The Joy of Fondue

— You first.

— No, you first.

— I don’t want to.

— Chicken!

— It’s not chicken; it’s some chocolate stuff. I think.

— I meant — never mind.

— Last one in has to do the dishes.

. . .

— OK, no-one’s moved. Last one in has to drive home.

— But you guys live here. That’s not fair!

— Damn.

— How long does it take for this stuff to get cold?

— Not sure. Who wants another drink?

— Me.

— Me.

— Me.

— Think I’ll give it a pass. I feel a cold coming on. Maybe it’s the flu.

— Oh, thanks, thanks a LOT. You could have said something earlier before we all shared that last bowl.

— I wasn’t sure then. I’m feeling more sure now.

— That’s it. I’m done.

— What? You’re not even going to try it?

— Nah.

— But I have Hot Curried Fruit coming up next!

— Um . . . Nah.

 Fondue On The Menu, Golden Press, 1971

Also from this book: Raw Meat

Spuds

In the days of yore (1969) cookbooks such as Time-Life’s The Cooking of the British Isles noted that “…in Ireland you will find that, in all probability, Paddy O’Connor eats a lot of fish and potatoes, partly because he is a Roman Catholic, and partly because a lot of fish and potatoes are produced in Ireland … In Kerry, the magic county, the country lanes in the early morning are full of flat-topped carts, each supporting a huge milk churn, pulled by aged horses.”

The author of this totally unromanticized vision certainly has a way with words. He claims that “Scouse, for example, a word related to ‘Scouser,’ a nickname often bestowed on those who admit to coming from Liverpool, is a kind of thin, poverty-stricken stew, said to have been introduced into that city by the Irish.”

According to him the natives prefer it that way — to tuck in to their gruel while dreaming wistfully of being Irish and having the privilege of digging your own peat over which to cook your soda bread because you lack electricity and gas and have no other option for survival. But hey — they “own a donkey and a small boat…so what more did they want?”

The caption to the photo above reads: “An Irish farm wife and her son dig a few potatoes for supper from their family patch in County Galway. Ever since potatoes were first brought to Ireland from the New World in the 17^th Century, they have been a mainstay of the Irish diet.”

Curiously (and predictably) he ignores entirely a little something that happened in the summer of 1845 when Phytophthora infestans arrived like a malevolent tourist on the Emerald Isle’s green and bounteous shores and killed everything it touched.

The airborne fungus reduced healthy potato plants to slime almost overnight — and since by this time the spud had become the staple of a rather meager diet, it literally decimated the population, when over the course of three years one in ten died of starvation.

It didn’t just wipe the humans out; it also ended the long and noble reign of the Lumper potato, which had been the only variety of potato grown, making it exquisitely vulnerable to blight. There are no more Lumpers. The lumpenproletariat, however, clearly survived.

The Cooking of the British Isles, Time-Life Books, 1969

Beef Cocktail — Cheers!

That the human body is an evolutionary work in progress can be seen in the presence of the coccyx, which happens to also be the best-named bone we have. The coccyx is at the very end of your spine, the faint echo of a vestigial tail.

Other parts modern man has little use for include the wisdom teeth, which many have removed because our short jaws don't do much mammoth bone gnawing anymore. The ability to see further than our computer screens have meant we all have spectacles perched on the ends of our half-used noses.

The Complete Blender Cook Book appears to want to hasten the demise of our teefs, too, because if you use it you’ll have absolutely no need for them. If it can be turned into a puree, paste, foam, cream, sauce, goo or liquid of any kind, then it’s in here.

The Cocktail Hour is also going out of style, along with smoking — perhaps because folks started replacing the alcohol in them with meat and then sent you out in the cold to enjoy your cigarette separately on the sidewalk. What is the world coming to?

For those of you who like to consume your beef through a straw, there’s this:

Beef Cocktail

1 cup beef broth

1 very thin slice onion

1 teaspoon lemon juice

¼ pound cooked round steak, shredded

Into container put all ingredients. Cover, blend for 20 seconds. Season delicately to taste. If served hot, heat over low flame, do not boil; or serve cold garnished with parsley. Makes 1 to 2 drinks.

The Complete Blender Cook Book, Waring Products Co., 1965

Burning Ring of Fire

The Rawliegh’s Picture Treasury of Good Cooking bears an uncanny resemblance to Dante’s Inferno in that it too represents the nine circles of hell. Consider the following:

Circle One: LIMBO

Blueberry Pie

Circle Two: LUST

Chili Con Carne

Circle Three: GLUTTONY

Tuna Filled Cheese-Noodle Ring

Circle Four: GREED

Swedish Coffee Ring

Circle Five: WRATH

Angel Food Cake

Circle Six: HERESY

Molded Vegetable Salad

Circle Seven: VIOLENCE

Spaghetti and Meat Balls

Circle Eight: FRAUD

Cottage Cheese-Vegetable Ring

Circle Nine: TREACHERY

Creme Vichysoisse

Burn, Baby, Burn. 

