Say "Congratulations" with a LOT of icing, an orange owl, and some beans

It's graduation season, which means time to make graduation cakes! Sure, people now tend to just buy one from a grocery store or bakery, but the April 1972 issue of Mail Box News (from the Maid of Scandinavia Co.-- a defunct mail-order catalog for baking supplies and other Scandinavian-themed household goods) reminds us that graduation cakes back then were mostly homemade affairs.

This issue recommends a graduation hat cake, presumably because the decoration involves ordering the company's white wire, magic mold pan, and most importantly, its 10-inch square separator plate.

The separator plate is essential because "cardboard will warp with the amount of icing required." So, in short, the instructions are to create a smallish cake topped of with a big icing-covered hunk of plastic and wiry tassel. 

I personally prefer the reader-submitted cakes, such as this little cake with a tiny graduate figure walking between the tiers (and hoping the construction is sound enough she will not be crushed by the top one).

There's just something about that wonky "GINGER" (or maybe "GINEER"?) that I adore. I'm sure it was difficult to write a message in icing on a vertical surface.

Another reader sent in a picture of an extremely round and adorable owl cake.

I love that the cupcake feet make the owl look pigeon-toed. The accompanying note recommends that decorators have fun with the colors. This little guy is (apparently) orange-and-blue themed for the school colors-- at least, if the note is to be believed. Obviously, the black-and-white picture doesn't give the audience much of a clue...

These old-style decorated cakes look like something my grandma would have made. I would sit and watch her decorate cakes for hours when I had the chance as a kid.

And if you're disappointed not to get a recipe, perk up! There is a cake recipe near the end for those who are tired of more traditional flavors like vanilla, chocolate, or banana:

Make the graduate eat their beans! I'd probably swap out the walnuts for pistachios so there would be some plausible deniability about why the cake is oddly green.

In any case, a lima bean cake is unlikely to be the worst thing to happen to a graduate this year, given-- you know. (Vague gesturing toward the pile of rubble that is 2025 thus far.) Given that, a lima bean cake might just be perfect: an attempt to make the best out of what you've got, even if it's not ideal. Welcome to life as a grown-up. 

Home Ec Teachers Get Quick and Easy!

I love the Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers series just because home ec teachers were often so focused on some specific aspect of cooking-- usually nutrition, but sometimes another factor such as cost or ease of preparation-- that they could lose sight of what actual humans wanted to eat. And that's why I picked up the 1978 revision of Quick & Easy Dishes, even though I already had an older edition.

Since this book covers all types of cooking-- not just one type like vegetables or chicken-- I'm going with my "menu of mayhem" format, picking some weird-ish recipes to put together into a questionable meal. Let's start out with some appetizers.

I have no idea how Mighty Lucy Links got their name, but I'm sure that Vienna sausages dipped in spiced catsup and Fritos would make diners anxious for the next course-- if only to get the taste of Vienna sausages out of their mouths. 

For a main dish, how about this beautiful classic?

Yes, it's everyone's favorite, Baked Eggs-Corned Beef and Bananas!

I get that people in the '70s were likely to have a can of corned beef hash in the pantry and eggs in the fridge, so this was an easy way to make do with what was on hand, but I will never get over the random addition of bananas to casseroles for no discernible reason other than "Bananas exist! And you can put them in things!" 

For a salad, how about Green and Gold Mold?

And yes, the green is lime gelatin, and the gold is grated carrots and Velveeta. Just eat it. We all understand the importance of getting enough Velveeta into one's diet. 

I will admit that I was too lazy to scan the bread recipe, so I'll just tell you the secret: you can make easy southern biscuits by dredging canned refrigerated biscuits in cornmeal before you bake them. At least, that is according to Mrs. Charles Woolf from Morrowville, Kansas. I bet that actual southerners might dispute this claim. 

And for dessert, you better have a big, flat area available in your freezer. Why? Because you're making a cake from a box mix.

