Within the unofficial salad circle that holds rural Minnesota together

When my grandmother died on the incredibly cold winter morning, my family was shocked and with a broken heart. The following week we gathered in her small hometown in Wisconsin for the funeral, in which your community greeted us with open arms.

After the service we submitted for lunch in the basement. And even though I had never entered a foothold in this building, I had been to do so Funeral Potluck Hundred times.

Hot ham rolls in foil pans. Churches weave black coffee made of silver urns between rows of folding tables and watering. Conversation among fluorescent lights buzzes.

The best known of all? The salads. Velvet potato salad, Tricolor Rotini with black olives and cheddar cubes, Jell-O set with whipped cream and pineapple in canned goods, most of them when I reached the lower step.

In the middle west, salads are not salads in any traditional sense. You are creamy. Sharp. Sometimes cute, sometimes hearty. Some are fruit strikers, others Mayo-based. They are always served with a spoon.

You will find them wherever people gather: after a funeral or on Sunday service, at confirmation meals and family celebrations and after long days on the farm on picnic ceilings. Homemade and without fanfare, they do not ask for attention.

You just say: “This is important. I’m here.”

A few years after the funeral of my grandmother, I was faced with the threat to my own. At 33, a cervical cancer diagnosis brought my world to a standstill. I pulled back home in the rural Minnesota and exchanged my well -slandered life plans against sleepless nights in my mother’s guest room and fought the urge to do Doomscroll on Webmd.

These first weeks were a blurring of visits to the doctor, scans and agonizing decisions. The time was strangely bent – minute stagged, and disappeared during days. I was paralyzed by medical overwhelming, not sure how to ask for help or even what to ask.

But I didn’t have to.

A trip quickly becomes a trip in small cities and the food train filled overnight.

After every chemo radiation treatment I came home to eat and waited like a prayer on the doorstep: Toter TotdishMacaronis salad, fresh bread, homemade soup.

I was fed. I was maintained.

It felt strange to thank so much grief. I was stunned at how quickly the care came, how constant it felt. But if I look back, I shouldn’t have been. I knew this social contract all my life.

Some of my earliest memories can be sheared on my family farm. As the smallest helper, I would be thrown into an eight foot high sack. Then came the wool: itchy, oily armful, which rose like snow on me. I would jump and stamp flat until the stack was high enough to swing a leg and climb out.

When the bags were packed and the herds were free, we broke for lunch. While my aunts pulled tupperware out of the cool, dark tack shed, we ran children to swing. We would dare each other, in the icy, feather-fed pond fallen-to-someone called: “Time to eat!”

Under the pavilion, the outlet rarely changed: cold lunch with meat meat, pop cooler and a few glittering shells with the middle west. “Salad”. Biscuit salad With green apples and cool whip. Small pasta with celery crunch. Our reward for appearing and switching on.

We weren’t the first family to gather in the sun, tired of work and grateful for the spread. These picnic from the pond followed a pattern that was etched deep in the bottom of the middle west.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s waves of waves German And Scandinavian Immigrants settled in the region. My own great-grandfather Johannes, a German immigrant, went from Texas to Minnesota-after land grants, family relationships and the promise of opportunities.

Many arrived with little. The country was fertile, but building a life, took help. Communities formed joint work. The neighbors raised barns and cared for fields. Churches became hubs for social connection.

What they cooked was shaped by the place where they came from. Germans brought vinegar, community courts. Scandinavian, a love for gelatin and cream. Over time, these traditions have been adapted to the priorities of rural life: meals that were affordable, scalable, shelf stability and sharing.

When the generations started, the food changed again and again. Cooling was common. Mayo was produced in mass production. Immediate jell-o enabled new culinary creativity. But the instinct to feed many was passed on like an inheritance.

When I freaked out by the handwritten recipe books of my grandmother from the 1960s, I first met the strange ingredients that they suspended in jell-o: Shooted carrots, diced cucumber and even cooked eggs.

Next I met the serving sizes. Never four or six – again and again Feed 18, feed 24. Data points in Tidy Cursive, a culture of care that was threaded over time.

