The Arrival of Potato Salad in Australia in the 1950s
[Roman Krznaric talking by phone to his father, noted potato salad expert Peter Krznaric, across the Atlantic Ocean, and possibly several other oceans. 3 August 2001. See also Krznaric's banned masterpiece South American Designer Potatoes.]
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R: Now I've got something serious to ask you.
P: Yes, go on.
R: I'm thinking of giving a talk to some friends about potato salad.
P: Oh god! How serious is that? [laughs]
R: So I need to ask you some questions about potato salad.
P: You absolutely may do so.
R: OK, now the first question is this: When did you first make potato salad yourself?
P: [Pause] I suppose in '54, '55 I suppose. Round about there, when Dad came over. See, when I was on my own I used to live at the hospital [fades]...Dad arrived in April '55 or May or something like that and that's when I started making it.
R: And how, how did you know how to make it?
P: Well, I think, I think Dad knew how, he'd remembered some of the stuff and we, I suppose, we looked up some sort of recipe, which included incidentally, originally, we used to make it with apple, you know -- half an apple. Or put a bit of kielbasa in it, or put a bit of herring in it.
R: Really? [incredulity]
P: Yeah.
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R: I never knew about the herring or kielbasa.
P: Yes, we used to do it, but then you have to eat it the same day. You can only make enough for one sitting type sort of thing. Now you can put a little bit of herring in it, or you can put in a bit of kielbasa, you know the typical stuff with garlic -- garlic kielbasa, you know, to cut just a little bit, not very much, just a wee bit.
R: And then how did it develop, your potato salad?
P: Then, as you grew, your taste was changing and it became...you had different potato salads from different people. And I seem to recall when we used to go to Sima [...] she used to make those terrible things with lots and lots of mayonnaise and lots and lots of eggs. But we always had cucumber and potato...sometimes you used to put in onion as well, you know, the red onion. You see, when you put those sort of things in they don't keep, you can't keep it. If you put onion in it you have to eat it immediately. So it's better just to have cucumber, egg, potato, and, and a little bit of apple.
R: And what are the tricks to dealing with the potatoes?
P: Not to overcook them, I suppose that's the most important thing, and normally you'd have potatoes that are coming out of the jacket, not peeled potatoes [...] I used to put red capsicum in there to make it look nice [...] and make your own mayonnaise -- which is most probably better than the stuff you can buy anyway [...]
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