Crown Roast of Frankfurters

Some people just have no respect for the ancient institution of the monarchy. In the mid 1600s for example, an English bloke named Oliver Cromwell decided enough was enough, and took up arms against the royalists who, under Charles I had begun to wear enormous wigs and lacy doubloons and attended the theater all the time. He was so angry about this that he had Charles’s head lopped off. His son (the future Charles II — you can see where this is going…) high-tailed it to France to escape all the beheadings and such. (Good move.)

Cromwell was a rather persistent chap and melted down all of the crown jewels for good measure. As Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, he also conquered Scotland and Ireland, just in case, and systematically slaughtered all the Catholics he found there. The Welsh were too fierce and unintelligible to risk going to war against. Power to the People! 

Eventually God must have decided he liked the monarchy better, so he had them return to power shortly after Cromwell’s death. Still, this was not enough to satisfy a public too long deprived from the wigs and theater and such, so they had him executed posthumously, you know, just in case. Two and a half years after he was buried in Westminster Abbey, Cromwell’s dead body was disinterred, hung from chains and his head also lopped off. Oh the irony. As a deterrent to anyone else with a fancy to overthrow the prevailing government, his head was impaled on a spike and displayed outside Westminster Hall for 24 years. After a while it probably resembled a coconut and wasn’t as much fun for tourists to have their photograph taken with. His coconut was bought and sold over the intervening years until it was eventually buried again in 1960 (a full decade after the book this recipe comes from was published).

Cromwell’s Puritan spirit is clearly at work in the genius who devised this crown roast of wieners, the very epitome of a humble Everyman’s version of the real thing made from the ribs of a tasty beast. Chances are no-one will mention the discrepancy while they endure the brief period of humorlessness waiting for the good old days of heathen debauchery to return to the dining table. And their heads. 

Good times, good times.

Cooking for Young Homemakers, Culinary Arts Institute, 1950

Also from this book: Fried Brains, Fried and Baked, Roast Opossum, Rudolph the Red Nosed Pot Roast

You Say Carat; I Say Carrot (Let's Call The Whole Thing Off)

How About A 24-Carrot Necklace?

Don’t do it, dude. Girlfriend is going to be pissed as hell if you try to slip a root vegetable ring on her finger after you propose. Things are going to get nasty if you get down on one knee, pop the question, trick her into saying “Yes!” then pull out this rubbish. Trust me, she will be able to tell the difference between a ring made from a “trifaceted chunk of avocado seed, sanded and lacquered, on a circlet of sweet potato” and an actual diamond solitaire engagement ring. Made out of metal and precious stones. That comes in a velvet-lined ring box. Preferably pale blue in color. With “Tiffany & Co.” embossed on it.

 No matter how nice your fiancée is (or was), she will not accept your excuse about being broke-ass broke and having to “be creative.” She might even play along to humor you, but watch your back.

This can go two ways: either she'll tell everyone you ever knew or ever hope to meet (after she drops your cheap sorry ass like a hot potato) what a douche you are so that you become the laughing stock of your worst nightmares, or she will actually marry you and you’ll be stuck with a woman whose standards are so low she won’t get up off her lazy ass to take the trash out of the trailer. She will cease giving a toss about her appearance, put on 200lbs, and continue to wear dried vegetable “jewelry” in public, rendering it impossible for you to leave the house. Either way, you will end up a lonely, frustrated recluse with no hope of ever having sex again.

If you doubt this, just look at the model’s expression. That’s not a smile; that’s a grimace. If you look into her eyes you can see her taking mental note to fire her agent, like, yesterday.

Note how the text plays fast and loose with archeological processes that take millions of years to accomplish: “You cut the vegetables, then let them dry into fascinating semiprecious stones.” If it were that easy, the Petrified Forest National Park wouldn’t have to keep posting signs warning visitors not to steal the gravel. That used to be wood, y’all!

What is saddest of all is that in 1972, Women’s Day thought this was a good use of their readership’s time and energy. According to one of the many cigarette ads in its pages is the perfect back-handed response to this drivel: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Woman’s Day, September 1972

More Yuckylicious ads: The Big Squeez, Behold The Versatronic, Gold Medal Memories, What A Douchebag, The Seven Year Itch, Mad Men, It’s The Real Thing (What Is, Exactly?), Putting the Special in Special K

Roast Bambi

Bambi, the charming Disney film of 1942 is both beautiful and violent. It depicts the destructive encroachment of humans upon a pastoral wonderland where animated forest creatures enact the grand cycle of life.

