Watergate Salad

  

Immediate Tangent Alert

Oh sheesh, this is an oldy but goody. Watergate salad became all the rage back in the 1970’s following the Richard Nixon “Watergate” scandal. People would snicker and wink whenever they served this salad, “It’s Watergate salad,” they’d say knowingly. For years following Watergate the word ‘gate’ was attached to anything politically scandalous.

I think that little play on words ended about the time a certain someone wearing a particular blue dress hid beneath the presidential desk. We probably had to stop using the suffix ‘gate’ because it wouldn’t have made sense to say something like “blue dressgate” or “Oval Office deskgate”. We definitely couldn’t call it “Billgate” because we already had one of those except that he was Bill Gates with an “s”. And despite the fact that he started out with a bad reputation for working his employees to death and gobbling up the computer industry and seemingly being the megalomaniac of all geekdom, he has ended up being a rather excellent human being…gives staggering amounts of money away. And think about it – where would we be without Windows? Seriously.

Did I just go off on a political tangent? It’s 1:00 in the morning and my mind is so brilliantly clear at this time of the morning. All of my loose screws stop rattling around in my brain and everything settles down into a general state of sublime harmony with the universe as I know it.

About Watergate Salad.

According to the Kraft company, Watergate Salad was originally known as “Pistachio Pineapple Delight”. Why did everything from the 1970’s end with the word delight? Chocolate Delight, Afternoon Delight, something else delight that I can’t remember…

No matter the correct name, this salad showed up at all kinds of special dinners back then; the perfect counter point to the general savoriness of most meals. It is a delicious and probably ought to be considered more of a dessert than a salad. Maybe it is called a salad because it’s green.

I don’t know. I mean, let’s do a quick review of the ingredients and you raise your hand when you think I list something that is not found in a dessert. Ready?  pudding………..marshmallows………crushed pineapple……….pecans……….Cool Whip. (FYI–if you counted the dots and it is driving you crazy that I have a random number of dots between each word, then you may want to see a doctor about that little problem. Just saying.)

Okay, so have you decided whether this is a dessert or a salad? I’ll make it easy on you; since we know that Watergate has become synonymous with prevarication, this is definitely a salad. But, you can decide for yourself.

Print Recipe

Watergate Salad

This is it - the vintage recipe from the 1970's. According to the Kraft company, Watergate Salad was originally known as "Pistachio Pineapple Delight".

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Refrigerate1 hour hr

Total Time1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Servings: 8

Author: Terri @ that's some good cookin'

Ingredients

• 1 (3.4 ounce) box instant pistachio pudding
• 1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, with juice (do NOT drain)
• 1 cup miniature marshmallows
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 1/2 cups thawed non-dairy whipped topping, such as Cool Whip

Instructions

• Mix together the pistachio pudding mix, crushed pineapple with juice, marshmallows, and pecans (if using).
• Stir in the non-dairy whipped topping. Cover and chill for 1 or more hours.

Notes

Recipe as found at Kraft Recipes

This was the photo originally attached to this post in December 2011. Things change :).

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