Eddie Gizzard

Jim: Hey, Bob — why don’t you and Nancy come over for a barbecue on Saturday? I’ve got a new grill.

Bob: Why sure, Jim, that would be great, thanks. What do you want us to bring?

Jim: Oh, nothing — just yourselves and the kids.

Bob: It’s been ages since I had a good burger. Nancy’s been on a health kick….

Jim: We’re not having burgers, sorry, Bob. I have something special planned.

Bob: What?

Jim: Squabs.

Bob: Beg pardon?

Jim: Stuffed with gizzards.

Bob: I don’t think Nancy would….gizzards?

Jim: Yeah — one of the bird’s stomachs that’s used to grind up their food. Dinosaurs had them. Alligators have them too. Earthworms. Some fish.

Bob: I think you’re mistaken, mate. Oh, I get it. You’re going to cook burgers and we’re going to drink beers and watch Eddie Izzard  on YouTube.

Jim: Eddie Izzard?

Bob: Yeah, that comedian who dresses up as a woman. Runs marathons. Death Star Canteen. “I’ll have the penne alla arrabiata.”

Jim: You’ve lost me, mate. I’m serving squabs.

Bob: Nah, nah, I know what you’re up to. “Squabs”! Hilarious. “Tea or cake and death?, tea and cake or death?”

Jim: Are you feeling alright?

Bob: The kids know those skits by heart. Not really appropriate, some of it, but what can you do? Funny as hell.  A bit like you, Jim.

Jim: The recipe’s called “Surprised Squab.”

Bob: I’m sure it is. Of course it is.

Jim: It says “Serve it on the patio, where your guests can feel more free about wresting the succulent meat from this bird’s multitude of tiny bones.” Says it right here.

Bob: Wait till I tell Nancy.

Jim: “Serve 1 juicy squab per person.” Look — here.

Bob: Whatever you say, Jim. See you at sixish? I’ll bring ketchup — you know how the kids go through it like there’s no tomorrow.

Barbecue Cook Book, Lane Magazine & Book Company, 1967

Insouciance

Got company coming over? A ladies luncheon or coffee morning? Or a date with your mother-in-law? Perhaps you’ve invited the new neighbors over to introduce yourself.

Should you be compelled to entertain, but find that for whatever reason, you just don’t give a f*ck, then this is the perfect thing to serve. It says “I went to the trouble, but didn’t trouble myself too much.” It’s semi-homemade in a way that signals you’re a busy woman who wants to keep up appearances, but hasn’t got time to appear to keep them up. A dessert such as this acknowledges that you like tradition in the kitchen and fashion in the dining room. It says “I understand the fundamentals but like to throw them together according to my mood.”

Whatever message it sends, it’s sure to please the unfortunates among your crowd who will feel encouraged to gorge now and purge later, or perhaps to decline to indulge themselves at all in order to maintain their figures. You can go ahead and give it a fancy French name. No-one will know what it means. 

Dessert Cook Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1960

Burnt Flour Soup

Horatio:            My Lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

Hamlet:             I prithee do not mock me, fellow student, I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

Horatio:            Indeed, my Lord, it followed hard upon.

Hamlet:            Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Hamlet Act 1, scene 2

When Hamlet sardonically remarks that “thrift” is the reason for his mother’s hasty marriage, he uses it in the modern sense — meaning to be frugal, or thrifty. But 300 years before Shakespeare used it, thrift meant a fact or condition of thriving; to thrive. It also meant prosperity; to have something set aside for lean times. Thence it came to mean economy. Hence the turn, from one thing to its opposite. 

This is just what has happened to the royal house of Denmark. With King Hamlet on the throne, the nation thrived — but slain, replaced by his brother, the country ceases to be healthy. The word with which many of Shakespeare’s audience would have been familiar was thriven.

What they would not have served at the funeral or wedding was burnt flour soup, which is basically glue with cheese, buoyed up with stale bread. It is truly a desperate meal, that goes beyond simply being thrifty, but hobbling together whatever you can to survive.

The Thrift Cook Book, Marion Harris Neil, 1919

Also from this book: Getting Ahead,  Vegetarian Meat, Walkie-Talkies

Oh, Cryppys

Now that the skeleton of the last Plantagenet King, Richard III, has been located (beneath a car park in Leicester), we can ponder what he ate for his last meal.

