Vacay

Yuckylicious is on holiday for two weeks.

For the English, this means huddling on a beach in bathing suits and coats, trying to ignore the hail, taking a very quick dip in the frigid sea, and finally tucking in to some fish and chips as the sun sets imperceptibly behind a thick bank of cloud.

(Thanks to surfnslide for pic of Rhossili Bay, where the author of this blog spent many a fine summer shivering on the sand. Picture taken pretty much from the fish and chip shop, I'd guess.)

Faggots

Faggots have long been a staple of English cuisine. As a very down to earth dish, made from the remnants of butchery, it is perhaps understandable that here they are made to sound more fancy by calling them “Belgian,” though there is nothing in the recipe to suggest that there is anything foreign about them.

Calling any food item a “faggot” now would probably seem to many to be particular unsavory, given the more contemporary and derogatory use of the word to describe homosexuals. Neither of these two terms have any connection to the other faggot — that of a bundle of sticks, which has been a term in use since the 13^th century.

 A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, Charles Elmé Francatelli, The Scolar Press, 1852

Also from this book: Mutton Chops, What Pluck!. Heads, Plucks, Shanks and Scrag-Ends, Take A Deep Breath..., Stuffed Up, Bee Stings, How To Make The Most Of Your Pig Before It Is Killed, How (Not) To Make Coffee

Complimentary

click to enlarge

If cooks know that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then cookbook writers know that the way to a woman’s heart is through her ego.

This heading is designed less to appeal to the technician who wants to cook things merely competently, but to the prideful woman whose pursuits in the kitchen are designed for personal glory. Aunt Jenny knows a thing or two when it comes to the psychology of the housewife who has perhaps lost other means of winning praise because her husband has become complacent about offering it, or because she’s become complacent about earning it in other ways. If the woman in question is not in the workplace, she needs to be queen of her domain, with a suited man ready and willing to tell the world how great her french fries are.

Enjoy Good Eating Every Day The Easy Spry Way, Lever Brothers Company, 1940

Also from this book: Spry

Sloe Gin

With a maturation time of seven years, it ought to be called “slow gin,” which is often what people think the word is. The sloe berry is a lovely blue which when touched turns to black, and was once very prevalent among British hedgerows, along with rosehips and blackberries. Rosehips, full of vitamin C, aren’t good to eat, but make a lovely sweet cordial.

 The sugar is necessary to extract the essence from the berries in the alcohol, which turns a deep red color.

Here is Joe Bonamassa singing his song “Sloe Gin.” It was originally written and performed by Tim Curry. 

The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, Alice B. Toklas, 1954

Also from this book: One Toke Over The Line

Clean The Refrigerator Stew

The name of a dish ought to do at least two things: it should indicate what kind of dish it is, perhaps listing a main ingredient for identification purposes, and it should sound appetizing.

Rose Elder might have stopped at “Vegetable Stew,” although that would have been misleading, given the two pounds of beef in it. She certainly needn’t have indicated that this recipe is a catch-all for getting rid of items she no longer wants, or pointed to a housekeeping task that possibly reminds one of the nasty stuff left in the bottom of refrigerator bins that prompts you to clean them in the first place.

The Golfer’s Cookbook, Rose Elder, 1977

Also from this book: What A Load Of Bull, If Henry Kissinger Was Petite, Pretty And Black, Booze Cake

Circumcised Apples

Well, the one in the foreground seems happy at least.

Microwave Miracles, Hyla O’Connor

Also from this book: 1982, All Wrapped Up, Iron Feng, One Potato, Two Potatoes...

Adventures in Salad

How can we make this salad look more…exciting? You know, it’s just an ordinary bowl of salad. My wife makes that all the time. I’m pretty fed up with it.

We could light it differently I suppose. Or shoot it from a different angle.

We could place it on this highly reflective shiny table and bury a flashlight in it.

Now you’re talking.

That’s splendid. It looks like a giant spaceship.

Salad’s so much better when it looks scary. Would you eat that?

No way.

Me neither. Well, we’re out of film. Give us a toke on that thing.

There’s not much left.

Great. Just great. 

