Raise a glass to Heisey

I had absolutely no idea what Heiseyites were when I spotted Heiseyite's Favorites. I assumed Heisey must be some small town I'd never heard of, but the inside cover specified that this collection was created by The Heisey Collectors of the Northern Illinois Club, so I knew it was something to collect. (I know, I have impressive deductive skills.)

Before trying to look Heisey  up, I turned another page and learned that "All of these recipes have been gathered from Heisey Collectors' Kitchens where lives have been touched with love for family, friends, and Heisey glassware; We say use them, enjoy them and share your board in Heisey fellowship throughout the years." So... glassware then. The book is undated, and it doesn't give any hint of whether it was written before or after Heisey closed in 1957. Apparently the brand was popular enough that there's still a Heisey museum with an annual membership option. (I shouldn't have looked it up because now I have a sudden urge to own a jade-green glass rabbit that I would immediately break when I tried to find someplace to display it. I guess the glass really does have an effect on people!)

In any case, the book is mimeographed, so it's unlikely to be any newer than from the 1970s. The book is pretty short, too-- maybe because nobody wanted to do that much mimeographing? In any case, it's got the selection of old recipes one might expect. There's a small twist on the traditional green bean casserole.

Yep-- This version becomes a main dish with the addition of pork chops between the layer of souped-up green beans and the topping of crunchy onions.

There's a sad little diabetic cookie recipe. At least there's an attempt to make them sound fun by calling them Cinnamon Pixie Cookies.

Note that the choices of using milk, fruit juice, or coffee as the liquid may also be an attempt to make the cookies sound more exciting than they probably are, given the unlikelihood that a stray tablespoon of fruit juice or coffee will have much of an impact on flavor.

There's a Cooling Summer Punch for sipping on Illinois porches from one's Heisey drinkware.

I have to admit that I think plain old lemonade sounds more cooling than lemonade with milk in it. I love the addition of "white soda," though.

There are homey little appetizers.

My favorite thing about Bacon Pull-Ups has to be the last sentence, noting that when you make these little rolls of bacon and cream cheese on white bread, you "Better figure at least 4-5 per person." (My second favorite detail is that the bread should be rolled up "like a rug.")

The thing that most caught my attention, though, was the final "recipe" in the booklet. It's one of those overly sentimental "recipe-for-friendship" type dealies, but this time the recipe is for Reality Cake.

Love? Happiness? Joy? Peace? "Contnentment"? (Notably the ingredients call for only two people, though, so the writer has to be an introvert who realizes that kids and/or too many social engagements ruin everything.) I can't help but wonder how long the writer had been an actual grownup, though, because this is a seriously idealized version of reality! My reality cake ingredients would probably be closer to this:

• 3 part-time jobs
• 1 3/4 hours sleep
• 2 sagging bookshelves that I can't get to without tripping over all the other books in front of them
• 1 1/2 papers left to grade before I momentarily think I'm done and then realize I forgot about this whole other folder
• 1/2 of a stale granola bar scrounged from the bottom of my backpack when I realized I left lunch at home on the counter
• 1 tsp. of peace and goddamn quiet (if available)

But who knows? Maybe reality really is better for people who collect Heisey glass and I'm just too much of a cynic. A jade-green glass rabbit might just change my life if I could avoid breaking it.

Some vaguely-themed vegetable protein for winter

Let's chase away a little of winter's chill with a Mexican menu for winter from The Vegetable Protein and Vegetarian Cookbook (Jeanne Larson and Ruth McLin, 1977). 

I can't say that Mexican Loaf is the most appetizing name I've ever heard for a recipe, but maybe it's tastier than it sounds.

Or maybe it is even less exciting than it sounds. The only thing even close to a spice is poultry seasoning, so it's mostly just a brick of unseasoned beans, stale bread, and onions bound with eggs and cheese that might taste vaguely of poultry if you're lucky. I guess it's supposed to be Mexican because beans are involved? I also feel compelled to note that this is one of those recipes that tells cooks to "add rest of ingredients" to the blender, "Blend until smooth," and then add the cheese and onion, as if readers are supposed to intuitively know that the onions and cheese don't count as actual ingredients for some reason (or as if they're supposed to read the recipe all the way through before starting so at least they'll know that the writers didn't think of them as ingredients).