Rawleigh’s Picture Treasury of Good Cooking, The Tested Recipe Institute, Inc. 1959

Cherry Pork Chops of Doom

Dear Husbands:

If your wife serves you this dish, take it as proof she is having an affair. How can you be so sure? you say. She always appears to be home and fully clothed.

Here’s how:

For a start, look at the recipe. This is a dish designed to take as little time to prepare as possible, then cooks slowly for “4 to 5 hours.” Even for pork this is excessive. Imagine, if you will, what she could be doing all that time! It’s plenty long enough for her to drive across town wearing nothing but a raincoat and heels to do it with her secret lover every which way but Sunday AND cook him dinner too.

Has your doctor told you to take it easy with the bad fats and sugar? Do you suffer from hypertension and have your trousers been growing tight of late around the waist? This meal is sure to help speed you along to an early grave with its meat cooked in rendered fat and concentrated sugar syrupy sweet sauce. If nothing else you’re going to suffer in the bathroom from a lack of roughage as that sprig of parsley is the only source of dietary fiber here. And how easy would it be for her to mistakenly put in too much mace? What's the harm? you say. Every heard of pepper spray? That's made of mace. A mace is also the name for an ancient spiked weapon sure to produce extreme death if swung from behind a corner by a crazy man who has been sleeping with your wife. Coincidence? We think not. 

Next, note how it is served — on pewter (which only appears in medieval horror novels as a suitable substitute for actual china) complete with a menacing branch of obviously poisonous berries. Where on earth did she get that stuff? Probably from her boyfriend who must surely be a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan, what with the mace and everything. There is no cutlery: does she expect you to eat with your hands like an animal? The candles are being blown by a draft that must come from a slightly cracked window though which a rifle could at this very minute be pointed at your head by the man who is cuckolding you.

Furthermore, her choice of a deep brown heavy twill tablecloth has been cleverly selected for its ability to soak up blood from a terrible head wound “accident” without rising too much suspicion from the dry cleaner.

Finally, would your good wife, if she truly loved you, serve you something so patently dangerous and repulsive? The answer, my friend is no.

Does your wife look happy, rested and content? Does she give you an extra wide smile when you come home? Does she tell you she loves you every day? Then for the love of God run, Man, run like your life depended on it.

Crockery Cooker Cook Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1976

Also from this book: Devil's Food Pudding

Beef a la Mode Surprise Surprise!

— Darling, just a reminder: we have dinner at the Emperor’s place on Sunday.

— Damn! I was going to play a round of golf on Sunday. Can’t we decline?

— Not really, no.

— Well that is awfully irritating. Why does it have to be Sunday of all days?

— We all have to worship the sun now. He decreed it so. Elagabalus, everybody calls him behind his back. Like helio, the sun.

— By Jupiter! What’ll he think of next? I’ve never heard of such piffle.

— Just grin and bear it.

— Do we have to take a gift for the lady of the house? Who’s he married to nowadays anyhow? Isn’t it Julia something?

— No; he dumped her for a Vestal Virgin — it caused quite a scandal. Then he married some widow named Annia whose husband he had executed.

— I’ve heard he swings both ways.

— Really? He does seem to spend a lot of time playing games with a charioteer….

— Do you have any idea what the menu will be?

— My friend said she heard that six hundred ostriches were brought to the palace.

— Ugh — you know how I hate ostrich brains.

— There will probably be nightingale’s tongues then. Or camel’s feet. Don’t worry. We can always grab something on the way home.

— That is if we aren’t smothered to death with rose petals! Remember that! What a debacle! People didn’t think that was funny.

— Just chew carefully. That way, if he hides jewels in the lentils like he did last time, you won’t break another tooth.

— Fourteen’s too young to be made Emperor if you ask me. It’s all just jolly japes and pranks. Rome will be made a laughing stock.

— Oh come on — he’s not that bad!

— He prostitutes himself naked in the palace hallways.

— He does not!

— Yes he does; I have it on good authority from an associate of mine whom he propositioned. He was wearing a ton of makeup to disguise himself.

— That’s shameful!

— I’ll say. Someone needs to put that whelp out of his misery.

— No doubt the Praetorian Guard are working on it. They always are.

— How about a bit of hanky-panky before you blow the candle out?

— I thought you’d never ask!

*  *  *  *  

Later...

— Well, that wasn’t so bad.

— I had a start when he sliced that roast though! Didn’t it look like he’d had the fingers of slaves poked into it all the way through?

— I was afraid to touch it.

— But they were only carrots.

— Let’s hope so. At least he didn’t make us eat wax replicas of his meal this time.

— Oh that was a trial, yes. And he just sat there laughing his head off watching us try to swallow it. That poor chap who asked for a drink of water to wash it down….

— I know. He was tied to a wheel and spent the rest of the evening being spun over a tank. His wife was furious.

— I say — my stomach is a bit upset. I do hope that damn beef wasn’t poisoned.

