Maw-Maw didn’t believe in recipes, and I don’t either. This is suggestive only. You’ll just have to experiment.
Or you could, like my bitch of a sister-in-law, fuck it up the same way every time.
Sorry.
I start with red potatoes, quartered. Maw-Maw used russets, and no offense to her, but I find the skins grainy once they’ve been boiled. So if you’re a purist like my aunt Lois, use russets, and if you don’t have Philistinic taste-buds, use red potatoes.
I use about five pounds.
Maw-maw used one large white onion, diced fine. I use one large red onion, diced medium. My great aunt Phyllis thinks onions cause lascivious thoughts and so doesn’t use any “love apples” in her potato salad. She wasn’t ever the same, though, after her intended moved away in the middle of the night back in 1956. Red onion, I find, lends a more complex flavor to the potato mix.
Mayonnaise, then mustard. Store brand is fine. Don’t let my goddamned cousin Debbie tell you any different.
Sweet relish. I can’t emphasize this enough. My mother and Maw-Maw didn’t talk for two years after a Fourth of July where my mother decided that dill relish would be okay. She was wrong, of course.
Of course.
Garlic salt to taste, unless you don’t like garlic and/or salt. I don’t know what you’d be doing making potato salad if you don’t like garlic and/or salt, but I couldn’t ever figure out my aunt Lainey either.
I don’t think this last part killed my Maw-Maw, but I’ll always wonder. She said that potato salad was an art, not a science, and that improvisation was an integral part of the magic. But god help her, she had this thing about Asians–be they Chinese, Japanese, Pakistani or Indian–and the dash of curry powder I began putting in a few years back couldn’t have helped.
Allow to cool for two hours before serving.
