance is most often understood as phallic, and is most often invoked as a punchline.
Description
Candle, or candlestick salads are fruit salads assembled to resemble a lit candle. A typical preparation involves a base of a canned pineapple slice on top of a lettuce leaf. The pineapple's hole is used to support half a banana stood upright, representing the candle. Whipped cream or mayonnaise is poured over this candlestick as the melted candlewax element, the latter sometimes colored red to further the effect. At the banana's top, a "flame" is created with an almond or maraschino cherry. Some recipe writers recommend making the representation literal by setting the almond on fire. In variations, elements are substituted. For instance, a 2008 attempt at a healthy adaptation used strawberry yogurt to represent candlewax, alfalfa sprouts as a base, and fresh strawberry for a flame.[1][2][3]
History
A 1926 children's Halloween party, the table set with candle salads
The earliest mention of a candle salad identified by Lynne Olver's website The Food Timeline appeared in 1916, within a socialite menu published by an Ohio newspaper. This mention was bare, including neither description nor recipe. Through the following decade, recipes for candle salads appeared in cookbooks and newspapers,[4] and were viewed as exceptionally creative.[2] Salads at this time were perceived as unruly and in need of ordering, meaning those resembling non-salad objects were held out as an ideal.[5] Historian Elizabeth Aldrich describes this attitude as within a "movement of food as illusion" that had begun late in the previous century.[3] The dish's popularity is credited by Olver and food writer Diana Hubbell as likely the product of large corporations marketing canned pineapple onto the American public.[3][4]
Through the 1920s, candle salads were typically served at lunches held for women, to avoid the jokes men often made referencing the salad's phallic appearance,[5] and at Christmas and Halloween events. This association with holidays was highlighted by recipe writers, such as in a 1928 piece in The Philadelphia Tribune: "The old Christmas Candle Salad has been so popular for so many generations that at this time of year it is as much entitled to appear in print once more as is the story of Santa and his famous reindeer."[3][4]
In the 1950s, candle salads were understood as a way to get children to eat fruit due to their simple preparation and unusual appearance. A recipe for candle salad was published in the 1950 edition of A Child's First Cook Book by Alma Lach, one of the first cookbooks written for children, as well as in the 1957 edition of the Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls, with the description that "it's better than a real candle because you can eat it".[3] The salad was renamed "Rocket salad" in a 1960s edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook, to reference the Space Race.[6] The salads did not often appear in cookbooks for adult audiences, although a rare exception appeared as a "Christmas Candle Salad" version, which swapped a pineapple base for raspberry gelatin, molded into stars.[7] Publications at this time did not characterize the dish's appearance as phallic.[3]
Modern recreations
By the mid-1950s, candle salads were beginning to be perceived among the cultural elite as old-fashioned, even as they continued to be eaten by much of the population. A 1954 review of new cookbooks called out the dish specifically, describing them as "that bridge-club pest of yesteryear".[2] The sentiment was echoed by the chef James Beard in 1972, when he stated that in the 1950s candle salads, alongside Butterfly salads and Santa Claus salads, "prevailed at luncheons and dinner parties and were served up covered with appalling sweet dressings and decorated with maraschino cherries".[8]
In the 21st century, the candle salad became a source of humor on TV and social media for its appearance, widely perceived as phallic. Comedian Amy Sedaris made the dish for late night host Jimmy Fallon in 2012, then again in 2017 on At Home with Amy Sedaris.[9][3] Another recreation was done in a 2021 video by B. Dylan Hollis, a social media personality, in which he quipped, "No man this Valentine’s Day? No problem!"[3]
Aldrich, Elizabeth (2023). Casseroles, Can Openers, and Jell-O: American Food and the Cold War, 1947–1959. State University of New York Press. ISBN978-1-438-49306-0.
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