Saturday, October 11, 2014

Make mine mild!

It's always fun to come across a recipe that's obviously been made before. Maybe the book falls right open to a specific page that is covered in splatters. My favorites have little notes to go with them, though. Many are pretty straightforward-- a little star or the word "good" in the margin to suggest it's a good recipe, maybe an instruction or two like "omit onion" or "needs more pepper." And then there are notes that make me go "Huh?"

Today's huh-inspiring note from a home cook is courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens All-Time Favorite Casserole Recipes (1977, but mine is a 1980 printing). This is not a fancy recipe by any means. (That's probably why the home cook made it! Who doesn't love mac & cheese?) It's the note scrawled in pen that makes me wonder:


Questions:

1. There is (or was?) such a thing as sharp American cheese? I thought all American cheese was just American cheese, pretty bland and homogeneous. Isn't that kind of the point of American cheese? It won't stand out, but it melts well.

2. What happened with the sharp cheese that made the home cook say, "You know what? We better stick to the mild American cheese for this one"? Did lunch have just a little too much flavor?

"Ma, we better go back to the mild American cheese. Zebediah got a little too worked up by the sharp and went on one of his milking tears again. Bessie is all shook up."

"Alright. I'll put a note in my cookbook."

6 comments:

  1. Well, who wants to add more flavour to their food?

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    1. My mom is the same way. She gets nervous if you touch the pepper shaker.

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  2. That is an odd notation Poppy:) I've come across some strange little notes in margins in my day but one I remember off hand simple stated, "never make this again." Funny thing was, it was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies, lol...

    Thanks for sharing...

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    1. Those must have been some seriously bad cookies! Even the worst chocolate chip cookies aren't usually bad enough for more than an indifferent shrug....

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  3. I know this post is years old and maybe you've figured this out along the way, but I thought I'd comment just in case! Something I have gathered from reading tons of old recipe books is that the term American cheese actually refered to cheddar cheese. The Betty Crocker picture cookbook I believe is where I first noticed that. They say something like "use American (cheddar) cheese". And old recipes do tend to specify when they want you to use processed cheese by saying processed American cheese.

    I have no idea when the language changed as I don't have a lot of books from the 70s and newer. I'm pretty sure your recipe actually calls for cheddar because of the use of a roux. If they had used processed cheese, I'm not sure you would need the flour to make it melt properly.

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    1. That sounds like a pretty good theory! The older cookbooks tend not to be as clear in their terminology regarding cheese as they are today. I know I've seen vintage cooking blogs struggling with the idea of how to grate American cheese (since it's so soft anyway and now mostly sold as singles), so this would help with their dilemmas as well.

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