Pizza Burger

25 minutes. Please write your answers in the lined test booklet provided.

“Giant burger boasts real pizza flavor! Broil the savory meat mixture atop a big slice of bread or toasted bun halves. Add mozzarella cheese and cherry tomatoes for a return trip to the broiler. Pizza Burger for Two makes a delicious and attractive lunch treat.”

Q: The Pizza Burger is neither Pizza nor Burger. Discuss.

1968 was a confusing time in world history. Mostly people went ape-shit crazy and killed everyone. There were people in space looking at the dark side of the moon and Led Zeppelin started tearing it up. No-one had any civility or rights. People wanted burgers like they always had but now they also wanted pizza. This is how the pizza burger came about. No-one lived with their family anymore so there was no-one around to put a halt to the madness. People were so afraid of being marched off to war that they only used one bun or a big slice of bread, and they’d never seen a real pizza. The cheese used in the photograph is clearly not mozzarella. One of the slices of bread is round and the other one is square, so two loaves of bread were used. The news on TV was so strange that it seemed 2 + 2 didn’t make 4 anymore, so people tried combining things that shouldn’t be combined just to make things make sense again, like mixing pizzas with burgers. It still didn’t make 4. The Age of Reason had come to a screeching halt. The Age of Arithmetic was a bust. A publication called Better Homes and Gardens bettered neither homes nor gardens. The 1970s were still two years off. The management of body hair fell by the wayside among all the confusion. People ate Pizza Burgers and wished they could go back in time and un-eat them. The Pizza Burger is a perfect example of the times. This is my discussion of the Pizza Burger. 

Cooking for Two, Better Homes and Gardens, 1968

Also from this book: Goodnight Asparagus, Have A Coronary

Let Them Eat Cake!

Poor old Marie Antoinette: it’s not enough that she had to powder her hair mauve and sculpt it into fantastic shapes, or that her young husband was a dud in bed, or that her head was lopped off in the French Revolution. She is also remembered for a phrase she never uttered, the bitchiest phrase since “speak to the hand,” or “whatev” — “Let them eat cake.” The phrase was “let them eat brioche,” and no-one really knows who said it or when or why.

What is clear, however, is that none of these are the kind of cakes she might have had in mind had she been around to utter such a thing. Marion Harris Neil, the author of Mrs. Neil’s Cooking Secrets and about a gazillion other highly useful and efficient books on household management and cookery, was the Proletariat version of Queen Marie. These are some of the delicious cakes she wanted people to bake.

Mrs. Neil’s Cooking Secrets, The Procter & Gamble Co., 1924

Also from this book: Crisco Fever, The Importance of Being Ernest

Have A Coronary

You’re probably thinking I mean a heart attack, but I’m not. A coronary comes from the Latin coronarius, of a crown (from corona, crown). It wasn’t until the 1670s that coronary became associated with the heart due to the crown of blood vessels surrounding it.

Perhaps you’d like a cardiac arrest instead. That comes from the Greek kardiakos for pertaining to the heart), though the arrest part didn’t become the word we most affix it to until 1950, when people living on Western diets started dropping like flies.

The ancient peoples were somewhat confused about the internal organs. The Greek kardia also means stomach, which is close to the old French cauldun (“bowels”), a word that sounds a lot like cauldron, a cooking pot. This makes sense in a metaphysical way, the stomach and its acids roiling away. The term “heartburn” is a result of this verbal proximity if not its anatomical one.

Whomever invented this exceptional sandwich ought to be crowned “Big Boy King.” If they’re still around. Which is doubtful.

Cooking for Two, Better Homes and Gardens, 1968

Also from this book: Goodnight Asparagus, Pizza Burger

Goodnight Asparagus

Goodnight board, goodnight knife

Goodnight cheese cut into a slice

Goodnight bread, and the cake of rice

Goodnight mayo, goodnight butter

Goodnight radish and goodnight lettuce

Goodnight cuke and goodnight pickle

Goodnight ham and goodnight Spam

Goodnight chips and goodnight lunch

Goodnight parsley; goodnight mush

And goodnight to the old lady whispering “hush”

Goodnight table, goodnight chair

Goodnight sandwiches everywhere

Cooking For Two, Better Homes and Gardens, 1968

Also from this book: Have A Coronary, Pizza Burger

This Little Piggy . . .

What’s mildly disturbing about this recipe isn’t the graphic goriness of it — putting the piglet’s tail in it’s mouth; boiling it partway then flaying and quartering it — but that all the way through the process it has a pronoun: he. This poor piglet seems to be cooked alive.

 Cooks and Confectioner’s Dictionary, John Nott, 1723

Also from this book: Blood Pudding, Tits, Mead, Scurvy, Scourge Of The Seas, Quackery, Gastropub / Gastropig: Eating High on the Hog, Take Your Lumps, Pigeon à la Française, Sugared Plums (Ouch)

Rococo Cocoa

If you had arrived in Vienna in 1730, weary from your travels upon a donkey, and stopped at an inn for a crust of bread and some hot chocolate to refresh yourself, this is what you would have been served. Blimey, you would have thought, that’s a tad excessive.

People back then were stucco crazy. Everywhere you looked, great dollops of the lime, sand and water mixture had been applied to every surface. White was all the rage. Even people made themselves whiter than they already were by powdering their faces and hair, the men sporting white wigs while the women crafted elaborate hairdos supplemented by hairpieces, which were then powdered white-ish (not to be confused with the men).