— They say his guests never leave empty handed. Oh Jupiter…me too….

McCall's Cooking School, Random House, 1972

Creamed Lobster

All Lobby the Lobster wanted to be when he grew up was to be handsome enough to be served in a fine dining establishment. Indeed, it was the ambition of many of his peers to spend their last days in a gently bubbling tank with a great view of the ocean from whence they came, perhaps through the restaurant’s giant bay windows. To this end, he spent many an hour practicing to become as enticing as possible to tourists with an expensive palate, and had achieved mastery of a kind of slow claw wave that everyone agreed was highly distinctive and ought to win him the prize of being selected by a Prince or at least a baron of industry or his wife for their entree.

When the day came, as he knew it would — when the nets descended upon him and he got his first taste of air aboard a bobbing vessel — he became patiently docile while his magnificent claws were taped and he was placed into a plastic box. He could barely contain his excitement at the fish market when he was purchased by a gruff chap in a long white coat smeared with fish scales.

But when Lobby got his first glimpse of his destination his little crustacean heart dropped: alas! The fluorescent lighting, the stainless steel, the ominous conveyor belt…it could only mean one thing: the dreaded factory where death was delivered not at the merciful point of a sharply honed chef’s knife driven hard through the head — but in the hellish maws of the crusher and thence the dismemberment chamber.

Lobby had heard horror stories of ancestors who’d met their fate in this fashion, boiled and flash frozen, their various parts scattered far and wide in several separate bags to sit in some dire supermarket aisle. He uttered one last anguished cry before the hammer came down, but at least he was spared the knowledge that some of him would become part of this dish.

Next time you decide to make Creamed Lobster Vol-Au-Vents, remember that lobsters are lobsters, too.

Fish & Seafood Cookbook, Brand Name Publishing Corp. 1985

Also from this book: The Heart of Pineapple, Hillbilly Sashimi

Calf's Head Pie

On a cold January day in 1865 the dread puerperal fever took the life of the mother of all Yuckylicious books, Mrs. Isabella Beeton, who was just 28 years old and who had just given birth, a week before, to her fourth child.

You do not want puerperal fever. Let’s just clarify right off the bat: if you are going to deliver a baby, wash your hands first. And after. The great irony here is that of all cookery books, hers probably contains the most references of cleanliness, an attribute always foremost in her advice for just about anything. The outrageous phrase wrongly attributed to her that aims to illustrate how thorough her recipes are (“First, catch your hare…”) could easily be replaced with “First, rise at six and wash your house.” That is, if you have the misfortune not to be able to employ at least a maid and cook.

Of curious note to a modern reader is that she expects those women of the class likely to have to prepare the remains of a head to read at a level many of today's college students would find trying, even though compulsory education for children was only instituted five years after her death. 

Another thing you might not want is leftover calf’s head. In her chapter on “The Art of Using-Up’” Mrs. Beeton advises us that “Most cooks like to work only with fresh materials, a practice which must be guarded against.”

For a woman who lived at a time when childbirth was probably going to kill you at some point, and some 60-odd years before the antibiotics that could have saved her were discovered, learning to make the most of life without refrigeration must have seemed like sage advice.

Mrs. Beeton’s Everyday Cookery, Ward, Lock & Co., date unknown (just post 1948)

Boiling Water

In 1980 the person who previously owned the 700-watt Amana Radarange Microwave Oven that came with this cookbook and user guide paid $507.74 for it. How do I know? The receipt and warranty is still tucked inside the inside flap. Today, a 700-watt microwave can be had for $55 — but it probably won’t last as long as the model from 30 years ago which, if YouTube is anything to go by, would still be going strong if by chance you had not tossed it out already.

In the introductory section that instructs the new owner on how to work the machine, it says “You will find that your introduction to Cooking with the Amana Radarange Microwave Oven is very easy to read and understand. It’s also designed to lay completely flat so you won’t “lose your recipe page” at an awkward time.”

Why that phrase is in quotation marks is anybody’s guess, but I can tell you that the book does not lie flat by any stretch of the imagination. One thing it does get right, however, is the part about it being easy to read. Forthwith are a selection of recipes from it.

There's a nice section on how to use your microwave to dry fresh flowers at the back too. Ingredients: fresh flowers. Those ones on the cover better watch out. 

Introduction to Cooking with the Amana Radarange Microwave Oven Cookbook, 1980

An Eye For An Eye

Jean Anthelm Brillat-Savarin, in his foundational treatise on the aesthetics and science of gastronomy, The Physiology of Taste, offers this essential aphorism:

A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye.

How true that is.

Perhaps this is how the missing eye sees this Apple Pie — deeply red. Look! There’s the cheese imprisoned in a glass cage behind the pie lest it escapes.

Crisco’s Favorite Family Foods Cookbook, The Procter and Gamble Company, 1973

Also from this book: Sausage Breakfast Bake With Crisco, They Serve Coke At Parties, Don't They?