First, Bambi’s mother is killed by hunters. Over the winter, Bambi reaches sexual maturity and falls in love with a doe named Faline. When Faline is approached by a rival male who asserts himself upon her, Bambi has to get all up in his face and push him off a cliff to his death. The evil humans return to burn the forest down, forcing the young lovers to flee, but they are separated. Faline is pursued by a pack of ravenous dogs but Bambi comes to her rescue and breaks out his Kung Fu on them. Bambi is shot and falls into a ravine where he is found by his father who tells him not to be such a pansy and together they  seek refuge on an island to which, miraculously, Faline has also managed to escape. Bambi succeeds his father and becomes the leader of all the animals, and Faline gives birth to twins. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Stop me if any of this reminds you of the Star Wars storyline.

Bambi reigned supreme as a tearjerker assured to give young children nightmares until it was supplanted by ET. It is with this in mind that you may enjoy this recipe for baby deer. Yum.

Marion Harland’s Complete Cook Book, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1906


Also by Marion Harland: Stained, The Alternate Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, The Wet Blanket of Discouragement

One is Such A Lonely Number

When a  Passenger Pigeon named Martha died at the ripe old age of 29 on September 1^st, 1914 at her home (The Cincinnati Zoo), she was stuffed and put on display at the Smithsonian. Martha was the last of her kind in the whole world.

Martha, dead as a doornail

Her fate may have been sealed when she hatched in 1885. By that time, Passenger Pigeons were being hunted at a rate that made it impossible for them to survive. Passenger Pigeons were a species who could only breed in large communities, so not having many thousands of potential suitors on hand disinclined them from getting in the mood for love, no matter how much concerned ornithologists tried to relax them with a nice bit of dinner and candlelight. It is entirely possible then, that Martha died a virgin.

Martha, alive but lonely

Martha’s story is especially poignant because of the rapidity with which her species became extinct — it only took 20 years. Once numbering in the billions, they could not compete with hunters as more and more people moved West, and their communal nature doomed them further by making them so easy to kill en masse.

Recipe from Marion Harland's popular book
Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cooking and Housekeeping of 1871
that contributed to the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon

Yes, I can hear you say, but what does all this have to do with that grotesque salad?

Imagine, if you will, that each layer in it represents all of the birds in North America. Look how robust their numbers are! There is no shortage of lettuce, peppers, mushrooms, onions, celery, peas, dressing, cheese and bacon. The lone stuffed olive sitting on top like Sleeping Beauty on her tower of mattresses is stuffed Martha, resplendently and magnificently alone.

Soup, Salad and Sandwich Cookbook, Ideals Publishing Corp., 1981

Also form this book: Frosted Sandwich Loaf, Potty Mouth, Penis Salad

Fear and Loathing in Safeways

Our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country — but only for those with true grit. And we were choc full of that.

We were also choc full of flour and apples and eggs and mustard and onions and rice and ketchup and yogurt. We were piled high with honey and spaghetti and raw meats — ground beef and a disassembled chicken sealed in an unholy envelope of polystyrene and plastic wrap. There were lemons and lettuce and beans of all kinds and cans of tuna and great big vats of milk. There was something called “Cremette” my attorney threw in there at the very beginning for good measure. There was margarine and sauerkraut and cottage cheese and chow mein.

I had pleaded with him not to rip open a 10lb sack of flour right in the aisle because he was under the impression they were selling cocaine in the supermarkets now, a thought that delighted him so much he couldn’t wait to strip off this clothes and roll about in it, but the cashier glared at us and we thought we could see the handle of a gun poking out of her waistband so we struggled to haul it into the cart. Those damn things have wheels. Every time we thought we had it in the trolley it rolled away, so we ended up lumbering the entire length of the aisle until we managed to pin the cart against a stack of cans of cooking oil. We threw in two bags of “Whole Wheat” too just in case it was the real thing — you never know.

I was nervous about the cashier’s gun and suggested we just make a dash for it through the electronic doors into the parking lot but my attorney reminded me that this would constitute stealing, and the only things worth stealing were cars and guns, so we approached her with caution. The fluorescent lights were beginning to mess with my brain and I started sweating profusely. We had no money — how were we going to pay for all these groceries? It seemed inconceivable that women all over the country did this on a weekly basis. No wonder they were all stuffing valium down their gullets by the truckload.

