Nasturtium
One dozen nasturtium blossoms, two tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise dressing. Spread white bread with the mayonnaise, and place each blossom overlapping the next half-way to give substance to the “filling.” Roll the sandwiches.

Violet
Two cups of fresh violets, one-quarter cup fresh butter without salt, fresh and cold. Put one cup of violets in bottom of jar, wrap the butter in waxed paper and lay on top, and cover with remainder of violets. Cover the jar tightly, and leave for several hours in a cold place. When ready, spread this butter on very thin slices of white bread which has been given a violet bath in the same way.

Oyster-stew boxes are a china novelty. The decoration, shells, sea weeds, and little marine views. They have fitted covers like bouillon cups.

How delightful! I wonder what the less-fancy ones looked like!

A wonderful cookbook, full of handy recipes for things not generally now eaten. I will probably have to post some tips on cooking songbirds next.

“Turtle
Plunge the turtle while yet still alive into boiling water. When life is extinct, remove the outer skin and toe nails. Then rinse well, and boil in salted water until perfectly tender. Then take off the shells, remove the gall and sand bag carefully, and clean the terrapin thoroughly. Next cut the meat and entrails into small pieces, saving all the juice, put into a saucepan without water and season to your taste with salt, Cayenne and black pepper. Add for each terrapin butter the size of an egg made smooth with a tablespoon of flour. A few tablespoons of cream should be added last. Many persons add the yolks of three or four hard boiled eggs just before serving. While cooking it should be stirred very often– and must be dished up very hot.”

Someday, perhaps, I will feature Brother Zaccarelli’s horrifyingly sexist advice on managing an (ideally!) all female (and so emotional!) cafeteria staff, but today, his recipe for Tuna Bunsteads! I made a (small) batch, and it’s good stuff.

Tuna Bunsteads

Ingredients                             100 portions     50 portions     12 portions
Cheese, American, cubed                 4 pounds        2 pounds         1/2 pound
Eggs, hard cooked,
chopped                                 48                    24                   6
Tuna, drained, flaked                   84 ounces        42 ounces        10.5 ounces
Peppers, green, chopped              2 cups             1 cup               1/4 cup
Onions, chopped                          2 cups             1 cup               1/4 cup
Olives, stuffed, chopped                2 cups             1 cup               1/4 cup
Pickles, sweet, chopped                 2 cups             1 cup               1/4 cup
Mayonnaise or salad
dressing                                   2 quarts           1 quart             1/2 pint
Buns, frankfurter, split                 100                  50                    12

Procedure: 1. Combine and blend thoroughly the first 8 ingredients.
2. Fill buns. Wrap in aluminum foil. Arrange on bakers sheet.
3. Bake in a very slow oven, 250 F., 30 minutes or until cheese is melted. Remove. Serve hot.

A 524 page long book of recipes from the famous restaurant, supposedly for the American housewife. I think most American housewives would look on this beast with horror in their eyes. It’s packed with horrifically complex sauces and dishes containing huge ingredients lists, each requiring extensive preparation. One of the basic sauces, called for in many of the subsequent sauce recipes? First ingredient is a lobster. It is the very definition of mid-century fancy food.

A charming explanation of the frogs’ leg:
“Frogs’ legs are becoming more and more plentiful on the market, keeping up with the increasing demand. This country consumes more frogs’ legs than any other [country or legs?]. A few years ago, frogs’ legs were prohibited in certain seasons but now we have them all year round. [prohibited? really?] They are raised in special places like terrapin, oysters, etc. Their meat is delicious and as white as the whitest part of chicken.”

And like a single old episode of a soap opera brings you back to who was dating whom and whose evil twin is making trouble, the product cookbook is a snapshot of the products owned by a single company, products since discontinued, spun off into a new company, sold off, and so on. Aunt Jemima (Pancake mix, corn bread mix, premade frozen waffles, and syrup) has help at this moment in time from Flako (muffin mix, cupcake mix), and Quaker (oats, corn meal, grits).

For the most part, the recipes are pretty standard, many going waaaaaay out of their way to include the sponsor, one including pancake syrup for a recipe where sugar and water would be far more standard (a candy recipe), several others with pancake or muffin mix in place of plain old flour.

One standout is a coffee cake recipe that just dresses up a coffee cake mix with cherry pie filling. The coffee cake dough is mixed IN THE MIX BAG and poured into the disposable pan that comes in the box: no bowls or cooking pans needed for the ultimate convenient cake! So sixties, but it turns out it’s still available! Not where I shop, unless I am willfully blind to it.

Another is a cheese puff tower (made with popover mix, though the prep instructions sound just as involved as from scratch pastry puffs). After you make the puffs, you fill them with (not even included to have a sponsor brand, mind you) the contents of a 4.5 oz pressurized cheese spread. Yes, spray cheese. Golden, dense, and greasy. Then you use another can of the stuff to glue everything into a tower. And I do mean glue.

A lovely souvenir of Hawaii, with other titles from the publisher including HULA!, UKULELE SONG BOOK, and WIKI WIKI KAU KAU—Quick Meals Hawaiian Style.

The recipes are simplified and adapted enough for the American home that it’s mentioned that if you can’t get ginger, substitute “round onion”. Also no sign of garlic or hot pepper. The recipes are a nice cross-section of Chinese cuisine. But because standard mild-ified Chinese recipes are not terribly newsworthy, I’ll feature a couple of exotic ones.

