Recipes that Are Swift and Proudly Bland!

There was a time when "bland" was considered a compliment, as Timely Baking Recipes with Swift's Bland Lard (Martha Logan, undated, but probably the 1940s or '50s) reminds us.

Of course, here the fact that "Bland Lard is odorless and tasteless" is a selling point because people wanted their baked goods to taste like the featured flavor. Nobody wants Brown Sugar Cake or Snowy Cream Frosting or Pecan Waffles to taste like rancid animal fat.

You know I'm not going to show off the yummy-sounding desserts, though. I've got to show you a few of the weirder baked goods.

Some recipes really double down on the bland lard, like Franciscan Meat Pie.

The crust uses the Swift's Bland Lard Biscuit Mix, and the filling fries the onion, ground meat, and catsup in additional Swift's Bland Lard for the hard-core lard-heads.

Some recipes go a little lighter on the lard, like the Frankfurter Toastwiches.

Here, cooks just need a couple tablespoons of lard to fry up what amounts to hot-dog-and-cheese-spread-stuffed French toast.

Some recipes sound like they should be familiar, but "egg roll" apparently meant something different back in Martha Logan's day.

This version is just egg salad rolled jelly-roll style into biscuit dough and baked, then served hot "with cream or mushroom sauce." It's certainly not the Chinese-American appetizer you probably imagined.

For those who want to cook with eggs and lard but don't want to bother with the whole rolling-out-a-jelly-roll thing, there's Egg Quickies.

I'm not quite sure what these conglomerations of onion, bread crumbs, milk, and hard-cooked eggs globbed together, cooled on waxed paper, shaped into patties, and pan fried are supposed to be. Maybe a main dish for Fridays during Lent? Maybe a sign that there's not much left in the kitchen besides onion, bread crumbs, and eggs? Maybe an indication that payday isn't until Friday but the family still expects food today? Maybe just a reminder that life mostly sucks anyway, so here's random things glommed together that you are now expected to eat. Hey, it's fried, so it's not all bad. Quit crying.