Similar to the people who make a community, no two salads in the middle west are the same. Some are thrown together by Pantry booklings to help. Others have been clever for decades, like my aunt’s famous ram salad, which I shared below. Some shift with the seasons, a somewhat different dish for every potluck.

The most valued recipes are preserved and divided from one kitchen to the next and have the impression of a person: Who they were, what they brought with them, how they loved.

After her dear friend Harriet died, another aunt was asked to continue her signed funeral salad (recipe below). In a ceremonial death of the staff, she received original recipe card and eight boxes Lime Jell-O.

She still uses tradition today. The shells are still coming back empty.

This spring, one year after my first “All Clear”, it was my turn to appear.

With our annual cleaning of Farm, my family released the property. The adults pulled weeds, circumcised trees and repaired the shaky steps next to the Tack shed. My niece joined the street team and collected garbage, a tradition that was as old as the farm. In the pond, the smallest helpers screamed in oversized Waders and raised cold fountain cress.

When the work subsided, a picnic appeared under the freshly painted pavilion. Cold lunch meat sandwiches. Cooler from pop. And next to them a few glittering shells made of creative salad – exactly as always.

I stepped back and smiled and took it with new eyes. From the distant bank of my emergency season, this ordinary tradition revealed a sacred truth: they are never alone here.

There will always be grandchildren that stack the hay bales. Church shops clarify empty plates. Tupperware was quiet on her doorstep when you need it.

Behind me the children came to the pond bench, dripping, breathless and proud.

It was time to eat.

Aunt Kathy’s famous ram salad

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients

• 1 medium to large cabbage head, chopped
• 8 tablespoons of chopped green onion
• 8 tablespoons of sunflower seeds
• 8 tablespoons of slivuted almonds
• 1 package ramen -pasta, crumbled (throw away the spice package)
• Optional: 1 cube red pepper

Dressing:

• 4 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 cup of vegetable oil
• 6 tablespoons of vinegar (white or cider)

Directions

1. In a small pan, slightly roasted sunflower seeds and almonds in a little oil, stir in constantly – you carefully push yourself easily.
2. Combine all dressing ingredients in a glass or bowl and shake or whisk it until you are well mixed.
3. Throw down cabbage, green onions and optional red pepper in a large bowl.
4. Shortly before serving, add roasted nuts, crumbled ramen noodles and dress up. Throw well to coat.
5. Aunt Kathy’s advice? Double the recipe for residues (it is expected!)

Harriet’s funeral salad

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients

• 1 (20 ounces) can Caned pineapple, let off
• 1 (3.4 ounces) package gelatine mixture with lime taste (such as jell-o)
• 1 (16 ounce) Carton Cottage cheese
• 1 (8 ounce) cardboard frozen whip (like cool whip), thawed
  

Directions

1. Combine the drained pineapple and the dry Jell-O mix in a medium-sized bowl.
2. Stir in the cottage cheese until it is well combined.
3. Fold the cool whip until it is mixed evenly.
4. Cool until they are defined. Serve cold.

Grandma, you are Rubin party salad

Serves 18 to 24

Ingredients

• 1 (6 ounce) package gelatine mix (such as jell-o) package with cherry taste.
• 2 cups of boiling water boils
  1 (21 ounce) can fill cherry cake
• 1 (21 ounces) can Caned pineapple, drained
• 1 (15 ounces) can be drained green grapes (reserve fluid)
• 2 bananas, cut

Topping:

• Reserved grape fluid + water up to 1 cup of
• 1 egg yolk
• 3 tablespoons of flour
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of whipped cream
• Cut roasted almonds (for garnish)

Directions

1. Dissolve Cherry Jell-O in boiling water in a large bowl.
2. Stir in the cherry cake filling, crushed pineapple and drained green grapes.
3. Let the mixture cool slightly and then stir in cut bananas. Refrigerator until they are set.
4. Make topping: mix the reserved grape juice and water to create 1 cup of total fluid.
5. Whisk in a small saucepan with egg yolk, flour and sugar.
6. Let it boil with constant heat with constant stirring until they are thickened. Complete completely.
7. Fold the chilled mixture in 2 cups of whipped cream.
8. Cool over chilled salad and sprinkle with roasted almonds.