If that previous sentence didn't seem to make sense, well, hopefully the recipe clarifies it. Just prepare a yellow cake mix according to the box instructions, fold in a cup of nuts, pour the batter into a 9x13 pan, and freeze the whole thing. Then once it's solid, pour boiling cocoa-brown-sugar water over frozen cake slab before you bake it. So quick and easy! Nothing could be simpler. (Well, except just making the cake from a mix according to the package directions without freezing it and dumping boiling sugar-water over it first... or buying a pre-made cake and throwing out the bakery box before claiming that you personally made it.)

In any case, enjoy the menu! And don't forget to roll your eyes when the home ec teacher turns her back. (Not that I ever did that.)

The co-op tries to cooperate

When I wrote a little about The Co-Op Low Cost Cookbook (Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley, Inc., copyright 1965, but mine is the 1973 printing), I noted the similarity of concerns about rapidly rising food prices over the years. Another thing that made the book seem almost like it could fit in today (or maybe a couple of years ago, given America's unfortunate backtracking) is hinted at in the illustration for the general information chapter at the end of the book.

Even though the book doesn't explicitly discuss it, there does seem to be at least some effort at inclusivity. It's not perfect, of course-- even in the picture, the woman coded as white is front and center, and she seems to be the only adult actually enjoying this interaction, while her companions seem to be caught between trying to act interested and trying to figure out how soon they can leave without it seeming like they were in a hurry. 

The recipe offerings also represent a lot more regions of the world than just America and western Europe. For instance, even though miso is pretty popular in America now, I assumed that a lot of Americans who didn't have Asian heritage would not have had much sense of what it was back when this book was created. But there's a Misoyaki recipe.

And while there's a brief explanation that white miso is a "Japanese soy bean paste" and a comparison of spreading miso on butterfish to "spreading peanut butter on bread," there is no indication of how or where cooks should procure their miso. I guess residents of northern California could be expected to know this already. 

The dishes are admittedly not always authentic, as the Syrian Meat Balls with Curry Sauce quietly notes.

The "Authentic Syrian meatballs would include 1/2 c. pine nuts, which are expensive." The beginning of the book notes that the recipes were sometimes "changed to increase protein, decrease cost, or simplify preparation." In short, there is even less of a chance of recipes being authentic to their origins than usual in these old cookbooks, but hey-- the book is up front about it.

The co-op included plenty of recipes one might expect to see in California-- representing the southern neighbor with Enchiladas.

The variety of suggested proteins reminds us that this is a budget cookbook-- use up whatever is in the fridge! (The sauce seasoned primarily with a bouillon cube, a bit of dried onion, garlic salt, and oregano seems a little sad.)

There's also the Mexican version of Menudo.

(Have to admit I was a little puzzled by this because the only people I've heard discussing menudo were Filipino. Now I know there are two different versions!)

There are additional Asian dishes too, like the Korean Basic Beef Meat Balls.

They offer another option to skip the pine nuts.

Plus there's a kinda-generically-named Arab Casserole.

Even a recipe from South Africa...

Again, the authenticity of all of the recipes is questionable, but that's at least in part to help ensure that everyone can afford to make the food. I kind of need to see good faith attempts to include everyone right now. They happened in the past. They can happen in the future-- hopefully with even more care and consideration for the people who tend to be marginalized. 

Or maybe an asteroid will just hit the planet and get rid of the whole disagreeable lot of us humans once and for all.

Budgeting with the Co-Op!

Feeling the pinch of high prices for groceries? It's not a new thing. The first edition of The Co-Op Low Cost Cookbook published by the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley, Inc., printed recipes with ingredients that "could cost no more than 25￠ per adult serving at average 1964-65 market prices." By the time the 8th edition (the version I have) was printed in 1973, the writers had to "sadly acknowledge that only a few recipes are that low in cost" and that the week's menu for a family of four printed near the end of the book "cost about $31 in February, 1973, compared to $23 in 1965." So, yes, the people from the early 1970s could commiserate with those of us griping about food prices in 2025. (They would probably be surprised by our discontent over egg prices, though, given that the book says that some of the "very few" recipes that still cost 25￠ or less per adult serving are in the eggs and cheese chapter.)

This book includes "only dinner main dishes" which "contain enough protein for good nutrition" since the writers think other meals are easier to make inexpensively, and the protein part of the main meal is the hardest to keep within a strict budget.

