Some "healthy" late-summer cakes

August has a lot of really boring food holidays, like National Rice Pudding Day (August 9) and National Sponge Cake Day (today!). But lately I've been feeling like posting for holidays nobody except the food industry actually celebrates, so I once again turned to The Natural Foods Cookbook (Beatrice Trum Hunter, copyright 1961, but mine is from a 1975 printing) to see if it included a health-food version. It did not disappoint. (This book rarely does!)

This version uses "wholewheat" flour (because of course it does) with some of the bran sifted out to make it more cake-appropriate. (Just make sure to "Reserve sifted-out bran for porridge or bread baking.") And it's flavored with "Powdered Fruit Rind" (which home cooks were supposed to make by thinly paring citrus fruit peels, drying the parings, and then pulverizing them in the blender). I can't help but think the addition of the fruit rinds is likely to add a little spark so this version won't be quite as boring as sponge cake typically is. Maybe the citrus will help distract from the whole wheat (which I LOVE in bread, but question in a delicate sponge cake).

Or if you're just not a fan of sponge cake and want a sweet to help you make the transition from late summer into early fall, forget about Sponge Cake Day and go with the cake recipe from the opposing page:

It's kind of like zucchini bread-- in that it's full of zucchini, molasses, and warm spices. The cake is supposed to be yeast-raised, though, not the usual quick bread preparation. I'm not convinced how well this would work, given that half of the grain component is cornmeal (no gluten!), and the other half is whole wheat flour-- so the germ and bran can also interfere with gluten development. In short, I'm not sure how much the yeast can do if there is too little gluten to capture its CO₂ belches.

So take your choice: a potentially dense but citrus-flavored sponge cake to celebrate National Sponge Cake Day or a brick of sweet spiced zucchini to celebrate seasonal change. (I'm going to forego recipes altogether and instead celebrate Halloween Candy Was Just Put on Display Day by eating a Reese's peanut butter pumpkin. That's a much better holiday, even if I just made it up.)

What happens when the authors know that nobody is really here for the recipes

I'm pretty sure I never posted a cookbook from the 2000s before, but when I saw today's featured cookbook at the New Orleans Museum of Death on a long-ago vacation, I realized I had to get my own copy someday. So today, we are Cooking with a Serial Killer: Recipes from Dorothea Puente (edited by Shane Bugbee, second printing, 2004). 

Puente ran a boarding house for people with disabilities. Though the book quotes her protesting her innocence ("Why would I spend money fattening [my boarders] up if I was going to kill them?"), the fact that they continued to cash social security checks after they were buried on the property-- mostly dosed with similar drugs before their deaths-- leads me to disbelieve her.

Obviously, the draw of the book is that you get a bunch of recipes that Puente may well have fed to the people she killed. The recipes occasionally mention how many people she cooked for, such as the end of the recipe for "Mexican Chicken & Chard Calzones." (Also note that every page with a recipe has that same weird, distracting flowery border, I guess to help drive home the idea that Puente was just a nice old grandma-type person.)

I can't help thinking there is little of Mexico in this recipe, what with the Swiss cheese, Italian seasoning, and pizza dough. There's not even an attempt to make the dipping sauce interesting with a bit of chili powder or a dash of hot sauce. And then at the end of the recipe, a reminder that Puente cooked in quantity for her charges: "This recipe may be doubled, had to 8 times for my people." (Also, if you read this book, you really better be able to let comma splices slide, or it will drive you crazy.)

This collection is an effort of someone who clearly had about 100 pages to fill and no real idea of how to accomplish it. Some pages are taken up by full-page quotes from Puente, like this one:

This is across from the recipe for Vegetarian Lentil Loaf. Before I get to the actual recipe, I want to appreciate the end of the quote: "You can take the nuts or the vegetables out and add meat with the lentils, it becomes really tasty." Not only is this recommendation taking away what the title seems to suggest is the main attraction (It's vegetarian!) by adding meat, but it also seems to suggest the vegetarian version isn't so great to begin with. You gotta add meat to make it tasty. And should you wish to follow the recommendation, good luck!