To go with the Mexican Loaf, there's a Potato and Carrot Casserole.

There's certainly nothing wrong with mashed root vegetables (especially if they're mixed with butter instead of margarine!), but this seems like a pretty random addition to the Mexican Loaf. If Larson and McLin were trying to write a themed menu, they weren't trying very hard.

In fact, the Tender-Crisp Vegetables suggest the authors forgot the Mexican premise entirely and decided to go for a generic Americanized "Chinese" menu instead.

You don't really think of sautéed bean sprouts, celery, peppers, onions, and mushrooms flavored with a bit of soy sauce as Mexican, after all. 

The side of corn muffins (no recipe provided) and Quick Rice Pudding dessert seem to suggest that Larson and McLin said, "Oh, yeah. We were making a Mexican-themed menu" before they finished up, but they didn't care enough to go back and keep the rest of the menu's theme consistent. 

The pudding uses precooked rice and a package of vanilla pudding mix, again showing that the authors were more practical than a lot of '70s health food cooks-- no starting with plain brown rice that needs to be simmered for an hour or more! And this recipe does include a sprinkling of cinnamon-sugar at the end, so it does have at least a bit of the flair of arroz con leche.

Maybe the real theme of this menu is that it's better to do a half-assed job and get it done than to just give up entirely? That's a lesson I could stand to remember in mid-winter.

A fridge full of ribbons, charlottes, and "vegetarian" fish

The Westinghouse Refrigerator Book (1932) is fun because it gives a little insight into what life was like for families lucky enough to get a refrigerator in the early 1930s. 

I wonder what the pink loaf pan on the cover is supposed to be filled with. It could be a Jell-O concoction, a salmon loaf, a beet salad, a strawberry ice... In any case, it's probably for the ladies' luncheon our Westinghouse owner has to host this week to show off her new refrigerator.

And of course, if you want to impress the ladies' aid society during the luncheon, you'll need a ribbon sandwich loaf. 

The layers in this one are pretty simple-- pimiento cream cheese and green pepper cream cheese-- with an "icing" of egg-yolk-enriched cream cheese. It's much less complicated than the ones that come later (featuring such combos as cottage cheese, potatoes, crushed pineapple, and garlic powder). Plus, the pimiento flower on top looks so nice!

I wonder why the bread is so pink, though! Maybe the loaf pan in the cover picture is full of the cook's special pink bread dough, getting ready to rise overnight in the fridge?

Next, the luncheon hostess needs a fancy sweet. Maybe an Apricot Charlotte for dessert would impress?

I love that making this dessert entails carefully changing the refrigerator's temperature-- I'm guessing in an attempt to get the dessert frozen initially but avoid freezing everything else in the fridge.

Of course, a good 1930s cook couldn't focus entirely on impressing the ladies. There were also children to attend to. I was surprised to see so many desserts had regular versions and children's versions, like this Child's Charlotte.

I initially thought the assumption was that children don't like fruit all that much so this would be plain, but as I reviewed the children's versions of desserts, I noticed that they tended to have more milk and eggs and less cream, so my guess is that the desserts were supposed to be part of the effort to get kids to ingest a quart of milk a day.

The recipe doesn't suggest any specific personalization to make the dessert more attractive to kids, but the accompanying picture shows it spruced up with strawberries and animal crackers.

Anything to distract from the fact that mom's trying to get more milk down the youngsters' throats...

The book also reminded me that "vegetarian" did not mean the same thing in the 1930s as it does today, especially when Catholics had to abstain from meat (meaning land animals) on Fridays.

Not too many current vegetarian appetizers would include anchovy fillets, but they'd be fine for the "fish on Fridays" bunch. (Plus, now the little fish are more likely to be part of a fancy toast or pricy pasta dish than plunked down on cabbage and green pepper slathered with cocktail sauce.)

