Funny Name: Getting Friendly with Foods Edition

Did you know there was a time when kale was not popular? Not in smoothies, gnocchi, pizza, chips, pesto, and chocolate. A Cookbook for Diabetics (American Diabetes Association/ Maude Behrman, 1969 11th edition) reminds us that kale was once considered unusual.

Get Better Acquainted with Kale was part of a whole series, including Make Friends with Mangoes, Ask a Pomegranate to the Senior Prom, and See if Yogurt Will Let You Feel It Up in a Borrowed Firebird. (We try not to talk about Report Some Falafel to the FBI anymore, but it was in there too.)

Not-so-Groovy Recipes for Diabetics

 Think life is pretty grim? A Cookbook for Diabetics (American Diabetes Association/ Maude Behrman, 1969 11th edition) shows that no matter how grim things look now, at least we're not diabetics in 1969.

A lot of "recipes" are just assemblages of ingredients meant to create just the right mix of protein, carbs, and fats to keep diabetes at least somewhat under control when there were not a lot of treatment options. Want a sumptuous luncheon platter?

Well, three lettuce leaves-- one heaped with a quarter-cup of cottage cheese and chives, one with a little pile of asparagus spears (fresh if you're lucky and canned if you're not), and my favorite-- one with two pineapple rings, each with a ball of peanut butter (shaped by hand!) in the middle-- will have to do. 

Admittedly, the book tries not to leave diabetics feeling left out. We wouldn't want them to miss experiencing the iconic Ham Banana Rolls, right?

I'm not sure why the American Diabetes Association thought this particular recipe needed to be part of the repertoire, but at least it gave even more people a chance to "enjoy" the ham and banana dish.

There are attempts at desserts, too. For those tired of eating plain fresh fruit all the time, there are Sparkling Dainties.

They're kind of like Jell-O Jigglers (long before those were a thing!), but rolled in nonfat milk powder(?!) and made, of course, with artificially sweetened gelatin. I don't mind artificial sweeteners most of the time, but I am not sure how tasty an extra-concentrated dose of them might be.

A birthday celebrant would probably be better off having this instead of some Sparkling Dainties:

Cheese on one's "loveliest cake plate" instead of actual cake may be the best idea in the book-- and one that's still a thing. At least cheese will taste good. (I'm sure that the birthday celebrant will love being referred to as "the diabetic patient," though! If they're not in a medical setting being cared for by medical practitioners, why use "patient"?)

If all of this is enough to make you just want a drink, well...

The good news is the "Cocktail" is only worth half of a fruit exchange, and that's only if you decide to eat the cherry. The bad news is that the "Cocktail" is not going to make any of this easier to bear because alcohol is off limits.

So, hey! If life gets you down, just repeat to yourself, "I'm not a 1960s diabetic!" It might help. At the very least, it might also make you look just a little off-kilter, which can help with the whole social distancing thing-- something that 1960s diabetics didn't usually have to contend with.

Wintery "Milk Shake" Break!

 Are you heartily sick of waking up to another few inches of snow and ice? Wishing you could kick back with a milkshake on a nice summer weekend instead?

Well, the Amana Radarange Microwave Oven Microwave Cooking Guide (1968) can't magically make it summer, but it does offer a "milk shake" that will warm you right up on a cold winter weekend when the usual tea/ coffee/ hot cocoa just isn't cutting it anymore.

Enjoy a Hot Caramel Milk Shake fresh out of the microwave! The caramel is homemade-- right in the microwave! While there's no ice cream, this shake is full of hot eggs and milk, so that's ... something. Well, at least it's not microwaved fish or an attempt to convince readers that baking in the microwave is a fine idea!

Find some way to stay warm this weekend, even if it's just hot, eggy, sugary milk! We've got to appreciate anything we can get at this point.

All of Our Favorite Recipes with Knockoff Precious Moments

Something about the cover of All of Our Favorites Cookbook (undated, but the material from the fundraising cookbook press is copyright 1968-1981) makes me think it's from some top-secret organization.

Maybe it's the triangle symbol in the center of the page that makes me think of the Eye of Providence pyramid. This cookbook is actually from The Pioneer Partners of Hawkeye Chapter #17 of the Telephone Pioneers of America, an organization that is apparently still around and not particularly secretive.

One thing that actually kind of alarmed me about this book is that so many recipes are hybrids of the older style of recipe writing, listing ingredients in the narrative of the recipe, and the newer style, which lists all the ingredients up top and then gives the instructions underneath. That led to me often wondering things like "How do Jimmie Dean's Sausage Yummies have only one ingredient-- 10 oz. of cheddar cheese?" and then reading the recipe to see that the sausage and Bisquick are listed in the instructions, but not in the ingredients section. However, my skepticism was sometimes warranted.

