Some high notes and low comedy from the Toledo Opera

Okay-- I teased you when I introduced Culinary High Notes (Toledo Opera Guild, 1978) because the post was just a bunch of weird opera-related cartoons-- no recipes! Now let's check out some of the recipes in the book that promised to "turn your meals into dramatic performances."

When I noticed that this 1970s Toledo book had a section for celebrity recipes, I checked right away for a Jamie Farr recipe. So what recipe did the man best known for playing Klinger on M*A*S*H* want to be known for? Answer:

An eggplant appetizer. It probably sounds fine if you like eggplant and olives. I was kind of hoping for something more flamboyant-- maybe a Jell-O loaded up with hot dogs and pickles from Tony Packo's. I am actually more amused by the note that accompanies this than the recipe itself. All the unnecessary quotation marks make it look as if the writer is skeptical about the concept of talk shows and finds it unlikely that the actor was ever a boy.

The book has plenty of party recipes for the readers who liked to gather with their opera friends and show off a little. There's a requisite Party Sandwich Loaf. 

It's filled with the usual discordant layers of ingredients-- this time, layers of avocado-pineapple mash, egg salad, and tuna salad, plus a frosting of cream cheese mixed with cranberry jam. This sandwich loaf should be dramatically pink and quite memorable!

For something a bit fancier, there's a twist on beef Wellington.

I imagine Cornish hens would already have seemed kind of fancy, but stuffing them with orange-scented rice, swaddling them in canned crescent roll dough, and ultimately presenting the whole shebang on a platter with crab apples, watercress, and a currant sauce must have seemed pretty dramatic.

The recipes could be playful, too. I'm used to seeing fun salad recipes aimed at kids, perhaps shaped like a rabbit for Easter, or like bugs or mice just for fun. This book has an opera-themed Juliette Salad for grownups!

I love the thought of adults sitting down to a deviled-egg-headed, tomato-bloused, lettuce-leaf-skirted and tuna-salad-stuffed Juliette.

The recipe that might lead to the most dramatic performance of all, though, might just be the Spaghetti à l'Opéra.

You might ask what is so dramatic about spaghetti in garlic butter/oil with some mushrooms and Parmesan. It's the serving size: a full cup of olive oil plus a half-cup of melted butter in a recipe that claims to serve "one to two people." That much grease in a single meal is likely to prompt a lot of people's digestive systems to put on a pretty dramatic show.... If they're lucky, it will be a private performance.

Ha! I drew you in with the promise of high culture and ended with a poop joke. My work here is done.

La Farine du Régiment

I picked up Culinary High Notes (Toledo Opera Guild, 1978) in part because it was a rare find for me: a pretty substantial community fundraiser cookbook that was (as you can see) only $1! 

The busty young Viking singing her heart out to a salad on the cover didn't hurt, either. (I suspect she's more likely to use the spoon as an imaginary microphone than an actual kitchen utensil. Or maybe she'll sing into it and then toss the salad, which should be fine as long as she does it out of view of any germophobes.) 

What I didn't realize when I picked this book up was that the playful opera-themed illustrations by Mrs. Virgil Eckhart (Patricia) would be scattered throughout the book at the start of each new chapter.

As required by law at the time, there are a few comics highlighting the importance of culinary skills in a woman's life.

At least since the book is from the '70s, the women get to push back.

The comics with social commentary are less common than those featuring opera-related puns, though.

Okay, maybe I'm not so excited that Mrs. Eckhart had to put in a fat joke, but it's still interesting to note that even supposedly high-minded opera types stoop pretty low.

I know some of the cartoons go over my head because I'm not a regular opera-goer.

I imagine there's something more going on in this one than the "Tosca/ toss a" pun, but the pun by itself is enough for me.

And then there's the good old "more/ Moor" confusion.

There are also some comics about humorous misunderstandings that kind of reimagine operas as sit-com-adjacent.

I could see George from Seinfeld saying this line.

Other humorous misunderstandings would fit a bit better for Monty Python.

Maybe this is the quest that Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film was on when Monty Python and the Holy Grail was being filmed?

If you come here just for the recipes, you might be feeling a bit ripped off right now, having to scroll through half-a-dozen kinda snooty comics with nary a recipe in sight. If so, too bad! I love weird little comics almost as much as I love old cookbooks, and I felt like highlighting these. I'm mostly here to amuse myself. But don't worry-- I'll post some recipes before too long! Aïda know what else to tell you!

