I was intrigued by a hundred-year-old recipe for Banana and Nut Salad, so decided to give it a try. This recipe was quick and easy to make. Just quarter a banana and roll in finely chopped nuts. The old recipe said to serve on a lettuce leaf and garnish with mayonnaise.
The Banana and Nut Salad was lovely, but I’d definitely skip the mayonnaise if I made this recipe again.
Here’s the original recipe:
When I was cutting the bananas lengthwise, I accidently broke one of the banana halves into two – but I was pleasantly surprised how much better the presentation looked with the broken banana half, than with the whole half. So I adapted the recipe to indicate that the banana should be quartered.
I put mayonnaise on the Banana and Nut Salad. I didn’t try boiled dressing, and I didn’t try mixing whipped cream with mayonnaise. It seemed like mixing whipped cream and mayonnaise could potentially ruin some perfectly good whipped cream. However, just using whipped cream with no mayonnaise might be a nice addition.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Banana and Nut Salad
3 bananas
1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (I used pecans.)
lettuce, optional
1/2 cup mayonnaise, optional
Peel bananas and cut each into two lengthwise, then cut each piece again to quarter. Roll each piece in the finely chopped nuts. If desired, place on lettuce leaves and garnish with mayonnaise.
Different..I love all the ingredients..together not sure 🙂
The bananas and nuts work well together. If you like them each separately, I think that you’d like this. I recommend skipping the mayonnaise.
Thank you for the recommendation 😊
Hehe! They had a fascination with mayo! I’d skip that too!
I don’t get the fascination with mayonnaise back then.
Hmm, was this from the Hellman’s Mayonnaise Cookbook?
🙂 No, this was from The New Butterick Cook Book. I think of Butterick more as a sewing pattern company, but they also published a cookbook a hundred years ago. Now that you mention it, I wonder if Hellman’s Mayonnaise existed in 1924 (and if so, whether they had a promotional cookbook).
It would be good to research!
Somewhere, I have a little Crisco cookbook and some of the recipes are revolting: “Spread a layer of Crisco on rye bread and top with thinly sliced radishes…”
Yuck! Many old-time foods are very tasty, but there definitely are exceptions.
🥹
I think they could have skipped the lettuce, put the bananas and nuts on a bed of ice cream and then added whipped cream! It is interesting that recipes put all manner of fruit or vegetables on a lettuce leaf and called it a salad.
Works for me – what you’re describing sounds like a banana split, which I have childhood memories of eating. It was delicious.
Lettuce was incredibly popular back then as the backdrop for salads – and I think that method of presentation continued at least through the 1970’s. I recently was looking at a 1970’s cookbook published by Betty Crocker that had an entire page of color photos of different salads – but every single one was on a lettuce leaf.
What a blast from the past!
The East Side Student Prince restaurant in Macomb, Illinois offered this dish as a salad as part of a meal. It was a small individual serving – sliced bananas on a lettuce leaf, a small dollop of mayo (tasted like Miracle Whip) with finely chopped peanuts atop. My brothers and sister enjoyed this “salad” growing up in the 1960’s.
We always giggled that this was a salad but it was tasty and light.
Wow, it’s amazing that this was served at a restaurant in the 1960’s. It fun to hear how you and your siblings enjoyed it (and giggled that it was a salad). Thanks for sharing.
reminds me of my favourite, a banana sandwich: I slice bananas lengthways and put them between toasted bread with mayo and pecans. Best sandwich ever.
I never would have thought to make a banana sandwich. I may have to give it a try.
My mother often served banana quarters with a bit of mayonnaise spread on them, topped with peanuts. It’s my observation that Southerners love mayo much more than Northerners.
I never thought about it until I read your comment, but you may be right that there is regional variation is how much mayo is used.
On Long Island people almost invariably put butter on a sandwich. I grew up in TN, and the first choice was mayonnaise.
When I was a child in Pennsylvania, we always put butter (well, actually we used margarine) on sandwiches. Today, I generally don’t use either butter or mayonnaise on sandwiches.
I can’t imagine making this myself, but wonder if the young women in the edelweiss club in 1919 might have served it at their meeting as one of the delicious refreshments.
It’s fun to imagine club members a hundred years ago nibbling on Banana and Nut Salad – beautifully presented on a lettuce leaf, of course. 🙂
My mother and grandmother used to make something similar, it was bananas and walnut pieces together on bib lettuce, but they drizzled a honey poppy seed type dressing on it, no mayo. It was very good and a light addition to a meal on a hot day.
mmm. . . this sounds really good.