1950s fine dining

[PamNY]

Since some of you are too young to remember these days:

42 weird meals from the 1950s

[Biciclista]

With one of my husband's cousins and her son, we have spent HOURS guffawing over old cookbooks with recipes like these.
1 lb margarine
1 pound canned peas
when a recipe starts like that you know it's going to be good! (not)

[jessmarimba]

Darnit, blocked domain.

Many of my cookbooks are from the 60s and 70s. All of my family Christmas cookie recipes come from one of them...but there are a good percentage of recipes in there that have something to do with Jello.

[Owlie]

Meat and jello should not go together...except on the cow. Urk. I must say that the photography/illustrations do nothing to enhance their appeal.

Also, spam. Lovely spam.

My mom has a cookbook from when she was in college/grad school (late 70s/early 80s). Lots of recipes for things in aspic. Where's the barfing smiley when you need it?

[Eden]

You may also enjoy The Gallery of Regrettable Foods - http://lileks.com/institute/gallery/
(caution - if you are drinking milk you may snort it from your nose while reading this)

[Owlie]

You may also enjoy The Gallery of Regrettable Foods - http://lileks.com/institute/gallery/
(caution - if you are drinking milk you may snort it from your nose while reading this)

+1. It's hilarious and stomach-turning at the same time.

[trista]

Some of those are hilarious.... my favorite is ring-around-the-tuna.

I'll admit though, my kids LOVE Spam!

Although looking at those pictures, I can't but wonder what people will be saying in 50-60 years about some of the things people are eating today.

[shootingstar]

Although looking at those pictures, I can't but wonder what people will be saying in 50-60 years about some of the things people are eating today.

True. They just have flip on Food Network show which some shows focus heavily on interesting/but junk like food.

I was amazed/appalled in Hawai'i, spam sushi is pretty popular when I was there.

But maybe some people feel better having it for awhile (especially if there are concerns of radioactive leakage infecting the sea life after nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan during earthquake earlier this yr.).

[withm]

Fortunately my mother was a good cook. We never saw anything that even resembled some of this ersatz 'food'. I can probably count on one hand the times I have eaten jello. Well tomato aspic not withstanding, but I don't make it with jello either.

[channlluv]

What is aspic?

I love that little hotdog man-thing. My grandmother used to slice hotdogs up the middle for us so we didn't choke on them, but she never made a little man out of one.

I used to love my mom's Jello molds. My grandmother used to make this great Jello salad she called Ambrosia. One of my favorite things about holiday dinners.

But seriously, look at some of the stuff we eat today. Turducken, anyone? And those nuclear-spiced Cheetos? I can't even stand to be around someone eating those, they smell so bad.

Roxy

[malkin]

The little hotdog man is Frankie Doodle Dandy!

Funny!

[Owlie]

What is aspic?

I love that little hotdog man-thing. My grandmother used to slice hotdogs up the middle for us so we didn't choke on them, but she never made a little man out of one.

I used to love my mom's Jello molds. My grandmother used to make this great Jello salad she called Ambrosia. One of my favorite things about holiday dinners.

But seriously, look at some of the stuff we eat today. Turducken, anyone? And those nuclear-spiced Cheetos? I can't even stand to be around someone eating those, they smell so bad.

Roxy

Aspic: Basically, gelatin, with broth/stock as the liquid, with various things embedded in it.

I'm pretty sure they had a forerunner to the turducken in medieval Europe if they were exceedingly rich and had to show off...

[trista]

But seriously, look at some of the stuff we eat today. Turducken, anyone? And those nuclear-spiced Cheetos? I can't even stand to be around someone eating those, they smell so bad.

Very true! And how about deep-fried twinkies, Bloomin' Onions, or 90% of the Denny's menu.

[bmccasland]

I have you know that Cajun Turducken is wonderful!

Debone 1 turkey, 1 duck, 1 chicken. Season the outside of the chicken and duck. Stuff the inside of the chicken with sausage dressing. Stuff inside the chicken, which is then stuffed inside the turkey.

Easy method: order from a Cajun market.

[marni]

back in the 60's in college I had a cookbook called "the impoverished Students Guide to Cookery, Keepery and Drinkery". It covered everything from finding a roommate and setting up a housing, food, chores, utilities, drinks, and laundry budgets to how to make fake kalua, a spread sheet for casseroles, another for stir fry, hints for mending, how to do laundry etc. It was actually useful and had only pen and ink illustrations, mostly humorous.

marni