Frosty Melons v. Mad Scientists

Kentucky Cooking: New and Old (by "The Colonelettes"-- wives of members of the Louisville, Kentucky, Junior Chamber of Commerce, 1955, though mine is the 1958 second edition) really loves gender-related stereotypes, as the Colonelettes designation might suggest. While that is clearly nothing unexpected in old cookbooks, the contrast between lady food and men's recipes is was too interesting to pass up.

First, the ladies' luncheon.

Okay, technically this doesn't say it's for ladies, but 1. luncheon menus were almost always for women because they were presumed to be home for lunch while men were out working, 2. It consists primarily of sugar, which is pretty standard for ladies' luncheons, and 3. Men weren't supposed to care about "picture pretty" plates or have jaded appetites. Clearly, this is a ladies' luncheon menu. While the menu features cheese-topped English muffins, plus pineapple sherbet and brownies, the real star of the table was frosted melon salad.

This is the fruit equivalent of a sandwich loaf: the melon peeled, gutted, filled with a mixture of lemon gelatin plus prunes and other fruit, frosted with cream cheese, and cut into slices to serve. (I've got to imagine that the dainty garnish of olives, prune, and mint really added the je ne sais quoi element that made ladies remember to the luncheon for years to come.)

The section of men's recipes (set off in their own chapter to help emphasize that food prep was generally the women's domain) still sometimes expected women to do the real work and allow men to get the credit.

Yeah-- maybe you thought I was being overly dramatic, but there are instructions for the wife to do the behind-the-scenes work of cleaning and shelling shrimp, then melting and seasoning the butter so the husband of the "Husbands How To" couple can have fun performing the last step of cooking the shrimp in front of the guests.

The recipes written for men to cook on their own don't always focus so much on the actual making of the food as on how to have fun while playing at cooking.

There are many ways to spell and make this egg-tomato-cheese mixture, but it's apparently more fun for a man to make it if he can drink enough martinis while he cooks to slur the end of the recipe....

I'm kind of surprised the Rinktum Diddy recipe didn't have a martini recipe in it too! Drink recipes are the most popular types of recipes in the men's chapter. The one from the town pharmacist might be my favorite.

It's not girly kitchen work if it's done with a volumetric graduated cylinder, right? Thanks Don "Martini" Jones! (He liked martinis so much, he changed his name!)

And thanks again, Colonelettes, for reminding us how much less fun it was to be a woman in the '50s than a man.

Kentuckyettes!

Just like always on this site, our "new" book is something old, but this one actually says it's new and old right on the cover.

Kentucky Cooking: New and Old (by "The Colonelettes"-- wives of members of the Louisville, Kentucky, Junior Chamber of Commerce, 1955, though mine is the 1958 second edition) amuses me because the Colonelettes are really in love with an extra "et" sound at the ends of words.

They like it so much that they make not tuna fritters, but Tuna Fritterets.

Those not really into tuna could munch on Hot Chezettes instead. (Or maybe just have some of both?)

Of course, a meal needs veggies too, so that's where the Cornettes come in.

The Colonelettes didn't insist that everything had to be -ette-d. Lest I leave you with the wrong impression about them, here's their recipe for Cabbage Head.

I love the idea of everyone coming to a party to roast cocktail wieners over a giant head of cabbage with a heart of Sterno. (Plus, I couldn't resist the excuse to link to Kids in the Hall sketches.)

Have a great day, Grannie Pantryettes! And don't sleep with anybody only because you feel sorry for his cabbage head. (I realize that tip is not particularly useful, but you don't come here for helpful advice. At least, I sure hope you don't!)

Funny Name: What'll It Cost? Edition

I hadn't heard of this recipe from What's Cookin' in Middletown, Ohio (Delta Pi Chapter, Sigma Phi Gamma International Sorority, Inc., 1975), but apparently Turnpike Salad is a thing. I'm not sure why it's named that, though, and I haven't found much information from searching.

My guess is that just like a turnpike, there's a price to pay at the end (especially if it's left out all afternoon at a sunny picnic)!

Cooking up some confusion

Gary, the chef on the front ladder of What's Cookin' in Middletown, Ohio (Delta Pi Chapter, Sigma Phi Gamma International Sorority Inc., 1975) is not late to the party. He's climbing up to take the place of the previous chef, Robert, who fell into that enormous soup pot. John and Dave do not seem all that concerned about Robert's demise. (In fact, I think Dave is smirking a little. That'll teach Rob to borrow five bucks and keep "forgetting" to pay it back!) Gary is just a little trepidatious about joining John and Dave because he's kind of worried they've figured out what he's been up to with Linda....

Okay, there's nothing that scary in this book. No soups for cannibals or even recipes to serve 500 people that would require a pot of unusual size. There are, however, serious misunderstandings about what risotto (or rissotto) is.

