What is it About Pasta Salad?

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
1

Almost without fail, pasta salad has a flavor to me which is unpleasant. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. Acrid might be too strong a term. Astringent isn’t quite right either, but there seems to be a bitterness, and this is in almost every pasta salad I have ever had, regardless of style. Whether it is an Italian dressing based salad, or a creamy or mayonnaise based one, they almost all seem to have it. Is it just me, or does anyone else experience this? I’m not even sure if there is one ingredient in particular that causes this or not, because they can be very different. Maybe there is some strange chemical reaction between an ingredient found in most of these?

2

It’s something they put into commercial salad dressings and that finds its way into the potato and macaroni salad you buy in the 5-pound cartons, too. I don’t know if it’s sugar or way too much apple cider vinegar, but it’s somewhat reminiscent to me of that shitty taste we associate with Miracle Whip. Aside from Best Foods mayo, I never buy anything that is called or resembles salad dressing if it comes in a bottle or jar, and this is why.

Make your own and see if you like it better - though it’s best to take note that pasta salad is SO very 25 years ago. [snort.gif]

3

You’re weird, Linda. [tease.gif] Pasta salad rules!!

… my love for lima beans and raw broccoli makes me weird.[pwn.gif]

4

I don’t know if it’s sugar or way too much apple cider vinegar

yes. vinegar is the offensive portion of that crap.

5

I always buy pasta salad from new (to me) grocers and delis, yet always end up disappointed. It’s so simple and tasty when homemade, why the bar isn’t set higher, I have no idea.

6

But I have made warm pasta salad dishes with vinegar that didn’t have this taste. I have made them myself, and still with the same result. [bleh.gif]

And Brian, yes, I may be weird, but that is beside the point. [snort.gif] I like lima beans and raw broccoli too. [wow.gif]

7

They always use white vinegar, which is more severe than cider. It wreaks. Cheap ingredients, high profit margin. I think people buy pasta salad from stores because they think they are supposed to serve it as part of a deli spread and it’s cheap. Nobody enjoys it. They eat it because it is there and they tell themselves that it isn’t as bad as it tastes.

8

Possibly Poor pasta ?.. the gummy stuff which when combined with you salad dressings…results in a pasty sauce. I use Barilla pastas for our salads.

Paul

9

Ah So…

Foods served cold don’t show certain flavors as strongly. The cold is likely hiding the rest of the flavors from you, while the bitter/vinegar/metallic flavors stand out.

10

Nope. Cheap ingredients taste bad regardless of temperature.

11

Gotta love a country where:

Pasta+mayo+1 or 2 cherry tomatoes= salad!
neener

12

Crappy oil is the culprit.

George

13

And ground yucca in broth =soup?

14

Ground yucca? Pray tell what dish is this.

15

Undoubtedly cheap, bulk ingredients–vinegar and mayo. I have a similar aversion to most of what is sold as “potato salad” in the deli section of most grocery stores. Horrid, horrid stuff that bears no relationship to real, homemade PS.

Bruce