Misty Rae's World Famous Potato Salad

Summer just isn't summer until I've had my first taste of potato salad. Simple, hearty and versatile, it's the quintessential summer side dish. It goes with everything from a burger to tossed salad. And in my family, if it's not MY potato salad, we're not eating it!

Seriously, the first time my husband tried it, it blew his mind!

It's one of those foods, so simple to make, but oh so simple to screw up. If you've ever tried those big tubs of supermarket potato salad, you know exactly what I mean. Yuck! Everyone has their own recipe and everyone has their own secret ingredient. I'll let you in on mine in a bit.

First, let me tell you why this humble dish is my favourite summer food, at least the way I make it. Of course, it's delicious, that's a given for a favourite food. But potato salad, at least my recipe is more than just something to slap on a plate during the family cookout. It's a story. It's my family's story. It's a legacy.

I come from a long line of people who love to eat. Fortunately, I also come from a long line of people who love to cook. For us, food was, and is, more than physical sustenance. It's storytelling. It's showing love.

I learned to cook from my father.

I can remember sitting on the kitchen counter, especially on weekends, as my father whipped up all sorts of tasty delights - cakes, cookies, soups, stews and, of course, potato salad in the summer. I marvelled at how he just tossed ingredients in, some of this, a dash of that, a doo-hickey full of something else. No measuring, just an innate sense of what had to go in, cultivated through years of experience.

Daddy learned to cook from his mother and grandmother. By the time he was 10 years old, he cooked right alongside his grandmother, eagerly picking up her tips and tricks.

He passed those tips and tricks down to me. And now, I'm teaching my kids. That's 5 generations and counting of good cooking and eating.

And that's 5 generations of excellent potato salad.

Yet, the significance of the popular summer side runs deeper than that. Way, way deeper.

I didn't know it for years, but potato salad has roots in the Black community, in the community of my ancestors going way back to slavery.

According to African American food historian Adrian Miller, German migrants brought potato salad to the southern US in the 1860s. They developed friendly relationships with the Blacks there and shared their recipe. It's been a staple ever since. And I mean a serious staple!

It makes sense. It's cheap to make and very filling. If you're cooking on a tight budget, which my family often was, especially when my father was growing up during the Great Depression, it's a satisfying go-to that can feed a lot of people with minimum outlay.

I dare you to find a family BBQ or a community picnic without it!

You won't. And in my family, we don't play with the potato salad. The torch has been passed to me. I make it. We all know it. They won't eat anyone else's.

What makes my potato salad so great? What makes my family ask for it specifically? What makes it so good that I'll get up in the middle of a summer's night and gobble up the leftovers before anyone has a chance to get any?

I'll tell you. My secret ingredient is ... a little bit of sugar. Oh and a dash of milk - just a small little splash. Mix it with the mayo. Trust me.

These days, we use vegan mayo and plant-based Not Milk (the closest thing we can get to milk, and it's a pretty good approximation). We're not getting any younger and my husband's developed a mid-life dairy allergy.

I look forward to summer every year so I can both make and eat my potato salad. It's not just a yummy warm-weather treat. It's not just a BBQ staple. It's so much more.

Mixed within it are the stories of my family, my ancestors. In some small way, when I make it, when I gobble it up, I'm tasting a tiny bit of their lives, their struggles, their joys, their stories. And if a food can do all that and taste great, well you couldn't really ask for more, could you? Unless it's more potato salad. That we've got.