Some of these mains are decidedly grim, like the Cottage Cheese Patties.

I love cottage cheese, but it's hard to imagine being too eager to sit down to a meal consisting primarily of cottage cheese thickened and emulsified with egg and bread crumbs before being coated in additional egg and bread crumbs and fried. The bright tomato sauce topper might make it seem a little more festive, but it can only do so much.

If you want to seem a bit more exciting than Cottage Cheese Patties but can't go all-out for something like meatballs, there are Meatball Pancakes.

I guess this is for when there's not quite enough ground beef to make a solid meatloaf or meatball? Just mix the small amount of meat with several eggs and some seasonings, "Drop by spoonfuls onto a hot greased skillet," and serve up a short stack "with gravy, catsup, or a favorite cream sauce."

There are of course recipes for brickified canned fish, like Baked Fish Loaf.

Nice that it calls for a "#303 can mackerel OR 2 7-oz. cans tuna" so the family can use whatever is on sale or already in the pantry. 

Other meals are brightened up with a tiny story, like Joe's Special. 

I had no idea there were any recipes common to "all restaurants named Joe's," but apparently this dish of onion, ground beef, and spinach in scrambled eggs was always on offer, though I'm not sure it was the most compelling reason to eat at Joe's.

It was nice that a few recipes gave plans for two nights in a row. No thinking about what to serve for the second night! Cooks who felt ambitious might try Basic Chuck Stew and then Chuck Stew Variation.

It's ambitious because it involves buying and dismembering a 2-3 pound chuck roast and cooking it from raw both nights. It also requires the cook to convince the family that one meat-and-onion stew served over rice, noodles, or potatoes is substantially different from the other meat-and-onion stew served over noodles, rice, or potatoes. (The first one has a hint of cinnamon! The second one has green pepper and tomatoes! They're different!)

For those who feel less ambitious, Boiled Beef Dinner, then Stuffed Potatoes (Two dinners) requires only one night of boiling beef.

The second night only just involves cutting up the cold beef and stuffing it-- along with onions and potato middles-- into potato skins. Although... the more I think about it, twice-baked-potatoes from scratch aren't that easy either. And trying to convince someone like me that onions are a preferable filling to cheese will be the biggest challenge yet-- 25￠ per serving be damned. So I guess my point is that nothing is easy when you're on a strict budget?

In any case, my favorite part of the book might just be Barbara Chessman's illustration for the lamb chapter. 

A lot of the illustrations have people posing with food in ways that seem unlikely at best, but this one has the added creepiness of the apparent young son holding a bouquet of flowers and giving mom a sideways glance that would make a group of women decide to go to a different bar because they don't want to have to deal with that guy all night.

The Co-Op Low Cost Cookbook cost enough at $5 (as you can see from the cover) that I'm sure I thought twice about it (given its brevity), but it's interesting enough that it was worth the price. (The currency converter says that the price I paid would be the equivalent of 49￠-- about two meals!-- in 1964 or 68￠ in February 1973. Unlikely to get two meals for $5 now... so I guess this is a pretty good deal after all? Sure. We'll go with that.)

Loafing around with some walnuts

It's May 17, which is my online pal S.S.'s favorite day of the year: Walnut Day! (And no, those links are not to information about Walnut Day, but for recipes that led S.S. to opine about how much she hates walnuts.)

If you're familiar with this blog, you already know the recipes I'm choosing are not likely to win over anyone who already dislikes the food in question. Today, we're going with nut loaves and roasts from the Rosicrucian Fellowship's New Age Vegetarian Cookbook (copyright 1968, 1975 edition). Some are the veggie-heavy affairs that you might expect from old vegetarian recipes, like Carrot Nut Loaf.

It's mostly whole wheat bread crumbs and ground carrots, followed by ground English walnuts and a large onion. Sounds like it would be a dense, dry brick of food.

There's a Nut, Corn, and Potato Loaf for families with kids who won't eat veggies unless said veggies are corn or potatoes.

(Don't let on that there's a tomato in the mix! Should be easy enough to hide since it goes through the food chopper twice.) 

There's a Nut Potato Roast for cooks who are tired of calling all these nut/ bread crumb/ egg/ veggie bricks "loaves."

