INEXPLICABLE OBJECT OF THE WEEK
Week of 3/7/99:
Meat Recipes For The 1960's
My scanner must be a vegetarian, since it put a layer of Zip-A-Tone over this ©1959 cookbook. But thanks to the skills of my favorite all-purpose geek, the delectable Groovygirl, you can now better appreciate the mouth-watering splendor of Lamb and Lima Go-Together, there in the lower right corner. It's a plate of greasy-looking lambchops with a box of frozen lima beans dumped on top.
Of course, when I say "greasy," I mean--well, let's look at the numbers:
Number of recipes: 84
Number of recipes that require "lard or drippings": 38
It's amazing that in the 1960s Americans didn't become extinct, croaking as they walked down the street as their cholesterol-plastered arteries exploded like M80s.
But this is from a time long gone (so long gone that neither Jackson's Wayside Market nor Wapping CT exist). A time when a meal wasn't done until you followed the command "top with crushed potato chips." A time when a cookbook would have no less than 3 recipes like German Beef Birds, that consisted of taking a piece of meat, putting it on another piece of meat, and then rolling them together "like a jelly roll." Nothing brings out the flavor of meat like more meat! I'm surprised they didn't top it with crushed Slim Jims.
Better go get yerself a big towel to wipe your drool-covered chin, cause here's some of the super-crazetastious flavor-fests you'll find herein:
Pressed Veal Loaf with Gourmet Dressing
It requires gelatin, so yep, it's the great taste of dead baby cows mixed with the great taste of dead mommy cows' skin, bones, and connective tissues! 2 tasteless ideas that taste bad together!
Here's the entire Gourmet Dressing recipe:
2 cups sour cream
1/4 cup horseradish
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Gourmets were pretty easily pleased back then.
Ham Slice with Prune Topping. For that "get-up-and-go" feeling.
Ahh, that classic dish, the "casserole!" Everyone's favorite! Unless they didn't grow up during the Depression. We have: Chipped Beef-Macaroni Casserole, Pork Chop-Green Bean Casserole, Sausage-Eggplant Casserole, Sausage-Succotash Casserole, Canadian Style Bacon-Squash Casserole, Pork Chop-Rice Pudding Casserole...
...Boy, they were really pushing the envelope of casserole technology back then. Hey, Mom, could I have some of that Tums-Ipecac Casserole as a chaser?
Well, this doesn't sound *too* vomitous--Leg of Lamb:
"Do not have the fell removed from leg of lamb."
Umm. I have the feeling I don't wanna know what "fell" means in this context, but let's pull out the dictionary anyway: "The skin of an animal, esp. as covered with its natural hair, wool, etc." Okay, I'm only gonna say this once:
EEEEEEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!!!!
Food rich in its natural furry goodness.
"Waiter, there's a big mat of hair in my food!" "Well, sir--DUHH!"
Would you like me to describe Luncheon Meat Slaw?
Good. Me neither
Chili Topped Franks: This recipe not only carefully instructs you to "top the franks with chili," but lists as ingredients "6 frankfurters and 6 frankfurter buns." Well, no wonder my BBQs are failures! I always had a 10:1 ratio of bun to meat!
Speedy Frankfurter Supper ingredients: Hot dogs, lard, creamed corn. That would have me speeding, all right. For the door.
Here's my favorite section: Variety Meats. I guess "Let's eat what we found in the dumpster behind the slaughterhouse Meats" test-grouped poorly. Naming something Liver and Bacon Frommage is probably the only way to make liver sound even worse.
"Would you like some Tongue-Tomato Stacks?"
"Sorry, but I've really promised myself to stop eating food that tastes me as I eat it."
Mmmm, is that Sweetbread Salad Delight?! And what could be more than delightful than a plate of cold brains! This contains my favorite line in the whole cookbook: "Drain and remove membrane." Hey! You ain't just gonna throw that perfectly good membrane out, are ya?!
Am I a vegetarian? No.
Not unless I read this cookbook again.
Inexplicable Link of the Week:
Number One with a Bullet
(thanx to David Nale)
...And further thanks to David for finding the Yahoo! Pick of the Week review of this site
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©1999 Bill Young