Food was not immune: fantastically crafted pastries and sugar follies graced tables, mimicking the architectural detailing all around. It was the age of the spatula, the trowel, and the star-shaped icing tip.

The only thing that wasn’t white were teeth.

There was nothing else for the wealthy to do. There was no TV, sports or scrapbooking to keep them occupied.

All this excess had its downside, however, because the peasants thought it a bit frivolous. They revolted, and chopped off all the be-wigged heads. Marie Antoinette is (erroneously) credited with suggesting the starving masses eat cake if they had no bread. Not, perhaps, the best bit of advice. The revolutionaries replied with the traditional response to such things: “suck on this!” 

The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire, Time-Life Books, 1968

Also from this book: The Butcher of Dubrovnik

Salmon In A Sauna

At Hotel Sven we welcome you to our facilities which cater to all of your needs all the time. You should want a sauna to taste the true flavor of Scandinavian hospitality and we have one for you. Please remove all clothes and bring a friend for you should not sauna alone it is very dangerous. If you have no friends one will be provided for you to enjoy. You will find wood in the sauna at Hotel Sven it is the finest wood available people come from miles around to appreciate it.

Here is a brochure for Hotel Sven revealing the magnificent food and the sauna. We provide all the traditional items encased in aspic in addition to banana. Work up your appetite in our sauna and then eat until you drop.

Every room at Hotel Sven is fully outfitted with the recommended comforts of home including bed and chair. Luxuries for the intrepid traveler can be purchased at shops only a few miles away the walking isn’t bad, mostly pavement all the way there and back. If a guest has a difficulty we try to accommodate it just call for Sven to help! Everyone at Hotel Sven is named Sven for your convenience and not ours.

Hotel Sven, where our motto remains: we treat you like your family does all sven days of the week!

Salad Cookbook, Family Circle, 1972

Also from this book: What We Talk About When We Talk About Gelatin, Chicken Indienne, Chicken Mousse In Aspic (A Cult Classic)

Catalogue, 1570

Behold the Williams and Sonoma catalogue for 1570. Filled with everything the Renaissance home cook could possibly want, and more! 

Filled with labor-saving devices and practical gadgets easy to store or display.

Many items come in a variety of metals such as iron or copper, and are guaranteed to last a lifetime! 

Gift-wrapping, Monogramming, and shipping and handling extra. Expect 3 - 6 months for delivery. Add us to your wedding registry and receive a set of iron hooks as our gift to you. 

Opera dell’arte del cucinare, Bartolomeo Scappi 1570

Spotted Richard

The classic British steamed pudding which gets its name from the raisins speckled within it — Spotted Dick — is perhaps the most famous of all desserts which bring a blush to the cheek. Such has been the embarrassment caused by the name of this dish that certain restaurants have taken to calling it “Spotted Richard” on their menus, which only seems to draw attention to the issue, rather than diffuse it. “What’s a Richard,” a hapless (or troublesome) customer might ask. “Why, it is a dick,” the waitress might say. “Why don’t you call it a dick, then?” the customer might pursue. “Because we feel ‘Richard’ is less controversial,” the waitress might respond. “How so?” the puzzled customer might ask. “Well,” offers the waitress, hesitatingly, “dick means penis.” A mighty silence might befall the ensemble while this riveting piece of news sinks in. “So why is the pudding called a spotted penis?” the customer now bravely asks. This is the critical juncture where the waitress throws up her hands, shrugs, and says “damned if I know. You want it or not?”

In fact, Spotted Dick probably gets its name from a corruption of the word pudding, which if you’re from Souf London you’re pronounce “puddink.” Don’t ask why. Dink becomes Dick, most likely because the English have always been prone to a bit of light and bawdy humor given the rain and general misery, and the chance to have a perfectly innocent conversation in which you can confess to enjoying eating spotted dick without recrimination is too good to pass up.

But it isn’t the dick part that’s most interesting here.

It’s the spots.

A spot, meaning a moral stain, dates all the way back to 1200. A spot of land dates from a hundred years later. But spot, from the Old English splott, also means blot, as in a blighted bit, as when one blots a pristine piece of paper, or a blot on the landscape. To spot, as in to locate something, dates from 1300. To spot, as a verb, meaning to sully, or stain, dates from the early 15^th century. A blemish spot comes to us from the 16^th century.

One could be spotted having a spot of Spotted Dick in a lovely spot and not get spots from it.

Freezer Feast, Caroline Rennie, 1973

Also from this book: England's Pleasant Pastures Seen, Frozen Stiffs

How To Make The Most Of A Pig, Before It Is Killed

Ensure that you pig has a good, fulfilling life, with plenty of exercise, shelter, acorns to nibble and scraps to eat. Give it the company of other pigs. Sing to your pig in the evening as you distribute the night-time straw. Pat your pig. When reading to your pig, avoid tales involving pigs whose houses are destroyed by angry wolves. Do not name your pig “Babe.” Name it “Bacon.”

A Plain Cookery Book For The Working Classes, Charles Elme´ Francatelli, 1852

Also from this book: Mutton Chops, Heads, Plucks, Shanks and Scrag-Ends, How (Not) To Make Coffee, Take A Deep Breath..., Stuffed Up, Bee Stings, What Pluck!, Faggots