"OMA" |
OMA’S GERMAN POTATO SALAD
I’ve read lots of recipes for German Potato Salad but none have matched this one
for simplicity, low fat, and taste. It came from Richard’s Oma (grandmother) who
probably got it from her mother etc. Oma was born in Germany in the late 1800s. The recipe
was given to me by Richard’s mother, Esther.
The funny thing was, however, that Esther had improvised through the years so when she
passed along the recipe to Richard’s sister Karen, his brother Bob, and myself, it
was slightly different for each. We discovered this on a family vacation. Whenever we are
all together someone must make German potato salad. Here’s the discovery: Bob had
bought cider vinegar for the dish, although he never uses cider vinegar for anything else;
Karen bought red wine vinegar for her potato salad, even though she doesn’t use it
for anything else; I went out to the store specifically to get white vinegar for the
salad, even though I don’t use it for anything else! When we all started talking
about making German potato salad from Oma’s recipe we realized we all had a very
specific vinegar we were convinced was correct since we had each gotten the recipe from
Esther. We then realized that we couldn’t all be right so we approached Esther. Now
she wasn’t sure anymore but said she would check with Aunt Maria, Oma’s
surviving 93 year old sister. It turned out that Bob had the right vinegar, cider vinegar.
The rest of us were operating on less than accurate information. As Esther improvised
through the years using whatever vinegar she had, whoever asked for the recipe at a
particular time got the vinegar version of the moment. |