There are conspicuously NO nuts in this recipe to replace. While it does have veggies, they're the kinds of aromatics that people tend to cook with meat to give it some flavor anyway, so I'm not sure how good an idea it would be to take them out considering that the only other seasonings are salt, pepper, and garlic salt. And this reinforces the theme I noticed throughout the book: Bugbee and Puente seem to realize that no one is likely to be that serious about the recipes. They just want the title. That made it pretty easy to shit out a book without even a cursory proofreading. Take, for example, the ingredient list for Dorothea's Homemade Tamales.

I'm assuming the "Maza" is "masa," and that "caniender" is supposed to be "coriander." I'm more amused by the formatting errors, like "2-1/2 cups water that meat has." (I'm assuming that it's supposed to pair with "been cooked in," but that phrase follows "1 tablespoon chili powder"-- which, it is important to note-- has also been preceded for instructions to add 1-1/2 tablespoons of chili powder.) And then the ingredients list ends with "2-1/2 lbs pork roast boiled in 3 quarts           Corn husks/ water to which the following has been added:"

And it just ends with that colon to nowhere. If you think the instructions will help make sense of this mess, you are clearly not understanding just how few fucks Puente and Bugbee gave.

Let's say you want to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the double-listed chili powder was perhaps meant to suggest it was divided and part was used in one portion of the preparation and part in another-- sure! Maybe! But don't expect the instructions to help you figure it out. Instead, they casually recommend out of nowhere that "You may use beef or chicken, also" and offer such helpful advice as "Fold over so there are about 3 husks."

If this is all too complicated for you, well, just make Tamales Prison Style (as, I'm assuming, Puente eventually resorted to).

The last third-or-so of the book gives up on recipes entirely and includes some photographs, letters, incredibly trite poetry written by Puente (and a slightly modified version of this "classic" that Puente claims a friend sent her because apparently she couldn't be bothered to crank out enough drivel to fill out the last few pages). Plus, there's an "INTERVIEW EXCLUSIVE!!" advertised on the back of the book that includes such shocking and revealing exchanges as this:

Shane: Hi, is this Dorothea.

Dorothea: Yes it is.

Shane: Hi, this is Shane.

Dorothea: How are you?

Shane: Okay. How are you?

Dorothea: Pretty good.

Such insights into the mind of a killer! That's worth the price of admission alone.

So, in short, I was very amused by this purchase (though probably not in the way Puente and Bugbee may have hoped) and happy that I bought it secondhand so my money did not go to these losers. (Well, Puente is long dead, but the sentiment remains.)

Not-quite-day-drinking for National Rum Day

This year, National Rum Day is on a weekend (Today!), so you can celebrate all day long (assuming you don't have a weekend job that expects you to come in sober). Woman's Home Companion Cook Book (edited by Dorothy Kirk, 1955) has some recipes to help you start early.

If you like sweet rolls in the morning, try making rum rolls the night before.

Granted, they only use rum flavoring, and even if you had used real rum, it would bake off anyway. But you could use real rum in the rum confectioners' frosting.

That's a whole teaspoon in a batch of frosting that will cover (at least) a whole panful of rolls.

Well, you'll need protein anyway to go with those rolls, so maybe the rum omelet will help you give your breakfast a higher proof.

This uses 2-3 tablespoons of rum! But it's for 4-6 servings. And most of the alcohol will get burned off anyway when you ignite it. So, okay, this breakfast is probably fine even if you do have to go to work sober (assuming you can handle this much sugar first thing in the morning).

The more I look at it, the biggest thrill this menu is likely to provide is the chance to accidentally set your kitchen aflame when you're half-asleep, fumbling with rum and matches. You're probably better off with a much simpler solution if you want to start your celebration early-- put a little rum in your coffee. Your not-on-fire curtains will thank you.

Cooking with Hurpum

I know I should have written about the Women's Circle Home Cooking from July 1975 in July-- its 50th birthday! But I didn't get this until the start of August, so I'm posting it now. It's either that or forget my intention to post about it next July, when I'm busy with whatever catches my interest then.

My favorite thing about this copy is that whoever owned it before me liked to write on the cover. I can't quite figure out what's going on in the upper right. I'm assuming it's the owner's name, which appears to be... Hurpum Pasteer? That's my best guess, anyway.