It's not a casserole of rice layered with onion, green pepper, tomato, and cheese. (Nothing necessarily wrong with that; it's just not risotto!)

There's a serious misunderstanding of Coney Islands, too.

A Coney Island hot dog is a hot dog topped with a spiced tomato-and-ground-beef sauce, not an instant-rice-and-tomato juice-based soup with chunks of hot dog floating in it. (And I think a Coney Island Quickie is something best attempted in the shadow of the boardwalk if you can find a quiet spot that the police don't usually check?)

The book does have some special recipes, though, like this Potato Salad Supreme.

Just think how impressed everyone will be to see the solid loaf of potato salad completely encased in ham! They'll probably fight over the end slices with the extra ham.

For the finale, a recipe that would make me super-nervous if you tried to serve it to me:

Why all the emphasis on the banana skin for Cartwheel Bananas? Make sure to leave the skin on and put the skewer through it! Alternate the banana with oranges that also have the peel (assuming that "unpeeled" means "not peeled"). Broil until the peel is brown! All that attention to the peel would make me worried that I was somehow obligated to eat the peel. After all, the cook put so much work into it! Trying to choke down a browned peel OR trying to remove it and figure out a non-clumsy way to discard it that wouldn't somehow end up staining the tablecloth and/or sailing into the curtains would be equally challenging for someone like me.... So word to the wise-- Serving Cartwheel Bananas would probably be your best course of action to get me to leave early if that is your goal. (Or you could just invite John and Dave over. Nobody wants to hang out with those guys after what happened to Robert and Gary.)

Indiana Celebrity Recipes!

Parsley, Persimmons, and Peas (American Society of Interior Designers, Indiana, 1977) begins with a chapter of recipes from celebrities. Generally, the Indiana interior designers have a slightly better idea of what "celebrity" means than the American Cancer Society's Ohio Division did.

Well, not always. I mean, I've never heard of Michael V. Parrott, but I had to include him just because I cannot resist '70s "Earth Food" recipes.

This pile of whole grain flakes mixed with sunflower seeds and sautéed veggies would easily fit into one of my old Rodale Press books.

And I'm sure the Roasted Nut Loaf loaded full of walnuts, whole wheat bread crumbs, brown rice, and veggies could thud onto the table (and into the stomach) just as heavily as any "roast" from the New Age vegetarians.

I liked the wide variety of sensibilities of the celebrities in the book, though. Contrast Michael Parrott's "Earth Food" with (slightly more famous Indiana Democrat) Birch Bayh's casseroles for common families:

Apparently, Birch Bayh really liked vegetables cooked under slicks of mushroom soup with a little cheese (and almonds if he wanted to get really fancy).

It was pretty funny to see these recipes sharing the same pages with offerings from designer Bill Blass, whose tastes were decidedly more upscale:

I don't often see Shad Roe Soufflé and Cold Curried Avocado Soup facing down nut loaves and soup-based casseroles in the same book, but Indiana is apparently a land that contains multitudes....

(And of course, the guy with the taste for shad roe got the hell out of Indiana as soon as he was 17, so the first four recipes are probably a better reflection of the state's tastes.)

Now wherever you are, get out there and eat something that reflects who you are. (I just had a waffle that I topped with peanut butter and chocolate hummus when it came out of the toaster oven. Feel free to speculate about what that means.)

A Shredded Wheat ad or a treasure chest? It's both!

I finally hit the jackpot! In the 10(!) years I've been working on this blog, I've been on the lookout for a recipe box with actual handwritten recipes in it. I find recipe boxes all the time, but they're usually either empty or full of blank cards. Well, early this summer my significant other and I hit an antique mall we rarely get to visit, and I spotted this obviously well-loved recipe box. (It looks like it should be ancient, but the box is actually dated 1973.)

When I picked it up, it felt full... and it was! Okay, fine, about 2/3 of the cards were still blanks, but that meant that a third of them had actual recipes. I had to pick it up.

So what can we figure out about whoever put this box together? I'm pretty sure it was Paula Schroeder. (Not that it was too hard to figure that out. Most of the cards had her name on them, so it was probably her recipe box.)

Ms. Schroeder was also just as careful recording her recipes as many of the people who put together community cookbooks. You might notice a key ingredient missing from Paula's Banana Cake.

At least it has instructions, though. Paula's Turkey Chili was not so lucky.

And yes, you may notice that this turkey chili doesn't have turkey, but it does have a can of mushrooms for some reason.

Paula was not overly organized, though, so I think maybe I found the full ingredient list on a sheet of loose-leaf paper at the end of the collection.

