Diane Wensink ready to serve German potato salad (Photos: J.D. Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

RUDOLPH — If you want the world’s best recipe for German potato salad, talk to Diane Wensink.
All of the local woman’s friends and co-workers already know this.
“When people ask me to bring something to a party — like in the office —
that’s usually what they’ll ask me to bring. It’s pretty much what I’m
associated with.”
Wensink, a registered nurse, has worked in the office of Bowling Green
pediatricians Michael Lemon, Stephanie Noceti-Dunphy and Eric Rader for
the past 15 years.
But she acquired the recipe about a quarter century ago.
“I got it from my mom probably 25 years ago. She belonged to a women’s
club in Deshler. Somebody brought (the German potato salad) to a
Christmas party potluck.
“She didn’t think she’d like it, but there were only six or seven women
present” so for the sake of politeness Mom felt obliged to take a sample
of everything.
Admittedly, the dish doesn’t necessarily have magazine cover visual appeal. But, boy does it taste good.

“She tried it and liked it and our family loves it, and we’ve been making it ever since,” Wensink said.

In the ensuing decades, Wensink and her relatives have made it for
graduation parties, wedding rehearsal dinners “and it’s a big hit here
in the office.”
Wensink thinks she knows the secrets to its popularity.
“It’s something different; it’s not your plain old potato salad. You can make it either hot or cold.”
On top of that, “It seems to have just the right combination of sweetness and sourness.
“Sometimes you eat German potato salad and it’s too sour. I don’t like
Schmitz’s in Columbus,” for example. She finds the German potato salad
at the well-known German restaurant in the state capital “too sour. But
this is more sweet.”
When she makes up a batch for her own family, “the first time I make it I
like it hot, but after that, cold is fine,” she said. In the unlikely
event that there are any leftovers, “it’s still good cold.”
While it’s a tasty dish with such complex flavors that it could almost
be served alone, with just a green salad, the Wensinks usually like to
pair it with pork. “Either grilled pork chops or bratwurst.”
Besides her day job with Wood County Medical Associates, Wensink is also
a farm wife and German potato salad is especially popular around their
place during July.
Her husband Steve works at Wood County Implement and farms with his
brother. “They like German potato salad and bratwurst to come to the
field during wheat harvest. In colder weather we’ll take meatloaf and
cheesy potatoes, instead.”
She delivers the entire meal to the field, where the harvesters eat in shifts, so the combine is always
moving.
The couple have a son, Mark; and two daughters, Abby, 25, a dispatcher
with the Ohio Highway Patrol who also helps on the family farm, and Amy,
23, who works for Perennial Plant Associates in Columbus.
All three like the family version of German potato salad and all three know how to make it.
Mark’s wife is also a fan, but the Wensinks’ future son-in-law, Amy’s
fiance, “is not sure yet. He had it once and didn’t fight” over the last
scoop of potato salad in the serving dish as all the other did.
Maybe it’s just because he didn’t grow up eating German specialties as did Wensink herself.
“I did a lot of cooking as a girl” in and out of 4-H, she recalls. “My
mom is a big cookie baker. Baking is my all-time favorite, too.”
Together, the generations bake a lot of cookies at Christmas, including
must-haves such as peanut blossoms “and we have a little pecan pie
cookie recipe that we make.
“My mom always does the lebkuchen and springerle for us, so we don’t
have to,” she said of the traditional German holiday cookies.
And while they can’t actually claim that the German potato salad recipe
is one passed down from their ancestors in the old country, by now it
just about feels that way.

German potato salad
16 cold potatoes, cooked and cubed
1/4 cup parsley flakes
16 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
6 Tbsp. bacon grease
6 Tbsp. flour
2/3 cup diced onion
1 1/3 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp. salt
2/3 cup vinegar
Place potatoes, parsley and crumbled bacon in dish.
Place flour and onion in the leftover bacon grease. Stir in remaining ingredients, stirring constantly.
Cook until bubbly and thickened. Pour over potatoes, parsley and bacon.
Can heat in oven or serve cold.
* To fill a roaster, substitute these portions:
25 pounds potatoes
6 pounds bacon
4 batches of sauce