“No sudden movements,” I said, “and stop swatting at those flying lizards. She’ll begin to get suspicious and call the cops.”

By the time we made it to the register we’d lost our appetite. The munchies had worn off and we were left with enough food to feed a small child of three for eleven years. There was nothing for it but to walk away. Very slowly at first.

Then we ran. 

 Budget Saving Meals Cookbook, Ideals Publishing Corp, 1980

Also from this book: Purple Haze, Nutty As A Fruitcake

Teddy Bear’s Picnic

If you go out in the woods today


You're sure of a big surprise.


If you go out in the woods today


You'd better go in disguise.



For every bear that ever there was


Will gather there for certain, because


Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

BEAR ONE: Easy does it…easy does it…

BEAR TWO: Shhhh! They’ll hear us!

BEAR ONE:  (whispering) They are too stupid to hear us. Also, they have a primitive sense of smell.

BEAR TWO:  I’ll go for the steaks on the left, you take the ones on the right.

BEAR ONE:  Do you want any salad?

BEAR TWO:  Nah.

BEAR ONE:  Golly, each of these things must weigh 4 lbs! It always amazes me how humans can eat so much yet stay so thin.

BEAR TWO:  It’s not like they have to hibernate either!

BEAR ONE:  I know! madness!

BEAR TWO:  Hey — did you notice they put out butter knives?

BEAR ONE:  Good luck, people! Idiots.

BEAR TWO:  They’re in for a nasty surprise when they sit down to dinner!

BEAR ONE:  People never learn.

BEAR TWO:  I can’t wait to tell the guys back at the den about this lot.

BEAR ONE:  Last night when I was scoping this site out I found their recipe book, did I tell you that?

BEAR TWO:  No, go on. This should be a laugh.

BEAR ONE:  No shit. It was open to a page on “Campfire Cookery.” It read “Since fire was first discovered, man has cooked his food over an open fire.”

BEAR TWO:  Are you serious?

BEAR ONE:  Swear to God.

BEAR TWO:  Who writes that nonsense? It doesn’t even make sense.

BEAR ONE:  I know! As if man could have cooked over an open fire before it was discovered!

BEAR TWO:  All fire is “open.” It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, how humans could have come this far.

BEAR ONE:  It blows your mind. Man, that was good steak. I’m full.

BEAR TWO:  You have that glazed look about you.

BEAR ONE:  I could still go for some berries though. I like a bit of something sweet after a meal. Besides, it’s October — the Missus says I have to put on more weight.

BEAR TWO:  Is she knocked up yet?

BEAR ONE:  I bloody well hope so — it’s been nothing but mating all autumn. I’m exhausted!

BEAR TWO:  They get insatiable.

BEAR ONE:  And then they don’t let you anywhere near them in the Spring! It’s so unfair.

BEAR ONE:  Tell me about it.

           Encyclopedia of Cooking 3, Bro to Cau, Better Homes and Gardens, 1970

           Also from this book: Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie, Cooking By Encyclopedia, It’s A Green, Green, Green, Green World

Cheefe

Next time you enjoy a bit of cheese, consider whence it came, and what it took to get here. That innocuous rectangle of plastic-wrapped, odorless, evenly textured industrially-produced cheddar is one of those modern foods that is easy to eat because we do not see it being made.

Today, it involves lots of metal in a factory and workers in masks and latex gloves, but in 1742, it was made at home by ladies with strong stomachs. Actually, they made it with newborn calf’s stomachs, as you can see (they call it a “bag”).

Stinging nettles are used to wrap the cheese because they contain a rennet-like coagulant which helps the cheese to form. Rennet is the enzyme that allows milk to become cheese, as opposed to simply rot. Today, cheese is made using the by-products of the veal industry for cow's milk cheese, though lamb's stomachs are used for making sheep's milk cheeses, goat's stomachs for goat's cheeses, and so on. 

Vegetarians and those keeping Kosher need not despair however; a number of vegetable-based rennets are available. They are made from mold. On the other hand, some of the bacteria, fungi and yeast that comprise this mold have typically been modified with cow genes. Up to 90% of the cheese on your supermarket shelf is made with Chymax, a synthetic rennet made by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. 

It's important that the calf be slaughtered before it has been weaned so that its stomach has not been introduced to elements that change the type of rennet it produces. 