Low-Cost Main Dishes, Family Circle, 1978

Also from this book: Floundering, What The Dickens?, All Trussed Up And Nowhere To Go

Breast Is Best

When, in the post-WW2 period, public health people questioned the alarming drop in the number of newborns who were being breastfed (while still in the hospital, where such things could be recorded — just less than 50% of new mothers did so), they found a correlation between “rooming in” and “not rooming in.” Rooming in meant that the infant remained in the room with its mother. Rooming out meant being shipped off to the nursery — you know the kind, where rows and rows of swaddled babies are looked at through glass by haggard-looking, smoking fathers, trying to figure out which one’s his.

The only possible response to this is: DUH.

Where is the incentive to nurse when your baby isn’t there? If you don’t start, you can’t continue. This is also the era in which SCIENCE was king, as evidenced by the concept and language of this chapter on sterilization. Note the large role the physician plays in determining what should be a no-brainer. Milk from the breast needs no sterilization. Yet this was the era in which women were venturing out into the workplace, and at the very least, were expected to wear extremely tailored clothing (like the lady in the picture), which doesn’t realistically allow for a figure thickened by baby weight or milk-heavy boobs.

This chapter is disingenuous. It begins with the rather accusatory question “What is more important than your baby?” but then treats the baby as an object. Even childbirth was seen as being unpleasantly physical an experience to share with your baby, something that had to be erased from your memory even while it was happening, with twilight sleep. You went into the hospital pregnant; you woke up in bed not pregnant. With your child nowhere to be seen.

Click to enlarge to read the whole thing

It is no accident that the milk substitute fed to infants is called formula. A formula is a solution, not a food.

Pressure Cookery For Every Meal, Ruth Berolzheimer, Culinary Arts Institute, 1949

Mystery Meal

“It’s all very well filling your cupboards with cans,” Mabel complained, “but they all look exactly the same when the labels come off.”

Mabel and Dorothy were standing in the kitchen contemplating a table piled high with silver cans, all pulled from Mabel’s shelves after the flood. The colorful paper descriptions of what had been inside were reduced to mush and swept out with the last of the water, and Mabel, in her hurry to rescue everything she could save from her pantry, had pushed the cans hither and thither, so that now she was at a loss.

Dorothy picked one up and held it to her ear, shaking it slightly. “Sounds like it could be peaches,” she said. “Or maybe peas.” She put it down. “Or spaghetti.”

Mabel leaned against the counter and sighed. All the advertising she’d seen in the woman’s magazines had made much of the indestructibility of cans, and how they could bring endless variety to your diet. They were a boon for women like her. She’d never been much of a cook, and relished the chance to do away with the “bothersome preparation” that took up so much of her time. She liked to think she was being modern.

“It’ll have to be mystery meals from now on,” she said. “Bob won’t like it one bit.”

“How about we open a can and see?” suggested Dorothy. “I’m famished after all that cleaning.”

“You pick,” said Mabel. “Pick something good. Pick something tasty.”

Dorothy looked at the cans, stacked like a gleaming metal sandcastle, and reached out for one on the second layer. She withdrew it carefully, and replaced it with one from the top. “Here,” she said. “Please let it be fruit salad.”

Mabel opened the can and tipped its contents out onto a plate. It made a sucking sound. A cylindrical golden blob sat there, shapes buried within its mysterious jelly. She leaned forward to sniff it. It wobbled slightly. “Chicken,” she said.

The two women stood there and looked at it mournfully in the waning light. What was there to say? Mabel pulled the two handles of the can opener open and shut, open and shut, then placed it on the counter next to the jellified poultry.

Dorothy pursed her lips and lifted her eyebrows. Time passed. No words were necessary. They just knew.

Mariachi Supper

A bowl of Mac and Cheese does not become “Mexican” simply by being served with a plate of tortillas. Or if you throw some bratwurst in there. Or Zucchini. Or if you put shredded cheddar cheese on top. Or if you serve it in an earthenware bowl. Or if you make it on May 5. Or if you call it “Mariachi Supper.”

Kraft’s Main Dish Cook Book, Kraftco Corporation, 1970

Also from this book: Suburbanites, Women's Lib