I am glad I'm not old enough to remember when leftovers were especially suspect in summer because the ways to keep them cold were not particularly reliable. Still, books like New Delights from the Kitchen (Kelvinator, 1930) can almost make it seem sad that I missed the glamorous era when the days of being likely to camp out in the outhouse because you prepared too large a roast and didn't want to waste the leftovers came to an end and electric refrigeration in the home became common.
How does this little plain-looking book manage to make refrigerators seem so thrilling? Just look at this picture and caption.
Yes, "Kelvinator truly adds glamor and romance to home-making!" I'm not sure why standing in front of an open refrigerator door-- running up the electric bill!-- and awkwardly hand-feeding a bite of an individual dessert to a man who seems perfectly capable of feeding himself while everyone else has to wait for dessert counts as "glamor and romance," but the woman's joy somehow makes it seem plausible.
The book goes all-in on trying to make at least some of the recipes seem exciting and glamorous too. There are so many gelatin salads that would have been considered extremely fancy back then. I suspect the seafood ones would seem especially high-end, like the Shrimp and Cucumber en Gelée. (I mean, come on! Kelvinator busted out some French words!)
There's also Jellied Lobster with Mayonnaise.
I'm not sure why both recipes call for seafood with gelatin and mayonnaise, but the shrimp get the "en Gelée" description and the lobster just gets "with mayonnaise." My guess is that Kelvinator thought canned shrimp needed to be fancied-up a little more than lobster, thus the more stylish name.
The Jellied Lobster merited a more lavish illustration, though.
The picture kind of makes me think of olive loaf, though, which doesn't exactly scream high-end (and reminds me of the sale week I hated most when I worked in a deli. That stuff is a nightmare on the slicer).
Not all of the gelatinized "treats" were so fancy. Jellied Cheese Soufflé isn't a traditional cooked soufflé that comes out of the oven with a glorious brown layer on top.
It's more of a "let's add gelatin to a fluffy American-cheese-flavored sauce and see what happens" soufflé.
The book also suggests salads that seem designed-- rather than to use up bits of leftovers-- to ruin whatever nice things a cook had on hand.
I love pecans, but I don't think making them soggy in an orange-juice-and-olive gelatin is the best possible use for them.
There's also an attempt to refine the almost-always-boring vegetable loaves that were served on Fridays in Catholic households and any time a cook had to feed a few oddball vegetarians.
Eat a cold and jiggly slab of rice, nuts, breadcrumbs, and eggs flavored with "tomato catsup" instead of a hot and brick-like slab of the same odds and ends. So glamorous and romantic!
The Kelvinator had not only a refrigerated area, but also a freezing tray. So of course, it offered some freezer recipes for those who didn't have much idea of what to do with a home freezer (especially since this was before grocery stores offered much in the way of frozen goods). I love peanut butter sooooo much, so I was prepared to be into the idea of a Frozen Peanut Butter Salad.
And then cream cheese was the first ingredient, so I was picturing a "salad" that was closer to a frozen peanut butter cheesecake that somehow got labeled as "salad" because cooks were supposed to top it with a few strawberries or some other fruit. (You know how these old cookbooks work, right?) And then I saw green peppers... and pimento... and celery... And then my opinion of this recipe tanked even further at mayonnaise. Not sure this is the best way to get home cooks excited about the freezer, Kelvinator! (I guess this is closer to our modern idea of a salad than the dessert-y ones are, though.)
The Frozen Chicken à la King doesn't sound any better, but at least it has the benefit of being easier.
Just freeze a can of chicken à la king! Ta-da! What a "desirable luncheon dish for warm weather." And just maybe it will impress the ladies' club by virtue of showing off that you own a freezer.
I'm not impressed by many of the recipes, but Kelvinator's book still managed to make me glad that my leftovers are chill (rather than rotting) and NOT encased in gelatin, so it's good for something.
No comments:
Post a Comment