If I want to serve the fruit straight up, I could make a decorative platter of sliced fruits. I might use the top of a pineapple as the centerpiece of the platter, fan slices of melon around it, sprinkle grapes, strawberries and citrus around the edges. But my mother wanted chopped up fruit, not slices, so that wouldn't work. I could make an attractive presentation of chopped fruit by serving it in interesting containers. I could use a hollowed out watermelon as my serving piece, except watermelon is not in season. I could cut oranges in half, remove the sections to save for another use, and serve the chopped fruit in the orange halves. I could garnish any of these presentations with shredded coconut, chopped nuts, mini-marshmallows, or even shaved chocolate. But that is too simple for me. If I'm only making one course, I want to make it as interesting as possible.
I began surfing for recipes involving a little more creativity than just chopping up fresh fruit. Here are a few of the possibilities I came up with:
- Fruit Salad with Frozen Yogurt from Argentina. Apples, plums, oranges, grapefruits, bananas, and honey combine to make a tasty sounding salad.
- Tropical Jell-O Fruit Salad from Dr. Mirkin's 20-Gram Diet that is made with sugar free Jell-O, and good for anyone watching their diet.
- African Fruit Salad using tropical fruits such as mango, papaya, banana, and pineapple.
- Ambrosia Holiday Fruit Salad, which sounds absolutely heavenly, but I think would make a better dessert course than appetizer.
- All Recipes, Salad Recipes offersdozens ofrecipes for fruit salads. I figured if there wasn't a suitable choice here, I may as well burn my cookbooks.
With my mother's assent, I finally decided to make the classic Waldorf Salad, which I found in SaladRecipe.com. It seems better to me as a starter course than some of the other selections because it is less sweet. It combines fruit (apples and grapes) with vegetables (celery and onions) in a mayonnaise based dressing, is served over a bed of greens, and topped with chopped walnuts. My mother is pleased that it also removes the necessity of a green salad course later in the meal. It's unlike anything my family would traditionally serve on Thanksgiving, but if we're bending traditions, we may as well go all the way!