It's missing the chili powder, but otherwise the list of ingredients through canned mushrooms is the same. There's no label and no instructions-- this is all I've got!-- but it's a close enough match that I'm guessing it's Paula's Turkey Chili (minus the chili powder this time-- apparently it's important to leave out an ingredient mentioned in the recipe title).

Paula also had a taste for labor-intensive recipes, or at least I assume she did based on the inclusion of this recipe for Thirty-Day Fruit Cake.

This one involves LOTS of canned fruits (peaches, pineapple, "marachino" cherries) and a month's worth of stirring the starter daily. Considering this makes a juice "starter" to give away, I also suspect Paula had very patient friends... or maybe ones who pretended they weren't home when they saw her coming to the door with an armful of starter. The fact that the recipe calls for a package of Duncan Hines Deluxe II yellow cake mix and a box of instant butter pecan pudding make me suspect this recipe collection is roughly the same age as the box it came in.

And did I mention that this box collection is not really organized? I wasn't sure whether to include the Deviled Peas recipe, not knowing whether my revulsion at the idea of canned peas swimming in a sea of "tomatoe" soup, pimentos, celery, green pepper, hard-cooked eggs, canned mushrooms, chili sauce, cheese, and Worcestershire would seem reasonable to other readers who maybe don't hate condiments and musty canned peas as much as I do...

...but then I realized that this recipe was in the box twice! It's attributed to Darlene (rather than Paula) Schroeder the second time around.

This time "tomato" is spelled correctly, but not "chili."

It might seem like I'm making fun of this box for being so disorganized, but part of the reason I love it is for its needless repetition and mishmash of incomplete recipes. As someone who occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night after hearing a weird noise, worries that someone has broken into the house, then quickly realizes that I've just heard a small "bookslide" because gravity has overcome a poorly-constructed stack of reading materials, I'm glad to know that other people out there have just as much trouble with keeping things together as I do! Thank goodness that I can check into a corner of Paula Schroeder's world to see that it was chaotic too....

Rawleigh tries to play it cool for July

Are you melted yet? Thanks to air conditioning, probably not, but the users of Rawleigh's Good Health Guide Almanac Cook Book (1953) were probably feeling pretty overheated by July. Let's see if Rawleigh tried to mitigate this problem or just add to it!

Shockingly, Rawleigh does seem to at least kind of take the season into account for a change! Granted, the Cabbage-Frankfurter Skillet might seem a bit more like a fall or winter meal given its reliance on cabbage and onions, but at least it's a stove-top prep rather than something that needs to be baked. The Chipped Beef and Corn Medley relies on corn and green peppers that should actually be coming into season. Rawleigh being Rawleigh, of course they recommend baking it for half an hour, but a smart cook might sauté the corn with the other veggies and mix the cheese into the sauce for a stovetop meal.

For me, the real attractions are the gelatin recipes! The Pineapple Angel Pie actually sounds similar to a no-bake "cheesecake" I used to make with lemon Jell-O, cottage cheese, and canned pineapple. That teaspoon of nutmeg in the Rawleigh version sounds like it could be pretty overpowering, though... I might end up thinking of it as egg nog-adjacent, which is not summery, but the pie would still be cool and creamy.

The real "gem," though, is the Shrimp Salad Loaf. At least this uses plain gelatin, so it's unlikely to be overly sweet. Whether you're interested in canned shrimp floating in a sea of jiggly condiments is a separate question, but again, it's cold! That's a win.

As for the horoscope, I am most interested by the line "You are very dependent upon your friends but are apt to change companions and friends very often." I take this as a nice way of saying "You're a drama queen who burns everybody out so fast that nobody can put up with your shit for long."

What's our featured Rawleigh product for the month? It's definitely appropriate for summer:

These are drink flavorings-- kind of like today's Mio in that they're liquid, but also like Kool-Aid mix in that drink mixers had to add their own sugar. And not only do these taste good (which I can attest, as we occasionally had these drinks when I was a kid), but these are also ...

..."so good for them" (with "them" referring to your creepy-looking twins who are currently drinking a toast to their plans to take over the world so they will never be forced to wear smocked dresses again). I'm not sure of Rawleigh's metric for "good for them," as there is no explanation of what makes dyed sugar water a great addition to a crafty schoolgirl's diet. Maybe the plan is to secretly give them diabetes before they can institute the Anti-Smock Brigades? They won't see it as good for them at the time, but it will keep their historical record clean... so maybe just "good" in the long run?

Feel free to make your own theories, and try to stay cool until next month's installment!