And there is a Nut and Cheese Roast for those who feel like being as close to indulgent as these old-timey vegetarian cookbooks are likely to get.

I'm a peanut butter lover, but have to admit I'm kind of put off by the "white sauce into which has been beaten the peanut butter." Maybe the Rosicrucians are going for the "cheese crackers filled with peanut butter" vibe? (I'd think a tomato sauce would be a better choice.)

Now, you might assume that the next recipe is for a quick bread. I mean "Nut Loaf with Bananas" sounds like a slightly awkward way to say "Banana Nut Bread." It is not, though.

Nut Loaf with Bananas is yet another big wad of starch (brown rice and whole wheat bread crumbs this time!), walnuts, and veggies (more potatoes and tomatoes!) bound with eggs, but this time buttered banana halves are baked into the sides of the loaf for some reason. 

If you're feeling let down by the absence of a sweet quick bread, I'll be nice and leave you with Date-Nut Loaf.

It's vague on the "nuts," so you could throw in walnuts to celebrate Walnut Day, or you could just take S.S.'s advice and use pecans instead if you can afford them. 

I'm just going to be lazy and throw a few deluxe mixed nuts on my salad and call it a day.

A not-so-nostalgic look back to early 1960s Kentucky

My main question about Morehead Woman's Club's Our Ways with Food (undated, but from sometime between 1961 and early 1963 since the address I found doesn't have a zip code, the book was sold to help fund construction of a hospital that opened in July 1963, and one recipe mentioned that Jacqueline Kennedy was the first lady) is why one woman decided to declare herself to be a club. It seems like it would be easier to collect a lot of recipes if it had been Morehead Women's Club, but maybe the sole member was very determined.

I'm joking of course, but do want to note that the area was known for dedicated and energetic women, as the hospital is named after Dr. Claire Louise Caudill, who got tired of having to send her patients to far-away hospitals and started the push for a local hospital herself. 

The writers of this cookbook believed that women (whom I'm sure they imagined as being their audience) were intelligent (about cooking, at least) and self-sufficient. I can tell because, like the writers of other fund-raising cookbooks, the people who provided their recipes for this one did not believe in hand-holding. Cooks better know how to cook! I--used to modern recipes with step-by-step instructions (Okay-- you know I'm just pretending because I mostly read old cookbooks, but play along with my premise!)-- was a bit mystified at first by the Crabmeat Casserole that did not list crabmeat among the ingredients.

Not to worry! The crabmeat is in the instructions below the ingredient list-- along with all the other major components of the casserole aside from the sauce: the noodles, mushrooms, and buttered cracker crumbs or slivered almonds for a crunchy topping. (Home cooks still better know how to make a cheese sauce from the ingredients that are listed at the top, though, as Ethel Louise Prince is not going to walk them through the process-- just like she's not going to give any indication of the can sizes for the crabmeat or mushrooms or any measurement for the toppings.)

The opposing page offers a similarly "figure-it-out-yourself" recipe, with the Grits and Cheese Casserole. (Surprise! The sole ingredients listed up top are neither grits nor cheese).

The grits do eventually get added to the saltwater, along with one stick each of garlic cheese and margarine. (I thought Southern cooks insisted on real butter, but as with any broad generalization, this is an oversimplification.) Then cooks have to "Beat 2 eggs in measuring cup and fill with milk." No word on the size of the measuring cup, though-- I'm guessing one cup, but I'm just a Midwesterner making a guess about a Southern recipe, so I could definitely be wrong. One would only find out for sure when the casserole came out-- hopefully not overly soupy or overly dense.

At least most cooks who are familiar with salads like ambrosia or cole slaw won't suffer too much from the lack of directions for Slaw de Luxe. Just mix the ingredients and refrigerate!

The confusion here is just ... what is this? It's kinda cole slaw, kinda ambrosia, kinda glorified rice, and also diced cheese? Maybe this is the hybrid salad for when you're out of salad marshmallows?

At least the writers did make a concession to those pre-internet times when readers couldn't just look up an unfamiliar regional term on the internet.