It was probably breakfast. He had a long day ahead, what with having to do battle and all. In 1485, you weren’t excused from the gory part of ruling just because you were the King. There was no “get out of battle free” card just because you had numbers after your name. And to make matters worse, as the King, you were a rather obvious mark, especially when you had to wear a special target on your head (a circlet — a small crown) so that the enemy could identify you more easily.

Perhaps he was feeling a tad nervous and had an anxious tummy. Chances are he had a nice plate of cryppys to fortify him for the task ahead. People had been eating cryppys for a long time. Richard III wanted to continue to eat cryppys for a long time yet.

Sadly, for Richard III, he got the cryppys beat out of him on Bosworth Field. Specifically, he had the back of his head hacked off. Clearly, Henry Tudor didn’t want to waffle about. The House of Plantagenet may have been left in the dust, but the International House of Pancakes carried on, so that we can all enjoy eating some cryppys in the morning.

This recipe is from a book compiled in 1390, nearly 100 years before Richard III died.

The Forme Of Cury, 1390

Salami Bouquet

Before there was the KFC Bucket, there was the Salami Bouquet.

For people who like a little charcuterie in their floral arrangements.

An eye-catching tower of lettuce studded with cured meat “roses” with pretty olive centers forms the centerpiece on a platter of attractively sliced deli offerings. Bread slices sprinkled with chopped parsley extra.

Meat Cook Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1965

Also from this book: Coup de Grace, Beware the Franks

New Cabbage Slaw

Derek opened his eyes and let them rest in the dark of his cupped hands for a few moments after finishing the prayer. He usually prayed before dinner in the manner of his parents, resting his head in his hands, elbows on the table. He knew other families who offered a prayer before dinner by simply holding their palms together in front of themselves, or by holding hands in a circle, but they all closed their eyes. You had to close your eyes. If you didn’t, Derek knew, the prayer didn’t count. It was a sacred minute where he felt it was possible for God to enter the room and change things without you looking. Every day, before partaking of the evening meal, he thus played a game of hide-and-seek, and every time, like a child, he wanted to prolong the possibility that a miracle had in fact occurred, no matter how small. Lately it seemed that he kept his eyes closed longer and longer, as if giving the Almighty extra time to fix things — things, Derek knew, he would never be able to see.

It was a thought he pondered while driving to work, sitting on the freeway. It was, he figured, the essence of faith. His limitations as a mortal man would prevent him from ever knowing for sure if God had been at work in his life (or his dining room), or not. If the traffic was particularly bad, this line of reasoning led him invariably to the uncomfortable thought that he was trying, in his closed-eyed silence, to out-maneuver God, to catch Him in the act, and thus validate his beliefs. That made him feel like a cheat. By the time he reached the office, he couldn’t wait to get to work to take his mind off it.

The first thing Derek did once he sat at his desk was to place, very carefully, so as to make no noise, his bagged lunch in the garbage bin. He never looked inside the brown paper bag; he didn’t need to. He’d prefer not to know. After he did this, he uttered a quick prayer for forgiveness, and fired up his computer.

Derek had met his wife at church; they had been set up on a blind date by mutual friends — a married couple who not long after Derek and his wife married, fell apart spectacularly — in ways Derek often thought guiltily about. There had been wild alcoholic binges, pills, rumors of prostitutes. Derek’s new wife thought it best that they, like others in the church, stopped taking this couple’s calls. That was years ago now, and Derek sometimes wondered what became of them. He remembered them in his prayers, and at night, when he couldn’t sleep, often found himself re-living outings and dinner-dates, searching his memory for clues as to the cracks in this couple’s relationship. He came up empty. There was nothing to point to; they had seemed perfectly happy. Derek lay there staring at his ceiling, listening to his wife’s breathing, wondering if anyone else would think that of him. Probably, he thought. They probably would.

Every day, at the dinner table, Derek gave thanks for the food, and for the Lord’s bounty, using the same words he’d recited from childhood. His children said them too. Everyone was hungry.

Then, when he opened his eyes, he gazed at the coleslaw his wife had served in a carved-out cabbage, and knew that his prayers had not been answered. God had not intervened; he was being tested, yet again, by a force greater and with more tenacity than Derek could comprehend. He smiled and held out his plate, and even as the words “that looks lovely, Dear” escaped his lips, he blasphemed loudly in the depths of his heart. 