I assume that Cranberry Waldorf Salad is actually supposed to contain cranberries, but the title is the ONLY indication that there should be any. Or maybe I'm wrong and "cranberries" is some super-secret reference that I just don't get because I'm not a Pioneer Partner.

My favorite part of the book, though, might be the section dividers. They're always countrified Precious Moments-style pictures, often incorporating a character I nicknamed Grandma.

Grandma's roly-poly dog begs for some of the roly-poly poultry on the platter at the beginning of the Main Dishes: Meat, Seafood, and Poultry chapter. The pup's low center of gravity makes it much easier to sit up and beg! The most interesting thing I learned about Grandma in this chapter is that she has NO IDEA what Jewish cooking is.

To be clear, I have ZERO expertise in Jewish cooking, but even I know that Jewish Meat Balls would neither contain pork nor mix meat with half and half cream. I'm not sure where Grandma got the name for this one (okay, I should credit Genevieve Whalen rather than Grandma for this one), but I'm pretty sure that whoever named this was seriously misinformed.

Maybe Grandma will be a little less ill-informed in the Main Dishes: Egg, Casserole, Cheese, and Spaghetti chapter.

At least her cheery wave and flowered housedress are enough to keep the chickens pacified for now. Just wait until they find out what will happen when they quit laying eggs....

The most surprising recipe in this chapter may just be a pickle recipe, though! If you're suspecting pickled eggs since this is an egg chapter, well, you're looking at the wrong category.

I've not seen a recipe for Pickled Noodles before. Pasta salads, yes, but straight up pickled noodles? Not so much. I'm also curious about what "Ritonti noodles" are. I suspected it might be a misspelling of "rotini," and a quick Google search returns rotini results as well, but who knows? There were so many small businesses and regional brands of food 40 years ago that it's possible "Ritonti" is as unfamiliar to me as Jewish cooking was to Grandma/ Ms. Whalen.

And finally, if you're wondering how Grandma and friends got so roly-poly, the introduction to this chapter suggests an answer.

Grandma's apparently less-spoiled backup dog is tickled that her "Honest Weight" is 200 because of her skill at making bread, rolls, pies, and pastry. That's why this one doesn't get to share the chicken in the earlier chapter.

And while many people think of bread itself as a fattening food, Grandma and Ms. Whalen take it to a whole new level.

Why eat bread when you can have Bread Fries? Just shape bread dough into fingers and fry until it's golden brown delicious. Serve with butter as a substitute for sliced bread and butter at a meal, then frost any leftovers to eat as snacks later! 

I'm glad the Telephone Pioneers of America doesn't keep secrets because I loved reading through this book and watching Grandma and her pets go about their very weird days.

Funny Name: What's so Fancy? Edition

Want a candy recipe for your sweet someone this Valentine's day? I like the name of this recipe from A Kitchen Full of Joy (Flowing Wells Assembly of God Christ's Ambassadors, Tucson, Arizona, 1976) because it really encapsulates a little bit of women's history in just a few words.

Of course Store Bought Candy isn't really just candy from the store. If it were, you wouldn't need a recipe for it. The title is meant to suggest that this tastes as good as store-bought candy, which is apparently preferable to/ fancier than the plain old homemade type. Now that store-bought candy is the expected norm and homemade candy shows off that the maker had the time/ skill/ perhaps specialized ingredients to make it, the special candy is the homemade type. I love the way the title encapsulates a moment when the value of women's time and the family's money were regarded differently than they are today. 

Of course, your sugar doesn't have to know that. They just have to like extra-sweet sweetened condensed milk mixed with coconut and nuts, then covered in chocolate chips mixed with paraphine/ paraffin. Remember to get the food-grade kind!

Recipes that are so "appetizing" they're sure to slenderize

Okay, maybe you intended to stick to those resolutions, and they kind of went by the wayside once you discovered Brookie-O Oreos. Maybe that was further complicated by the fact that Dunkaroos are available in snack pack, cereal, and refrigerated cookie form AND you can get them delivered direct to your door. Appetizing Slenderizing Recipes (Patrick J. Conway and Mary Ellen Pittenger, 1974) is here to get you back on track! (Well, not really, because 1000 calories a day isn't a good limit for an adult human being, and losing 20 pounds in a month is not something you should try to do. But you should have picked up on my sarcasm anyway....)

No more Dunkaroo breakfasts! Back to bran muffins.

I'm not sure why these are billed as bran muffins when they're mostly apple and egg, with only as much bran as a plain slice of whole wheat bread naturally has. (Or use the white bread with cinnamon and nutmeg variant for "bran muffins" with zero bran!) If a grated apple mixed with breadcrumbs and an egg sounds austere, rejoice because you can have butter on that!