We know that Guinea Squash Pie calls for eggplant, thanks to the subtitle AND the ingredient list. (As a modern reader, I can learn that this regional name comes from the fact that eggplant were associated with people who had been enslaved from western areas Africa.

This cookbook is yet another reminder that the past was definitely NOT a better time we should strive to emulate now-- because of slavery if you're a decent person or at least because we have more healthcare facilities and better-written recipes now if you're the type who doesn't care about anything unless it affects you personally. (Not that I am aware of any people like that.)

A vintage shrimp buffet for National Shrimp Day

It's May 10, which is ... checking the food holidays calendar ... National Shrimp Day! So I will drag out my doorstop-sized Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery (Wm. Wise & Co., Inc., 1971) to see what delights it recommends.

It shrimp-ifies some of the most popular old-school family dinner recipes, like chicken à la king.

I have a feeling the editors did not modernize this edition of the cookbook as much as the cover would lead one to believe, as the recipe calls for "top milk or cream," and it would have been hard to find the un-homogenized version that would have top milk by 1971.

There's also a chow mein, of course, with shrimp joining the celery, onions, and canned water chestnuts or bean sprouts over that late '60s/ early '70s staple of fried noodles.

There's a shrimp loaf, for those nights during Lent when the family would rebel if they had to eat salmon patties again, but making crispy fried shrimp would seem too decadent. 

It's closer to a shrimp-and-celery-flavored mashed potatoes than a more traditional protein-stretched-with-crackers loaf, but at least it's something different. 

There's also a shrimp pie--

... less a traditional pie and more of a strata of shrimp, corn, and buttered crackers baked in cream.

For those who want a bit of spice with their shrimp, there's the promisingly-named Minced Shrimp Louisiana.

They'll probably be disappointed that it's mostly just canned cream of tomato soup with the titular minced shrimp and a dash of cayenne (likely so small as to be undetectable).

And if May 10 is too hot, you can always celebrate National Shrimp Day with that most vintage concoction of all: an aspic.

At least this uses plain (rather than fruit-flavored) gelatin, and it too flirts with being spicy by calling for an entire drop of Tabasco sauce. (Don't worry! There's a water cress and chive mayonnaise sauce to cool things down if they get too spicy. 😄)

I hope you enjoyed this all-you-care-to-read vintage shrimp recipe buffet! And you don't even have to tip anybody for taking your plates away. 

Stretching the meat, 1940s style

Home cooks in the 1940s really had to make things stretch! 250 Ways to Prepare Meat (ed. Ruth Berolzheimer, 1940) reminds me that home cooks used all kinds of tricks to get protein on the table (especially now that stretching food is likely to take on extra importance again).

The booklet is a reminder that meat might not come from the grocery store. Families could sit down to a platter of braised moose...

...or reindeer pot roast...

...or roast (or stewed!) squirrels...

...or roast opossum.

(It's interesting to note that dressing an opossum was compared to dressing a suckling pig, which suggests that dressing a suckling pig was a pretty familiar operation to many home cooks at the time.)

(Also, people had to be okay with "peculiarly flavored meat." It was preferable to starving.)

Since some meals-- like Sunday dinner-- were a little more lavish-- maybe a beef roast or a nice chicken-- other meals-- like Sunday supper-- had to take a hit.

Yep-- Sunday was hot dogs in a can of kidney beans night. 🎉

What if there were any sudden "guest problems"?

"A crown roast of wieners is an ideal solution." Is the stuffing festive, at least?

It is if you really like sauerkraut (though stuffing, creamed cabbage, creamed cauliflower, or potato balls could serve as suitable substitutes).

And of course, there was always the option to just put some stuff in gelatin and call it a day.

I have a feeling that Corned Beef Delicious (loaded with celery, canned peas, radishes, and pickled beets as well as the corned beef) is about as delicious as a Red Delicious apple (meaning, of course, not at all).

For those who maybe have a bit more cash and feel like soggifying some good perfectly good Brazil nuts, there's also Brazil-Nut Jellied Veal Loaf.

In short, I'm glad not to live in the 1940s, but I begrudgingly admire the ingenuity of the people who had to do it. Hopefully, we can channel their energy (but maybe not their methods).