I'm just happy that my fridge has way more square footage than the one in the illustration. Mine is packed to the gills and maybe twice the size of that one, and there's only about one-and-a-half people in my household. (That comment has nothing to do with children. We just have a weird arrangement that's kind of hard to explain.) The 1930s women had to cook for the ladies' luncheon and at least a couple of kids, and they still had the space in such a tiny fridge to set multiple fancy gelatin molds and refrigerate the ribbon loaf! I'm impressed. (And glad I live in 2024).

What? You expect a cookbook to include recipes for the menus? What kind of a socialist plot is that?

Republicans are known for advocating self-reliance, and that follows right on through to some of the menus and recipes in The Republican Cookbook (Brownstone Press, 1969).Why do I say that? Well, some of the Republicans sent in not just recipes, but entire menus. While some (such as Nancy Reagan, surprisingly!) provided both a menu and a recipe for at least one component of said menu, others apparently wanted to encourage self-sufficiency by offering a menu and completely unrelated recipes. If readers want to make the menu, then they better have the gumption to find their own recipes. Nobody was going to coddle those readers who expected to be told how to make the menu. No handouts! What is this, the welfare state?

Several contributors sent a menu and then a single completely unrelated recipe, but I'm going to focus on the ones who sent a menu and then really hammered home their unwillingness to tell how to make it by submitting multiple recipes, none of which have anything to do with the menu.

Claude R. Kirk, Jr., then the governor of Florida, provided the following dinner menu:

Okay, so a lot of this is not exactly something most experienced cooks at the time needed a recipe for. They could toss a green salad and bake some potatoes, after all. Still, you'd think the recipe list might include a way to add flair to the fresh green beans or the family's recipe for cocktail sauce or cherries jubilee. Nope. There's a Shrimp-Avocado Salad:

(Maybe this actually should have been on the Reagans' page since Nancy was all about California produce!)

There's a Crab Meat Casserole:

At least both of the preceding recipes highlight seafood, which makes sense in Florida. The final recipe seems more like it should have come from, say, a Pennsylvania Republican than a Florida one.

The Nevadan Governor Paul Laxalt also resisted making his dinner menu too easy to replicate.

Okay, maybe he didn't feel as if he should give a full recipe for California Wine Chicken if he was supposed to be representing Nevada, but he seems to think that the Torte is sufficiently foreign to readers that there's a note to explain it's "An Italian soufflé-type dish made with zucchini and cheese." Surely, that's reason enough to give the recipe for that, at least?

Of course not. What are you? Some kind of commie who thinks everybody should share?

There are a couple of Basque recipes. One is for a punch:

The other one is for a soup:

I discovered this is likely because there's a significant Basque population in Nevada. One wonders why he didn't submit a Basque-themed dinner menu instead of a Californian/ Italian one then. 

And finally, there is a random Barbecue Marinade recipe.

You might be tempted to argue that this is actually for the California Wine Chicken on the menu, but that's being too generous. This recipe calls for cooking Sherry, and if you want to brag that the recipe uses California wine, then cooking Sherry is probably not the type you'd pick to highlight.

You can tell I'm just some socialist slacker because I'm not tempted to make either of the dinner menus. Too much work for this snowflake.

Conversation starters and second helpings from the hospital ladies aid

Are you ready for Second Helpings (Hospital Ladies Aid Milford-Whitinsville Regional Hospital, Milford Division, undated, but maybe from the 1970s)? 

Mrs. Edward K. Allen, Jr., thinks you may be if you try the Cheese Fluff.

The casserole recipe itself isn't that unusual. I see a lot of similar recipes (often suggested to be kept in the fridge overnight and heated in the morning to serve as breakfast). I just picked this one because I was amused by the way the recipe is written. The instructions are sometimes rather opaque. (What does "One of the quick sprays makes a fine brown bottom crust and is easier" mean? Quick spray of what? How does it make a crust? Easier than what? I'm assuming this is supposed to suggest that using nonstick spray before adding the ingredients to the baking dish will improve browning and ease cleanup, but there are clearer ways to say so.) Slicing a pound of cheese "smoothly over bread" also seems a bit odd, but I assume it just means that the cheese should be distributed as evenly as possible. In any case, deciphering the instructions will be worthwhile, as this recipe that "is supposed to serve six" has been "gobble[d] up" by just three. I love the way the sliver of narrative sneaks into the conclusion.

