Dec 5, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 5 min read

If everything, indeed, is cyclical, get ready for a return of the 3 P’s salad.

“I sometimes like to at least try out a weird recipe,” Francine Segan told her Town Hall South lecture series audience at Upper St. Clair High School. “So I made this, and I tasted it. And it was delicious.”

She then revealed the ingredients: peas, peanuts and pickles.

It seems that the alliterative but unlikely combination resonated with the American palate during the 1920s, as Segan revealed during her recent presentation on food fads of the past century.

That particular decade, the cookbook author and food historian explained, served as the launching pad for many of the culinary delights that we still enjoy today, thanks in large part to a failed experiment: Prohibition.

If there was a chapter in history class that caught your attention, this probably was it. You’ll recall that the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages starting in early 1920.

And so think, for example, of all those grapes sitting on the vines.

“No more wine was sold,” Segan said. “And so the California winemakers had to think of other things.”

They thought of grape jelly, the spread of choice for many confectionary connoisseurs when that great invention of sliced bread came about later in the ’20s. They somehow convinced people to consume “purple cows,” drinks mixing milk and grape juice.

Then there was the dried version of the grape, touted for its healthy benefits and supposed energy-boosting capabilities, especially in the workplace.

“We have a coffee break now,” Segan said. “We used to have, back in the ’20s, a raisin break.”

She explained why some not-so-healthy favorites also emerged during the boozeless decade: “We had to substitute for something going in our mouths, and so 80 percent of the candy that we have today was invented during Prohibition.”

Her favorite is Baby Ruth, introduced by Curtiss Candy Co. in 1920 and probably named after baseball’s legend of legends, George Herman Ruth, without having him in on an endorsement deal.

Meanwhile, the legends of Hollywood were stuck without a legal way to drink alcohol in their neck of the woods, so movie moguls and their cronies would take trips to Tijuana, Mexico, with a favorite landing spot being an Italian restaurant called Cardini’s. One such visit apparently went on for a whole weekend.

“By Sunday night, the chef said, ‘I have no food. I’m sorry. You have to leave.’ And they said, ‘No, just throw anything together. We just really want the liquor,'” Segan said.

The result was a combination of leftover lettuce, down-to-the rind cheese scraps and some pieces of stale bread, the basis for what’s served today at restaurants across the nation as a salad named for its creator, Caesar Cardini.

You’ll remember from history class that the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933. By that time, the United States was in a midst of the Great Depression, which began just as the ’20s drew to a close.

“Suddenly, we couldn’t afford to go to any restaurants,” Segan explained. “And it became a decade of entertaining at home.”

And so started the tradition of the potluck dinner, with guests bringing food to complement what the host was able to offer. For economical reasons, much of the fare was created.

An example was “mystery cake,” which sounds like something that was on your school lunch menu. The secret ingredient: condensed tomato soup.

Another dessert offering was mock apple pie. Apples were expensive, but free crackers were available at soup kitchens.

“Ingenious housewives would save up the crackers, mush up with a couple of ingredients,” Segan said, “and it really tasted like apples.”

Today, apples can turn out as cubes or other shapes when grown inside molds. People are using three-dimensional printers for distinctive designs of pasta. A culinary trend called molecular gastronomy uses science to come up with all kinds of creative ways to present food.

New trends always are on the horizon, but some old-fashioned favorites continue to stand the test of time, especially in this neck of the woods.

“To tell you the truth, I could actually do an entire talk just about Pittsburgh food,” Segan, who lives in New York City, said. “You have this fantastic chip-chopped ham. And what about the great pairing of coleslaw and french fries on a sandwich?”

For reference, the Primanti Brothers came up with that idea in the 1930s, around the time people probably were looking for an alternative to 3 P’s salad.

For more about Francine Segan, visit www.francinesegan.com.