Grandma Betty’s Frozen Fruit Salad
Some families have stacks of handwritten notecards filling little file boxes with enough ratios and ingredients to fill a cookbook. My family isn’t one of those families. We have a few family recipes, but none of them are written down. The best of our recipes don’t need to be. They are simple enough to remember, and forgiving enough that you can make them your own.
The one I make several times a year is my family’s macaroni and cheese recipe. It’s a crowd pleaser and it’s my go-to main course when I’m hosting a large group for dinner with kids or picky eaters. It’s not your typical mac-and-cheese dish and it’s incredibly customizable. The base is like a cheese pizza. Simple, delicious, and something you can top in many ways.
It’s comfort food at it’s finest. I’ve made it plain, topping it with only a little salt and a lot of pepper when I scoop it from the tray and into my bowl. I’ve made it with pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, or sun-dried tomatoes. Who knows, maybe next time I’ll try it with pineapple. Our mac-and-cheese recipe feels like a metaphor of what family should be. A strong base that can handle the diversity of a trendy pizza parlor menu.
I don’t know who in our family decided to use pizza sauce instead of a creamy cheese sauce all those years ago, but I’m grateful and I don’t question it. I just experiment with different types of noodles, sauce to cheese ratios, and unconventional toppings. It’s a recipe of legends, and I don’t think anyone has tried to take credit for it or written it down.
It’s one of two recipes in my repertoire that will always fill my head with memories of childhood when I’m preparing it. Memories mostly unrelated to nights where mac-and-cheese was served, but family parties and running around with my cousins all the same. Familiar feelings more than specific moments. A deep undertow of love and acceptance. Something I try to create for everyone who sits around my table or who eats something I’ve prepared.
Grandma Betty’s Frozen Fruit Salad is the other recipe. I don’t remember a single meal my grandma ever cooked for me, but her frozen fruit salad holds a place of honor in my heart. We didn’t serve it any a specific holiday or annual party. There was simply a tray appearing from the freezer many, many times. And this was the recipe my cousin and I could prepare ourselves from a young age, mostly unsupervised.
We made Grandma Betty’s Frozen Fruit Salad in every beach house kitchen during childhood summer vacations. No cooking necessary. Just a little cutting and mixing ingredients in a bowl, then spreading in a casserole dish with a spatula. Young girls giggling as they taste-tested the marshmallows and grapes.
Frozen fruit salad is saltwater and sunscreen scented memories. It’s breakfast with Maury and building elaborate sand fortresses for hours. It’s boogey-boarding until our bodies are covered in salt rash from days spent in the breaking waves. Looking for sand crabs with flashlights on the beach, mini golf and ice cream.
On one particular beach house vacation, I was sitting on the counter while we made frozen fruit salad. We were laughing, crying laughing about who knows what. My body started to give in a little too much and I dashed for the bathroom so I wouldn’t pee myself. Three strides off the counter, I slipped rounding the corner. My momentum pulled me down to the ground, a gliding crash into the wall. I remember staring at the ceiling from my back, now laughing harder.
Frozen fruit salad is an American cheese slice wrapper stuck to my foot that didn’t quite make it into the trash can. It’s laughter turning into a gasp, then bolting to the bathroom and locking the door. It’s no bruise, but a hole in the beach house drywall the size of my knee that my dad expertly patched the next day. Mini marshmallows, chopped fruit, and memories.
I made Grandma Betty’s Frozen Fruit Salad today, for the first time in years after my aunt made it last week. I thought of my family as I sliced grapes in half. Our summer vacations spent in beach houses as I chopped pineapple chunks smaller. My cousin in particular as I folded in the marshmallows before spreading everything in the tray. How time turns mundane moments into memories you hope to cherish forever.
I haven’t eaten any yet, that comes soon enough. I forgot the mandarin orange slices when I bought the ingredients yesterday. Although, that doesn’t matter. Our family recipes are ones you can always make into your own, and today’s version simply won’t have oranges. I’m okay with it. I’ve never been asked to be perfect where I come from, and my frozen fruit salad doesn’t have to be either. We can be what we are today, and that will always be good enough.