I was also fascinated (appropriately enough) by "Soup Fascinating Flavor."

I don't know a lot about the Milford-Whitinsville area, but apparently it's the type of place where you can really start conversations by dumping a couple cans of  soup together with a pint of clam juice and maybe heating it, though Mrs. F. W. Clarridge doesn't specify.

Or if you don't feel like canned soup and clam juice, you can always start conversations by telling your guests you'll make Woodstock for them. Then as they're waiting around for a citrussy cocktail... 

...you can bring out a pot full of mushroom soup mixed with Velveeta, hard boiled eggs, green pepper, and pimiento. (And now you know why I guessed the 1970s for this book, as the little yellow bird from Peanuts that I assume this recipe was named after wasn't officially given a name until 1970, at least if Wikipedia is to be believed.)

While this collection of community recipes isn't the most extensive, I have to admit that it has a fascinating flavor. I'm glad I picked it up. 

The Microwave Diet!

A Guide to Microwave Cooking (Richland, 1981) suggests that microwave cooking is great for dieters, as "Calories can be kept to a minimum because you seldom cook in oil. Salty seasonings or butter can be eliminated or decreased as desired." Of course, there's no mention that all of these steps will lead to a decrease in flavor, too. Even the book doesn't seem to buy its own hype, as there are only three pages devoted to diet recipes.

I was saddened by the thought of the Tuna Casserole. I mean, you can make the whole house smell like microwaved tuna and cauliflower for the glorious reward of, well...

... hot tuna and mashed cauliflower with some canned mushrooms, flavored with dried onion, tomato juice, and a bit of salt and pepper. And then I realized that this melancholy felt kind of familiar. (Turns out, this recipe bummed me out many years ago when it appeared in a different cookbook.)

If you want to spend more than an hour microwaving something that could be fixed on the stovetop just as easily, the book offers Italian Chicken Stew.

Yep: It involves microwaving pre-cooked chicken cubes with a bunch of dried veggies and tomato juice for almost an hour-and-a-half! I wondered why the recipe required so many dried veggies, as it's not like veggies are that caloric to begin with or that drying them will change the calorie content anyway. Maybe it's because the soup won't reduce much (as it would have on the stovetop), so it will be less flavorful unless there's something to soak up some of the water in the tomato juice. Or maybe it's that the book encourages readers to dry their own veggies in the microwave and is trying to cross-promote the chapter about using the microwave to dehydrate things. 

On the plus side, the 1-1/2 to 2-hour drying time makes this method more efficient than the dehydrator I use, but then again, I can just leave the dehydrator on while I'm asleep and wake up to dried veggies rather than having to rearrange them every 15 goddamn minutes, so the dehydrator wins as far as I'm concerned....

Maybe we should just skip ahead to dessert: the tiniest, whitest slice of cheesecake ever.

Topped with a decadent raw strawberry half with leaves still attached (perhaps to ensure it will take longer to eat?). What is this concoction?

If you guessed plain gelatin, artificial sweetener, skim milk, eggs, and cottage cheese (with a bit of lemon and vanilla as an attempt to give this some semblance of flavor), you won! The prize is just a crustless (no, let's be positive and call it crust-free) "dessert" that's a salmonella risk. But! It has an unusually specific 179-1/4 calories per serving. I guess dessert is fine as long as it stays under 180 calories? Who knows....

This section of the book is more effective at reminding me to stay away from diet culture than at enticing me to use the microwave for cooking full-on meals or desserts....

Microwave Cooking Gets Complicated

Something seemed very familiar about A Guide to Microwave Cooking (Richland, 1981).

Maybe it was that the title was so close to Guide to Microwave Cooking and Recipe Book (Hotpoint/ General Electric, 1979). Then when I started looking through it, I recognized some features from Tappan's Microwave Cooking Guide (1979), including a plate full of melting ice "penguins" to help demonstrate how microwaves work and a guide to drying flowers in the microwave. Still, I picked it up because I can't resist an old microwave cookbook, especially one that is overly ambitious.

