There's this recipe I've typed and reprinted, that everytime I do, I feel a twinge of guilt. The recipe existed before Christian and I married. It was written in my husband's elongated up and down cursive on a sheet of paper yellowed with oil stains. It felt more like a piece of fabric by the time I transcribed it in Word under the title "Chinese Salad".
The salad is made with a bag of cabbage slaw, Chow Mein noodles, and uncooked Ichiban noodles, as well as toasted almonds and sunflower seeds and sliced green onions. The dressing is made with the flavour packet from the Ichiban noodles, and even though I've disdained its mostly pre-fab ingredients, it's hard to dislike the salad once you've tasted it. Again and again, when Christian is tasked with bringing a dish to a staff potluck, he'll double the recipe, and come home with an empty serving bowl.
The recipe comes from his mother, a woman who consistently entertained family and friends in her Aubigny home on the prairies. She and her sisters and her mother were this jolly set of women who loved thrilling their supper guests with quantity: heaps of silky-soft mashed potatoes, two kinds of meat, piles of carrots diced with a zig zag knife and fat slices of fresh white bread. You could almost count on Chinese Salad.
I don't know where this recipe was picked up from. Most likely it got passed along in the community like an exotic but not too difficult thing that had a reliably good flavour, salt and umami, and a perfect blend of crunchy texture. It's name is so solidly affixed that it goes untranslated in French, where it stays "La Chinese Salad".
I haven't had the heart to replace the recipe. Something else would be more complicated, and then, what would my husband bring to potlucks? Changing its name would upend a point of reference in the family and draw attention to what? An unnecessary distinction? A personal feeling of scrupulousness? So, I keep this recipe and reprint it as needs be, because, as a Google search reveals with 663 million results, the misnommer is harmless.