It felt so elegant to see this dish show up on our lunch table: toast points covered with a thick, creamy mushroom sauce with sliced hard-boiled eggs, flaked tuna (salmon if we were lucky) and garnished with green peas.
I thought this was a very special lunch dish that Gma invented on her own, but after a quick Google I discovered that a lot of people thought their parents and grandparents invented this strange dish. It actually has a name and a not-so-elegant “wiggle” name, but apparently, wiggle refers to any kind of cream sauce. Gma’s version remains pretty close to its Depression Era origins where the main ingredients were cupboard staples that were inexpensive at the time like canned tuna and salmon. Back then people served their wiggle on crackers and toast and then in the 50’s it graduated to noodles. Perhaps this is the origin of tuna noodle casserole?
I’m not sure where or when she learned the recipe and I never asked simply because I just assumed she invented it, but chances are she found it on Cambell’s Cream of Mushroom soup label or from one of her Good Housekeeping clippings. Here’s how she made it:
Ingredients
- 1 can of condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
- 1 can full of milk
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
- 1 can of tuna or salmon
- 1/2 cup of frozen peas
- 6-8 slices of toast, cut on the bias
Combine the condensed soup, milk, tuna, and peas in a saucepan and cook over medium heat. While the soup mixture warms, slice the hard-boiled eggs and arrange them over the toast slices. When the soup is thoroughly heated, ladle over the toast and serve.
Of course, in this day of post-hipster culture, this dish has been “artisanally retro-fitted” with sustainably sourced ingredients and homemade bechamel sauces, but it still harkens back to the memories of the original version of this dish and the people that served it to them.
https://wildfishcannery.com/blogs/news/salmon-wiggle
https://food52.com/recipes/36672-noodles-with-tuna-and-peas-tuna-pea-wiggle