Let's Cook It Right (Adelle Davis, originally 1947, but mine is a 1962 edition) is so convinced of the incredible value of meat in the diet that even most of the recipes in the chapter that is supposed to be about meat substitutes still contain meat. So, it should be no surprise that the book recommends eating a wide variety of cuts of meat, too.
I rarely see recipes for backbones, for example, but this book has one.
I'm not really sure how people were supposed to serve or eat backbones-- the recipe ends pretty abruptly. Simmer 15 minutes and... Remove any meat and add it back to a stew based on this cooking water? Hang them from the ceiling as really gnarly Halloween decorations? Decide you've wasted your time trying to cook backbones? At least it shows how to cook them.
The book also included a lot of variety meat recipes. Why settle for plain old meatloaf when you can have Heart Meat Loaf?
I'll bet grinding is a good strategy for cooking a tough muscle like the heart, and it could keep the kids from realizing what they're actually being served...
And speaking of keeping people from figuring out what it is they're actually eating... Maybe this recipe could do with a title change.
I like that the note at the end reassures cooks that "Brains prepared in this manner are usually assumed to be hard-cooked eggs." So, again, maybe reconsider calling it brain salad. Easier to fool people into thinking they're eating eggs that way!
Sometimes, though, the book thinks cooks should go big and bold when serving variety meats.
It was sure to be a special night when mom carried a big platter of flaming kidneys to the table.
The prize for most unnerving recipe might go to Brains with Chives.
The part that gives me pause is "pack brains firmly into ice tray, freeze. Remove and slice before sautéing." I can just imagine hunting around for an ice cube and being confronted with a tray full of brains! In fact, finding something like that in an old, oversized farmhouse freezer seems like a good scene in a horror movie-- the moment when some unsuspecting house guest realizes they have to get out right now as the camera pulls back to reveal a guy with a butcher knife coming around the corner, right behind the person trying not to step on the remnants of the shattered water glass they just dropped...
And now I realize that any of these recipe titles could be written on a mock menu posted on the kitchen walls in that farmhouse, the kind of background detail that would make me pause the movie for a moment to appreciate the small touches that make a horror movie house a horror movie home.
I was thinking that these recipes were the basis for zombie movies. Imagine a young, future film writer sitting down for dinner plotting how they would get back at their mother (since we know that odds are really good that their mother was cooking this instead of any other family members) for cooking such a thing, and writing a horrific screen play in their head. Or maybe they misbehaved bad enough to go to bed without dinner and sat in their room writing their horror movie prototypes to pass the time until they could sneak into the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich.
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