Sometimes, home cooks just has to be realistic. Dinner has to be made. People have to eat. But maybe the cook doesn't really have the mental energy to make it look nice. Mrs. Donald M. Seltzer (in The Garden Club Cookbook Casseroles Including Breads, The Montgomery Federation of Garden Clubs, 1969) believed in letting her family know right up front when it was going to be one of those nights.
When it was Glop night, well, you knew what dinner was going to look like.
Bonus recipe! My grandma also made a dish called Glop, but it was a dessert. So, if you want sweet Glop to go with your Glop main course, this will round out your menu.
Glop
Soak 1 cup pearl tapioca overnight. Bring 5 cups of water and 2 cups of brown sugar to a boil. Add tapioca and simmer slowly until tapioca is clear. Cool. Add 1 small can crushed pineapple, drained, 1 cup chopped pecans, and 1 tablespoon vanilla.
The recipe ends there, but grandma always chilled it and served it cold. It was... fine. I kind of liked imagining the tapioca was fish eyes when I was a kid because I'm gross like that (and grandpa probably told me that that's what they were at some point). I was way more interested when grandma made cookies, but sometimes she was just having a Glop day.
Oh glop. I always imagined that the tapioca was giant fish eggs. Grandma made the caviar of glop recipes. It's certainly better than dry meat, overcooked vegetables, and pasta hidden under a sad layer of cheese.
ReplyDeleteEspecially if you're a kid! Add enough sugar to something and kids will like it.
DeleteMy father and I, on nights when my mother was out, also often made something he called glop. It wasn't really a recipe, it usually began with sauteeing some onions and green peppers and then seeing what leftovers were in the refrigerator. Cold hamburgers and add a can of stewed tomatoes? Way to go!
ReplyDeleteGlop was a very popular recipe name! I like that your version was a way to use up leftovers.
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