The Universal Language of Chicken Salad

This beloved Southern dish can contain a multitude of cultures

- TARA MASSOULEH MCCAY

IF THERE'S A SINGLE REGRET my parents have about raising my brother and me, it's that they didn't teach us their native languages. My mom, who emigrated from Malaysia in the early eighties, speaks Chinese. My dad, who arrived from Iran a few years before, speaks Farsi. English was their common ground. When they made the move from Illinois to Alabama in time to start a family, it was a foregone conclusion. Other than the few memorized phrases we dusted off for long-distance phone calls with relatives, my brother and I spoke English. Years later, while applying to colleges, we joined our parents in lamenting that “trilingual" wouldn't join our lists of academic accomplishments.

While I'm not fluent, or even functional, in Mandarin or Farsi, my parents made sure I was proficient in another language. Like many first-generation Americans, my strongest tether to culture is food. I grew up eating the cuisines of my parents' home countries. Slippery stir-fried noodles and salty, soy-glazed short ribs from my mom. Herbaceous beef stew and nutty lentil rice from my dad. Hamburger Helper and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese were rare delicacies.

One of the first dishes my mom learned after moving to the South was chicken salad. She had begun swapping recipes with two other mothers who lived in our apartment building. One, who'd emigrated from South Korea, shared dak kalguksu (Korean chicken-and-zucchini noodle soup). The other, who had Kentucky roots, introduced her to chicken salad, plus a fruitcake starter that most likely still lurks in the depths of my mom's freezer. Twenty-five years later, the friendships and recipes live on.

Part of what makes chicken salad so beloved is its adaptability. Scour your pantry, and throw in whatever is on hand-pecans, dried cranberries, grapes, herbs. My mom's version calls for curry powder. To this day, hers is the only one that my mayonnaise-averse 10th-generation Southern husband is excited to eat.