Gayelord Hauser tortures some vegetables

One of my favorite genres is the '70s health food craze, and today we've got one of its daddies. Or maybe just an older sibling, depending on how quickly health food crazes multiply, and whether you date this by the original publication date (1946) or the edition I have (1963).

It's The Gayelord Hauser Cook Book, by the man who, according to the back cover, "has literally dissolved mountains of fat from the overweight ... with new delights of flavor." He's also the man who, according to Wikipedia, had copies of another book (Look Younger, Live Longer) confiscated by the FDA, and the one who made powdered skim milk, blackstrap molasses, yogurt, wheat germ, and brewers yeast so popular as health foods.

I'm usually most interested in early ideas about vegetarian foods, so I naturally gravitated toward things with titles like "Vegeburgers":

Only to see that "vegeburgers" are not the same thing as veggie burgers. They're apparently just meatloaf patties.

But among "The Hollywood Liquid Diet" (fruit and vegetable juices, plus "Hauser broth") and the unexplained claim that "Bacon is the only part of the pig permitted in health cookery," I found the vegetarian-focused section, offering up such delicacies as its own version of Salisbury steak...

...supplementing the expected onions, mushroom, and tomato with grated beet, chopped walnut, and shredded wheat biscuits. Maybe the version the lunch lady indifferently splopped onto your middle-school tray looks a little better now?

There's a forgettable-looking curry sauce recipe...

... made more memorable by the fact that the avocado version does not, as current recipes, use the alligator pear as part of the sauce.

Nope. Avocado curry is chunks of steaming not-too-ripe avocados in that sauce.

My favorite, though, is the pudding.

Ever pined for Lima-Bean Pudding, loaded with... milk... and, uh, lima beans... and dried corn? And just the right amount of seasoning to make it almost taste like someone thought about adding some seasoning? Yeah. That's the stuff. I can see how Hauser's patients melted away the pounds running from this dense little dinner.

I'm not so sure how a guy who churned out these recipes could end up rumored to be a romantic interest of Greta Garbo, though, so maybe they're better than I imagine.