Other than to stuff it in pasta shells after mixing it with Fancy Feast, that is.
The best way to get an overview of this collection might just be a menu of mayhem! So we will start out with an appetizer.
I picked Vegetable Pizza just because I know this recipe got a LOT of use in the late '80s/ early '90s. I swear, it was at every single potluck I ever got dragged to as a kid, although in my area, the cooks were more inclined to top their "pizzas" with raw broccoli and shredded carrots than red pepper and radishes. I just remember staring dejectedly at it and wondering why anybody bothered to make this when actual pizza exists and is MUCH better.
Of course, we need a salad. In a menu chosen for maximum contrast (meaning that everything will clash terribly), let's get a little tropical with Piña Colada Freeze.
Yeah-- with all that fruit and whipped topping, it might sound more like a frozen dessert, but this is in the salad section, so it's a certified salad! (Plus, I'm hoping I can make somebody out there gag at the thought of a piña colada full of Miracle Whip.)
I also liked that the photo of this concoction looks kinda like a brain.
Well, a brain surrounded by kiwi and strawberry slices and topped with pencil shavings.
I picked our main dish mostly because I love the title.
Midwestern Stir-Fry is a tacit admission that the closest most Midwesterners at the time would get to cooking Asian food was slathering some sliced smoked sausage and a few veggies in mustard-y Miracle Whip and serving the whole mess over rice.
For dessert, I could have chosen chewy double chocolate brownies or easy carrot cake, but I know that Miracle Whip in baked goods makes too much sense. It's mostly just oil, corn syrup, vinegar, and eggs--most of which are common ingredients in baked goods anyway-- with the possible exception of vinegar, but that still adds acid to help with leavening. The flavor will melt away, and you'll just have fairly typical brownies or cake. So instead, we're getting another frozen treat! This one is intended as a dessert rather than a salad.
I really don't know why you'd need Miracle Whip in with the blueberries, sugar, and gelatin flavored with just a bit of lemon peel. It seems like this icy dessert could very well be better off without it, but Kraft, of course, thinks the MW is essential!
I think the real miracle is that anyone wanted this collection. But then again, I wanted this collection. Maybe it's just a reminder that people always want to look at a train wreck, or a dumpster fire, or... Well... (Shrugging and glancing in all directions as 2025 spreads out around me.) You know.
Don't forget about the weird smell that vegetable pizza emitted. The fake industrial breadlike product smeared with cream cheese adulterated by a questionable white slime had its own scent signature on those potluck tables of horror. I was also wondering if there was a variation with the shredded carrots and raw broccoli listed. Maybe they were cheaper and easier to get than red peppers and radishes. I don't know why adults expected kids to eat anything other than desserts at potlucks. Even things that you thought were dessert weren't always safe. Bright red jello with fruit in it could still be hiding lots of vinegar, celery, and chewy walnut chunks, and the white stuff on top may not be coolwhip.
ReplyDeleteThat stir fry is also scary. I've never met anyone from Asia or been to an Asian restaurant where they put miracle whip on their stir fry. I've also never seen miracle whip in an Asian grocery store, only Kewpie mayonnaise.
We may be bringing back the recipes for condiment sandwiches and catsup and mustard gelatin rings as food gets even more unaffordable, especially for the items that can't be produced in any meaningful amount domestically (coffee or tea anyone?).
I suspect that carrots and broccoli were just cheaper, and cooks knew that they could throw any veggies on the top that they wanted. No need for permission with a special variation when carrots were 40 cents a pound and red peppers were $1.17 a pound. As for desserts, I hated it when cookies looked like regular sugar cookies and then they had anise and/or caraway in them. I always felt kinda like they might have been poisoned.
DeleteYeah, those were bad surprises. Now people joke about how potlucks are ways for people to take their aggression out on those around them by making truly horrible food to share.
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