Southern pear salad: The history of a simple 4

When I was a girl wa-a-a-ay back in the 1900s, pear salad wasn’t one of those artfully arranged dishes served in upscale restaurants. The pears weren’t roasted or broasted or poached; there was no arugula, no Roquefort, no nuts or fancy dressings.

No, the pear salad commonly served in Southern households consisted of simple, cheap, stacked ingredients: A pear half set on a bed of lettuce and topped with a dollop of mayo and a sprinkling of mild cheddar. The only important decisions for the “chef” to make were which kind of mayonnaise and whether to add maraschino cherries on top as a garnish.

In our house, pear salad was a “company dish.” My mother made the dish when we had dinner guests, or for holiday meals.

The sweet pear half – which was always canned, never fresh – mingled with