Luckily, Hurpum's handwriting was better (or maybe just easier to read against the lighter background) further down on the page. I can tell their favorite recipes were "tomato skillet cabbage page 51" (written right above the pancake) and "cheese cake blueberry page" (written upside-down at the bottom of the page). The page number is not there, but "12" is written twice near the 51 under the tomato recipe, so I guessed it was on page 12.

And this is what we have on page 12:

I guess "Uncle Jan's Blueberry Cheese Torte" was too much to write. Looks like Hurpum's got some good taste, though. I will always be excited about something that gives me an excuse to eat cream cheese.

When I turn to the Tomato Skillet Cabbage, I am greeted by this figure:

Maybe Hurpum was caught up in '70s diet culture and felt the need to atone for liking mounds of sugary, buttery graham crackers covered by mounds of sugary cream cheese. Or maybe they just really liked cabbage cooked in tomatoes and beef bouillon. (The little checkmark next to the title doesn't suggest much emotion, so I was left to speculate.)

I, of course, was more intrigued by the odder recipes. I didn't think the Eggplant Patties with Tomato Sauce would be too surprising-- just eggplant mashed up with a binder and maybe some Italian-ish herbs (if the cook felt adventurous), then fried and served with the tomato sauce.

I never would have guessed the eggplant patties would be made with peanut butter. Is it there for richness? For flavor? (There's not much in the way of seasonings!) I don't know, but that tomato sauce-- a third water and with no flavorings other than salt and maybe some sugar doesn't sound like it would help much.... So weird, bland eggplant-and-p.b. to dip in a bland sauce. Yay. 

I was initially confused by a recipe from the "Cooking with Grandmother" section. 

Grannie looks so content, tasting something she's making with love. 

When I got to the Fruit Punch recipe, I expected it to call for mixing some red drink mix with maybe some frozen lemon- or lime-aid and ginger ale or lemon-lime soda-- something you could serve at a kid's birthday party or a bridal shower in the church basement. So I was really confused when it started out with sliced bananas-- more like the start of a smoothie recipe than a punch. 

But then it went on to sliced citrus fruits. Usually you'd at least peel them for a smoothie. Pineapple pieces would make sense, but raisins? How is this a drink?

And then I saw that after adding the sugar and water, you needed to stir it every day for 8 days, then strain. And now I know why grannie is so happy. This "fruit punch" is to help the grownups put up with the grandkids....

Thanks to Hurpum for giving up their copy of Home Cooking. I should make Uncle Jan's Blueberry Cheese Torte in their honor. (I won't, but I should.)

Pudding away the rice

I wasn't sure whether I would bother writing a post for National Rice Pudding Day. The problem isn't a lack of recipes; I've got hundreds of vintage rice pudding recipes. The problem is that they're usually pretty similar and not particularly exciting. Mainstream cookbooks use white rice, richer dairy, and regular sugar most of the time, while "health" food books often call for brown rice, leaner dairy, and honey. Both usually suggest adding raisins, perhaps along with other dried fruits or some nuts. So I almost didn't bother.

But my copy of Beatrice Trum Hunter's The Natural Foods Cookbook (copyright 1961, but mine is from a 1975 printing) was sitting out and I thought, "Why not just check?" And I almost didn't bother turning to the Molded Rice Pudding I found in the index, assuming that it was made with a thick custard and baked in a mold. Still, there was a chance this would be a weird gelatin mold, so I checked it out.

And my search paid off! This isn't the usual version of rice pudding. It's a fruit-juice gelatin, sweetened with honey and an added fruit of the cook's choice (Raisin-haters, rejoice!), then made creamy with "yoghurt." (The asterisk is suggesting the cook should use the book's yogurt recipe because health-obsessed cooks in pretty much any timeline are assumed to have the time to endlessly fuss around making everything from scratch.)

If you ever wanted rice pudding that was fruitier and less custardy/ raisin-y, this might be for you! And even if it's not, this is still another weird old gelatin dessert (or salad if you serve it over a lettuce leaf!) to gawk at. It's a win either way.