Salad Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1958

Coup de Grâce

One would not ordinarily relish being asked to apply a coup de grâce, which is a blow of mercy to end suffering.

It is mystifying then, that someone who has nearly murdered a dish — such as this ham and lima bean concoction — would apply their own coup de grâce in the form of the grated cheese (or whatever that is) that makes it finally, and completely inedible.

Meat Cook Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1965

Also from this book: Beware the Franks, Salami Bouquet

Beware The Franks

— What know we of the Frankish tribes?

— They are many, Sire.

— Whence do they roam?

— All over the place. Everywhere you look: a Frank.

— What about Tom, Dick and Harry?

— No Sire: just Franks.

— And what tongue speaketh the Franks?

— Gibberish, Sire.

— Have we any Gibberish speakers who may serve to communicate with them?

— Why, the whole Court, Sire. Most people speak a bit of Gibberish. Especially after a beer or two.

— Are the Franks armed?

— Yes Sire, they have arms. And legs.

— I mean, what know we of their weapons?

— Oh, armed. They carry fearsome axes, Sire, and wooden shields. But Sire: it is not what they carry into battle that slays their enemies, Sire.

— What is it then?

— Their cooking Sire. They have a method as cunning as it is effective.

— Pray tell, what is it?

— They do not come bearing arms, Sire. They send a messenger to invite you to a “barbecue.”

— Whatever is that?

— A meal, Sire. They serve ales and meats of dubious origin which have been mashed and extruded to form sausage-like shapes.

— Sounds pretty good to me.

— Oh Sire, it is not. They call them “Frankfurters,” and they have killed many a stout soldier merely wanting to fill his stomach. Sometimes they are served in a pot of blood.

— Surely not! They must be Barbarians!

— No, the Barbarians are someone else, Sire. Look: I have an image made by a spy: behold the horror!

— Why, truly these Franks are a people to be avoided lest their evil ways take over the world! We must not let their reign of terror spread!

Meat Cook Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1965

Also from this book: Coup de Grace, Salami Bouquet

Zen and the Art of Washing Dishes

It is entirely possible that there exist people today who have never washed dishes, but rather think of dishwashing as something that is done by a machine which sits under your kitchen counter. Loading and emptying are what’s done to everything used to prepare and serve food. I expect most people think of the dishwasher as a time-saver, a useful appliance which takes the drudgery out of a task, freeing us up to do other things — which according to most advertising means spending “quality time” with our families. 

But perhaps the dishwasher does the opposite; it does not improve the quality of life (of the person charged with the domestic chores) at all. Perhaps it takes something valuable away: some quiet time at the end of the evening.

It used to be that our homes were our gyms; the amount of calories spent simply doing chores — without modern conveniences — was easily spent, keeping us (or our great-grandmothers) slim. But the exercise that chores provided isn’t the only benefit. At the end of every evening, when I stand at my sink and go about the routine of washing my dishes, I get a chance to stand there and simply reflect on my day, unhindered (most of the time) by children or the internet. The repetitive action of a task so familiar as to be automatic is relaxing. When you do not own a dishwasher, you quickly develop a method for clearing the table and washing dishes that makes sense in the way that this 1901 instruction guide suggests.

The phrase “rhyme and reason” marries both logic with art. Dishwashing — by hand, old school style — is a lovely bit of both. It’s not drudgery; it’s what you make it.

The Settlement Cook Book, Simon and Schuster, 1901 (1965 edition)

Also from this book: Soliloquy

Wash Your Mouth Out With Soap

Handmade small-batch soaps look pretty and smell delicious, especially when sold at farmer’s markets in blocks, which are sliced to order, wrapped in tissue and sealed with a little sticker. You often find that the soap has been studded with chunks of other soap for color or aroma. Perhaps an opaque base of shea butter soap is married with some clear gelatin-based concoction.

Here is a soap meant to impart a minty freshness to your daily bathing routine. Serve it with lettuce and . . . wait . . . this isn’t soap!

Salad Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1969

Also from this book: Banana-Cheese Dressing, Ham Cabbage Mold, Salmon Avocado Mold