James Dean's Favorite Dessert Was An Old-School Southern Classic

During the height of his career, which lasted a mere five years, James Dean could have showed up at any ritzy restaurant in Hollywood and dined like a king. But the star of such classics as "Rebel Without A Cause" and "East of Eden" had surprisingly modest taste when it came to his meals. Sure, he enjoyed a great steak dinner on occasion, but it's been discovered that his favorite foods were simple things like chili and spaghetti and meatballs (an Italian American menu item that isn't from Italy at all). When he wanted something sweet, Dean thought there was nothing better than his Aunt Ortense's banana salad.

Dean's mother died when he was just nine years old, and his aunt, Ortense Winslow, primarily raised him from that point on. It was her recipe that the future Hollywood legend craved, and it was eventually printed in the 2015 cookbook, "Recipes for Rebels," written by Gregory Swenson. Similar to a classic Southern banana pudding, Winslow's banana salad is a layered sweet consisting of sliced bananas, chopped peanuts (sometimes crushed Corn Flakes), and a homemade pudding that acts as the "dressing" of the dish. It's cool, creamy, and just sweet enough, with a pleasant crunchy texture from the peanuts.

The recipe for Aunt Ortense's banana salad involves making the pudding (or "dressing") from scratch, but to save time, a boxed pudding mix would give you a similar flavor and texture. If you wanted to achieve more of a pourable dressing consistency, you could always thin the pudding out a bit with some milk. These simple tricks to make instant pudding taste homemade might also help you make it your own.

James Dean's aunt's salad sounds like something that would be a welcome addition to any retro dinnertable, but early recipes for the dish don't totally align with her creation. In fact, these recipes certainly have more "salad" in them than the recipe Dean loved. In a 1916 publication of Wisconsin's Mineral Point Tribune, a recipe for banana salad describes a banana cut in half lengthwise that is placed on a bed of lettuce. After chopped peanuts are showered on the banana, it is finished with a mayonnaise dressing.

Banana salad is also a popular South African side dish. There, sliced bananas can be simply mixed with mayonnaise and chilled, but other ingredients can come into play as well, such as sweetened condensed milk, curry, and jam or chutney. While James Dean's favorite banana salad didn't contain mayonnaise, the tangy condiment does make an appearance in several retro fruit salads such as Waldorf salad.