Frozen "delicacies" to show off your fridge

 What could be better than owning an electric refrigerator in the (probably) late 1920s or early1930s? 52 Recipes for Frozen Delicacies (from Copeland Dependable Electric Refrigeration) suggests the answer is having a new recipe for a frozen delicacy for each week of the year.

There's a lot of fairly standard stuff in this booklet, like lemon sherbet or chocolate mousse. Still, a few of the offerings caught my attention.

For instance, while I see a LOT of gelatin recipes, they are rarely minty. 

I think this Old-Fashioned Peppermint Delight would be better than Jell-O full of Grape Nuts and dried fruit or black cherries and olives.

As someone who often cooks my food until it's just this side of being burned because I like the hint of smoke, I was happy to see a recipe with "burnt" right in the title.

And the almonds aren't actually charcoal-- just roasted until "very dark brown." Sounds perfect to me!

I'm not quite so sold on the Russian Tea Ice Cubes, though.

It's not that uncommon to see recommendations to freeze fruit juices into ice cubes as a way to avoid watering down cold drinks, but the thought of potentially finding whole cloves floating in a beverage once they've been liberated from their icy home? Not so appealing.... And I can only imagine what Lace maker would have to say about potentially encountering a maraschino cherry in some tea!

But hey-- the inclusions in the ice cubes can really remind your guests that you have a fancy electric freezer, just in case they didn't notice that the cubes were composed of fruit juice. Part of the point of owning one of these is showing off, right?

I'm just glad I can lazily stock my freezer with vegetarian "chicken" and frozen veggies and call it a day, without having to make any frozen confections to show off that I have a freezer. Nobody would be impressed now anyway!

Harvest the oranges and cranberries! It's August

Cooking by the Calendar (edited by Marilyn Hansen, 1978) muses that "The steady golden hum of August is upon us with its humid heat and incessant growth. Yes, growth does seem to happen almost overnight, especially if we water regularly." And that is why this chapter is so devoted to using up produce. Of course, a big part of that is gelatin salads! 

Well, in theory, anyway. I'm not sure many of the readers are likely to be growing oranges, bananas, and avocadoes, but they make the chart, too. 

I expected something in this array of Jell-Os to sound appealing, but there's nothing too impressive. The apple, banana, and peach versions sound the most promising, but they still require gnawing through stringy celery and sogged-out nuts to enjoy the better bits. And then there are combinations like avocado, orange, and onion in a citrus gelatin; cheese and celery in a tomato-and-citrus gelatin; or grapefruit, celery, and olives in lemon.... 

I was also a bit surprised by the recommendation to make Cranberry Mousse with Raspberry Sauce.

I don't usually see cranberries in stores until about November. Why not a peach mousse with raspberry sauce if we're trying to use up the produce? Hansen just doesn't seem very committed to the premise for August's recipes.

The chapter also includes grilled recipes for family picnics. While it has the classics like barbecued ribs and barbecued chicken, I was more curious about the Grilled Leg of Lamb Nuggets.

Part of my confusion is probably from reading this in 2025 rather than in 1978. When modern readers see "nuggets," we're almost certainly thinking of finger food-- little breaded-and-deep-fried bits (probably chicken!) ready to dip in a sauce of some sort. These small bits of "lamb-leg meat [cut in] the individual shape nature gives" are not breaded-- just grilled-- and pre-seasoned with a marinade rather than served with a dip. I'm also not sure why any cook would want to try to make grilled nuggets in the first place. I imagine them all dropping through the grill grates. Wouldn't it be easier to just cook bigger pieces of meat?

The recipe that might make the most sense for the purported purpose of this chapter is this one that features one of the veggies of the month: cucumbers.

Hodgepodge Relish also incorporates a whole range of other veggies (though not the other featured veg of the month-- corn). You've just got to be willing to boil big bunches of  canning jars in one of the hottest months of the year to preserve the harvest for later. It's a bit of a tradeoff. (You've also got to like vinegar waaaaaay more than I do to actually enjoy pickles, but we all know I'm a picky five-year-old at heart.)

Of course, August is always a tradeoff--  the beginning of the end of long, sunny days, melting into the first days of school. I get the impulse to try to hold onto it just a little bit longer.