Salad is usually only used as an appetizer, but Ambrosia is a very popular dessert salad in the South of the United States.
Speaking of salads, people often just remember things like Russian salad, Caesar salad, Nicoise ... are a combination of vegetables and meat, often used to appetite the beginning of each meal. However, Ambrosia salad is quite different, they are dessert salad, beautiful and taste is like "paradise".
This is because the name of the salad said it. The word "ambrosia" means full of scent and sweetness, and also means "food for the gods." In Greek mythology, Ambrosia is a miraculous and sacred fruit only for the gods. The gods who reign atop Olympus eat it to maintain immortality and without it, they will become weak. In Homer's Iliad, the gods not only eat, but bathe and soak in Ambrosia's magical aroma. Ordinary people will face death if they dare to "blaspheme", that is, eat the Ambrosia of the gods.
There are a lot of variations, but in the end, Ambrosia is a salad of fresh fruit ice cream, sour cream or cream cheese, sprinkled with coconut fiber. Fruit salad with cheese and yogurt is sourced from Greece and other Mediterranean countries, but the place where Ambrosia became popular is in the South. This fruit salad began to appear in the South of the United States in the late nineteenth century, when tropical fruits began to enter. A few pineapples, citrus juices and coconut and sugar will be placed in a glass. Ambrosia Salad will be cooled before serving. Due to its scarce and expensive fruit, Ambrosia became a dessert reserved for the aristocrats of the South during the hot summer days.
Along with the popularity of fruit as well as travel trade, this fruit salad has become more popular throughout the United States with many variations. Ambrosia today has become more diversified with all kinds of fruits, grapefruit, banana, strawberry, cherry, grape, mango, apples, peaches, nuts and small marshmallow gum. The fruit is mixed with fresh cream, sour cream or cream cheese fat instead of just using sugar as before, and coconut is sprinkled on top with a fresh cherry. Even so, the fruit salad with fresh cream can not be called Ambrosia salad if it lacks the flavor of citrus juices, sweet pineapple and sweet coconut trees.
Ambrosia salad is a trendy dish in the 1950s in the United States, when it appears in amusement parks, movie theaters and eateries from budget to high. The women of that time, like mothers and fathers, kept their sweet-making habits in their family gatherings until today. The sweetness of tropical fruit, with its eye-catching colors and fresh, creamy ice cream, makes the Ambrosia salad truly worthy of its "gods".
Source: Wikipedia, Alabama Chanin, Kraftrecipes