FOOD NEWS
How Ham Salad Went From A Funeral Food To An Iconic Southern Sandwich
BY COURTNEY ISEMAN
Being a crowd-pleaser and easy and affordable to make, ham salad was once a popular funeral food. Today, it is an iconic southern sandwich for the very same reasons.
In the past, ham salad made it easy to feed many mourners at once without adding any additional financial or economic burden to the grieving family.
Post Civil War, meatpacking plants multiplied and canned, salted, ready-to-eat hams began popping up at stores across the U.S., increasing Americans' access to prepared hams.
With it, recipes began appearing for chopping it up and mixing it with other ingredients, and mayonnaise re-entered the scene by the start of the 20th century.
Soon people began adding the now-classic celery and pickle relish. Today, ham salad remains a people's favorite, especially in the southern United States.