This one was a no-brainer to buy once I saw the cover. The cover shows a fancy-schmancy appetizer plate with a hideous purple orb with olives, onions and pineapple jammed onto it with toothpicks. This cookbook was a huge national security blunder. Five years later, the Russians would launch the appetizer-inspired Sputnik into Earth orbit. It would take years before the Americans would catch up in the space race.
Page 13, Jellied Melange: pretty much sums it up. A bunch of leftovers in gelatin. I would love to know what the per capita consumption of gelatin was in the 50s.
Page 17, Herring on picks. Nothing more than 1″ square chunks of pickled herring and a small pickled onion on a toothpick. I know it’s hard to come up with 500 recipes, but come on.. Ditto on the per capita consumption of herring and some other odd items that I see with alarming regularity in these books.
Page 20 has another recipe that is clearly a stretch. It doesn’t sound gross, but it is a bit unusual. “Almost anything you like can be rolled in pacon, oven or pan-broiled and served on picks”. Normally, I’d agree, I love bacon. But this bacon roll receipe is nothing more than uncooked bacon covered with peanut butter. Roll up and broil.
Two of the items I see a lot of include chicken livers and anchovies. Do they dare combine them both? Yes! Chicken liver-Anchovy toast.
Another on the offal front on page 24: Liver patties. “Baked liver patties can be a party especially served with the Spring’s fresh greens.” Yeah, to me, nothing says party like liver patties. It’s ground liver shaped into patties and baked. Even the piece of canadian bacon or bacon wrapped around the patties can’t salvage the fact that it’s ground liver.
Aspic items are perhaps the largest amusing category in all of the old cookbooks. There are SO many items in aspic (gelatin) that I really have to be selective on the aspic choices. If I didn’t, I could have another site just for funny or gross gelatin recipes. This one still rises to the top:
Jellied bouillon with frankfurters. It’s just beef stock and gelatin in a mold. In the gelatin are sliced eggs and hot dogs. Nothing says party food like hot dogs in jello. I’m sure it’s economical, but so what.
The other favorite jellied item in this book is the very creepy-looking hard cooked eggs in jellied bullion. It’s just gelatin with a slice of egg on top, but the white and yellow of the egg look like an eye. So you’re eating an eyeball. Unnervingly, the eye appears to follow you wherever you are.
Again with the herring on page 34: Herring salad. I think we brought the herring to the brink of extinction during the 1950s based on the number of recipes I see with herring. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
We finish our journey with two repugnant fish salad recipes. If anything will scare children off of salads, I think these would do it. Anchovy Beet Salad, and Smelt and Vegetable Salad. In the latter, they still manage to get beets into that salad as well.