If you noticed the crown roast picture on the cover of Tappan's Microwave Cooking Guide, you might wonder why I never told you how to make that when I discussed that book. Fine, I'll fix that oversight, as the recipe is in this book too. If you want to buy a big, expensive cut of meat and then cook it in the microwave, start out by making it look like an alien that's just about to start creeping into the sleepy 1950s town you inhabit and engulfing any housewives unlucky enough to be hanging the laundry out to dry. Well, one of those aliens with a meat thermometer in it.

Instead of being absorbed, grab it, upend it, stuff it full of bread, and cover its "feet" with foil in a most humiliating fashion. Don't dislodge its meat thermometer, though, as that will come in handy when you microwave it on medium until it hits 170℉.

Hell, if you want the full instructions to potentially ruin half-a-grocery-bill's worth of meat (or a weird sci-fi movie alien), here they are:

And it should come out looking "glorious," per the book.

"But," you may ask, "does the book have the instructions for the extra-humiliating 'daisies' to adorn the alien's 'feet'?"

Worry not! There's a full-page tutorial.

My favorite part is using a pen cap as a cutter to create daisy centers out of a slice of American cheese.

If you want a microwave project that's still pretty complicated but significantly cheaper, the book also offers a multi-step Mexican Omelet Roll.

And if you're having trouble visualizing what it would look like to roll up the omelet, the book even offers a step-by-step picture guide.

If you're lucky, the final product will be very colorful, with neat little black olive buttons across its back. (And if you're not lucky, this will probably fall apart.)

No word on what makes this unseasoned log-o-eggs-n-veggies Mexican, but my guess would be that it's the green pepper, onion, and pimento (though early '80s cooks could just as easily have called it "Spanish" or "Italian" with no real change to the recipe).

And if your efforts at microwave cooking fall too flat, the book also offers a way to draw attention away from the microwaved food: Be a Cut-Up!

That is, make an edible arrangement not from fruits, but from turnips, radishes, and olives. Maybe that will distract everyone from the shivering lump of microwaved eggs or the daisy-spouting (but not very browned) crown roast....

A course of vegetable "gelatin"

Old cookbooks just don't feel quite complete unless they've got a selection of aspics and gelatin salads that defy reason. I was a little sad that The Science of Food and Cookery (H. S. Anderson, 1921) wouldn't have any, as the book's vegetarian theme doesn't make room for Jell-O. I shouldn't have been worried, though, as the book does include recipes for "vegetable gelatin" (also known as agar and still available in Asian grocery stores and health food stores).

I love that the description sells it by noting that "Its vegetable origin guarantees freedom from unwholesome and diseased products, and there is nothing about it to suggest 'hoofs and horns'"-- as if there is no such thing as unwholesome plants (Socrates would beg to differ) or as if "hoofs and horns" is anyone's first thought when they're eating a bowl of gelatin.

The book offers some fruited gel recipes for the health food version of a dessert.

It also offers molded veggie salads, like this cucumber salad.

Since it consists mostly of cucumber and lemon juices and the only real vegetable is a tablespoon of grated onion (assuming the cook doesn't just go for the onion salt option), I'd consider it closer to an overly-thick smoothie than a salad, but I'm not a cook from the 1920s.

The tomato salad at least uses tomato pulp, not just juice (though it's strained, so pretty much juice by the end).

The most interesting recipe might be the full-on Vegetable Loaf en Aspic.

I like that it tries to be fancy, filling the bottom of the  mold with sliced hard-boiled egg, parsley, and string beans or peas, since those will show up on the top when it's unmolded. I guess that's to hide the fact that the mold is mostly filled with cold baked dressing (the kind made with breadcrumbs and herbs, typically stuffed into a turkey when it's made by non-vegetarians) or "nut food cut into large squares," neither of which sound particularly tasty being served suspended in a cold gel. I mean, I'll happily eat a slice of cold dressing the day after Thanksgiving, but I've never wished it were suspended in agar.

Still, the vegetarians had to keep up with everybody else! They, too, could make aspics that sounded at least as unappealing as anything the hoof and horn crowd could come up with.