Sorry, I meant "butter." I can't imagine that unflavored gelatin with butter flavoring and a bit of dry milk powder has all that many calories in it, so the emphasis that it should "be used in SMALL amounts" is probably meant to protect dieters from realizing just how sad it tastes rather than from any excess calories.

If you want some soup for lunch, Cream of Asparagus is an option.

And yes, by "cream" the recipe means cauliflower pureed in skim milk (without fake butter flavoring, even!), and by "asparagus" it means the kind from a can. 

If that sounds a little too grim, there's always taco salad.

Well, not really taco salad so much as "Taco Teaser," meaning you better be okay with your taco meat being mixed with a can of green beans and homemade diet "ketchip" consisting mostly of tomato juice, vinegar, artificial sweetener, and the ever-present unflavored gelatin.

The taco recipe is technically dinner-sized, but I'll bet you could limit yourself to a smaller lunch-size serving without much trouble. Supplement it with some midday chips if you feel naughty.

Yes, you'll think you're eating popcorn, peanuts, or potato chips (Those all seem pretty interchangeable anyway, right? I know if I were blindfolded I'd have no idea whether something was a peanut or a potato chip...) when you toss handfuls of dehydrated canned mushrooms into your mouth.

And for dinner, let's double down on green beans substituted for the more protein-and-fiber-rich pulses like black or pinto beans that are banned in this diet without explanation. End the day with some Chili Tomorrow.

Hope you planned ahead, or this chili packed with celery and canned green beans in tomato juice won't be ready. It's got to be refrigerated overnight so you can skim off all the fat from the ground round before serving.

Maybe it's best to just skip straight to dessert.

I'm sure that sauerkraut flavored with coconut extract and chocolate Alba milk powder is indistinguishable from coconut-based cookies. 

Of course, it's easy to be sure when I would refuse to eat either one of those things... Those of you who like actual macaroons are invited to try this recipe and get back to me. I'll be busy trying to recreate P. B. Max out of peanut butter, melted chocolate, and McVitie's Milk Chocolate Digestives since the best discontinued sweets didn't come back the way Dunkaroos did.

A Matter of Interpretation

Sure, I realize that the writers of Recipes You'll Flip Over (Cedar Rapids Association of Gymnastics, 1983) must have been trying to abbreviate hors d'oeuvres. Or maybe they just really didn't know how to spell it and their guess was so bad that they couldn't even figure out how to look it up. (Remember the struggles of trying to look up a word you had no clue about spelling before you could just take your chances with autocorrect?) Still, I couldn't help but imagine a pantry entirely taken over by rows and rows of canned crab when I saw this recipe title.

But then I saw this recipe and thought maybe hoard was the wrong interpretation.

No judgment, but that cucumber did some things in the past that it really does not want to talk about.

What Should We Do with February? A Fable in Two Recipes

Happy(?) February! It's the month when I'm thoroughly sick of freezing my butt off and know that there is no end in sight. Even reminding myself that this is the shortest month doesn't help. It's like getting tired of the usual takeout order, ordering something new, discovering that you absolutely hate it, and trying to console yourself by saying "Hey, at least there are enough leftovers that I can get two meals out of this!" Not really going to work. That's February.

The Chamberlain Calendar of American Cooking (Narcisse and Narcissa Chamberlain, 1957) doesn't quite know how to deal with February either. Partly, it tries to make February better by pretending the month just doesn't exist. What February? Pass the sweetcorn!

Granted, it's probably easier for modern shoppers to get "raw corn, freshly grated from the cob" in February than it was for 1950s shoppers, but it's still going to taste nothing like fresh-from-the-farmers'-market August sweetcorn. Pretending it's August won't make February disappear.

On some level, the writers seem to realize this. The recipe to represent the Pennsylvania Dutch seems to suggest a far more practical approach to dealing with midwinter blahs: Do the best with what you've got in February and eventually it will go away.

All the ingredients (dried butter beans, onion, sour cream, vinegar, sugar, and horseradish) should be pretty easy to find and keep in winter. That's the realism. The hope comes in the picture which, even with its bare trees, still seems to hint that spring is coming. After all, the branches aren't covered in snow! 

This second approach--culinary realism but photographic hope--is better. Even if I'd never eat German Sour Bean Salad (what with my extreme aversion to sour foods), I like that the recipe at least acknowledges there is stuff to eat in winter. People will make it through, as they do every year, even if they have to rely on staples that few people would count among their favorites.

Insisting on fresh sweetcorn when it's barely available and not at its best, but insisting the results will be terrific because the cook somehow willed them to be-- well, I've seen enough of that brand of delusion in the past few years! Pretending that reality will bend to suit our whims just isn't the way the world works, no matter how often people wish it were otherwise. I didn't really expect to see a fable for our times playing out in a cooking calendar, but there it is! Now, let's endure February.