Cottage cheese is so-called because it was a relatively quick variety of cheese to make at home, requiring far less stroking and curing than the solid cheeses. Cheese, like people, tend to sweat when not refrigerated. 

The Compleat Housewife, Eliza Smith, 1742

Also from this book: Poxy Lady, A Cure For Cancer, Praise The Laud!, Fertilizer, Cock Ale, Chanel No. 2, Very Game

It Was All Yellow

Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones

Turn into something beautiful

D’you know? For you I bleed myself dry

For you I bleed myself dry

— Coldplay, “Yellow”

This photograph doesn’t tell us much about the food it’s supposed to illustrate — the cheese-bacon stuffed tomatoes. It would be easy to miss them altogether amid the glaring yellow and white color scheme which seems to have been assembled by a stylist hell-bent on assuring that everything in this picture (apart from the sad-looking tomatoes) is brand spanking new.

That candle, for instance, has been so freshly lit the wick hasn’t even blackened down to the wax yet. There is nary a fingerprint in sight, and those linens still bear the folds from the packet they were wrapped in.

The brilliant lights illuminating the scene beyond the power afforded even by the sun can be seen reflected in the cruet set’s brushed steel and mock the candle’s flame pitiful weakness.

For the sake of following some rule about composition, the designers responsible for this image have inadvertently told more of a story about themselves and heightened, rather than lessened a sense of loneliness and despair when a meal is prepared for two. There is no family to muss things up; neither party is likely to be encouraged or satisfied with this meager offering, no matter how accessorized it is. The only green comes not from a salad or vegetable, but from a poisonous-looking plant.

Even the fork lacks tines, a trident lost at sea.

Quick and Simple Cooking for Two, Ideals Publishing Corp, 1976

Also from this book: Depth Of Field, A Feast For The Eyes

Close Encounters of the Meat Loaf Kind

In one of the best acted scenes in all of American cinema, Richard Dreyfuss, playing Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, fashions the Devil’s Tower out of mashed potato to the dismay of his family. This scene requires an ungodly amount of discipline; Roy Neary is compelled to recreate images of the Devil’s Tower by forces he cannot explain and becomes aware, after seeing his wife and children’s bewilderment, that his actions are scaring them. Dreyfuss has to not only convey his illusion that the mashed potato is the Devil’s Tower to the audience with conviction, but he has to actually mold it into shape without getting an acute attack of the giggles.

Emotionally it rides the razor’s edge between humor and despair, especially on the part of the children, who at first are puzzled by their father’s odd behavior — which would be silly under any other context — but which now signals his mental breakdown. They cry real tears. Eventually, Roy’s wife leaves him, taking their children with her. Although Roy loves his family (which he assures them in this scene), he decides to join the aliens who eventually land at the Devil’s Tower, and leave the planet, thus making his mashed potato scene even more poignant.

The part was turned down by Steve McQueen because he could not cry on cue. It was also rejected by Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Jack Nicholson.

For a long while after 1977, mashed potato suffered the indignity of being molded into the Devil’s Tower on countless dinner plates while people sang out the film’s distinctive theme tune. By 1979, when the New Junior Cook Book was published, mashed potato was reduced to a kind of edible Play-Doh being smeared on meat loaf. The mash in the film was clearly made from instant potato (tell-tale signs: its gummy texture and brilliant white color), as is this.

If Roy’s wife had used real potatoes, perhaps he would never have climbed aboard the mothership. Just sayin’.

New Junior Cook Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1979

Also from this book: Scrumptious Sweet Potatoes

Apple Genius

The apple was born in Kazakhstan Silicon Valley millions of years ago in 1976. Chances are that you have never eaten used an apple that has not been created by man, because all edible apples are clones of an original tree. Most other apples computers are wildly unpredictable and leave a bitter taste in your mouth. 

For example, the original Macintosh Apple was discovered built in 1811 1976 by Mr. MacIntosh Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak on his farm in Ontario, Canada in a garage in Cupertino, California. All Macintosh apples are descended from this tree idea, cultivated from grafts prototypes. The original tree died in 1906 2011.

Macintosh Apples, Apple Macs, and everything you can do with them, are insanely great.

Mrs. Beeton’s Everyday Cookery, Ward, Lock and Co., Ltd.

Also from this book: Tess and Cowslips, All This And Rabbit Stew, Brain Cakes, "Gushing entrails bricht", Blackbird Pie, The Empire Bites Back