Sweet Sour Pigs Feet
Ingredients:
6–8 pieces pigs feet
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups vinegar
1 piece ginger root
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tb. cooked oil [“Preferably peanut oil. Bring raw oil to a smoking point. Cool and store.”]
Salt
Method:
1. Put pigs feet in boiling water and cook for 3–4 minutes. Drain.
2. Sprinkle salt over pigs feet and rub with shoyu. [Note: this is Hawaiian soy sauce]
3. Brown in generous amount of oil.
4. Put vinegar, sugar and ginger in pot and bring to a boil. Add browned pigs feet, soy sauce, cooked oil and enough water to barely cover.
5. Cook gently for 3 hours. Serve.

Swamp Cabbage with Shrimp Sauce
Ingredients:
1 lb. swamp cabbage
1 clove garlic [Ah! I'm wrong! But there sure isn't much of it in the book.]
1 Tb. oil
1 tsp. shrimp sauce
¼ tsp. salt
2 Tb. water
Method:
1. Heat oil to smoking point. Add garlic, salt and shrimp sauce. Fry 1 minute.
2. Add cabbage, mix well. Add water and cook until done.

Such as Treet, a Spamalike, and a chopped ham in loaf form that proves that there’s more to Spam and Treet than ham!

And while the interior product shots are in glorious meaty full color,

the photos of the dishes featured in the cookbook are in stomach-churning black and white.

Mmmmm! Want some of that? Here’s the recipe!

Breaded Treet Slices
1 can TREET
1 Cloverbloom Egg
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 cup fine bread crumbs
Cut TREET into 8 slices. Combine egg and milk and beat slightly. Dip TREET slices in egg mixture and then in crumbs. Brown on both sides in Cloverbloom Butter or Margarine. Serve with cooked whole cauliflower topped with creamed peas. 4 servings.

And because one of my favorite reads of 2006 was The Psycho Ex Game, I must share this dish, Snow-Man stew, unretouched:

Snow-Man Stew

Heat contents of 1 can Armour Star Beef Stew in heavy sauce pan with tight-fitting cover. When stew is bubbling, spoon drop-biscuit dough made from 1 1/2 cups biscuit mix onto the meat and vegetables. Cover and cook for 10 to 12 minutes. Before serving, make dumplings into snowmen by adding whole cloves for “eyes” and pimiento strips for “mouths.”

Knudsen Recipes for Greater Food Value
Knudsen Dairy Products, The Very Best
produced by Knudsen Creamery Co of California in 1957

A booklet in the grand tradition of books of recipes containing large quantities of the manufacturer’s ingredients which are, in this case, pictured on the back cover.

Note the statement, in all-caps, “SOLD AT FOOD STORES.” This would be in contrast to delivery to your door, and the booklet emphasizes that the products are still fresh even if you don’t get them off your doorstep. And not only fresh, but not at all infectious! They have scientists, you see! OK, they don’t say that outright, but the first page touts their quality control and their staff of both scientists and technicians. But rather than emphasize that they’re preventing little Bobby from getting typhoid from his morning cereal, they focus on their effort to improve dairy products, and even make new ones! Unfortunately, I can’t think of any novel dairy products invented since the fifties.

I stand corrected! Hoop cheese! I was pleased to see this description of what exactly this product is. I had seen references to it in other vintage cookbooks but had not known what it was. Apparently a low sodium fat free cheese. And for being around since the fifties (and possibly before) it doesn’t seem to have taken the world by storm. Not even the sodium restricted diet world. The introduction of the Knudsen products in this booklet points out that they serve Southern California from nine plants which makes me wonder if they got the endorsement of the Los Angeles Heart Association because they were local or because the national association wouldn’t bite?

And while the caloric content of the hoop cheese is listed in the charts encouraging you to count your calories in order to lose weight, the suggested menus don’t include it. But they do suggest substituting sour cream for salad dressing and mayo. And using half-and-half in your coffee. And while Knudsen did distribute nonfat milk (79 calories per glass), they do not list it among their recommendations for reducing. Instead, they plug buttermilk (110 calories) and Gold Star homogenized milk (166 calories) over even homogenized milk ( 151 calories). I wonder why.

Even your everyday menus should contain vast quantities of dairy products.

And while I enjoy the web sites that poke fun at the strange and hideous dishes of yesteryear (though I’m not totally convinced anyone actually made these dishes) I don’t like when they don’t include the recipe!

Banana-Orange Float
2 bananas, peeled
1/2 cup Knudsen Cottage Cheese
2 oranges, peeled and sliced
8 maraschino cherries, halved
1 (3-oz.) package Knudsen Cream Cheese
1/2 cup Knudsen Hampshire Sour Cream
6 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Cut bananas in half lengthwise. Place each half on salad greens. Cover banana tops with cottage cheese. Arrange orange slices on cottage cheese. Decorate with cherry halves. Blend cream cheese, Hampshire Sour Cream, orange juice, rind and sugar. Pour around banana slices and over salad greens. Serves four.

Lima Bean Salad Mix
2 cups cooked baby lima beans
1/2 cup sliced stuffed olives
1/2 cup minced celery
1/2 cup minced pickles
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup Knudsen Hampshire Sour Cream
1/4 cup chopped pimiento
Combine beans with remaining ingredients except pimientos and chill 15 to 20 minutes. Serve topped with pimiento bits. Serves 6 to 8.

Both of these recipes seem to not totally match the pictures, so who knows how the pictured dishes were really made.

Do you feel the urge to buy more dairy products yet?