Time Traveling with Vegetables

The Unabridged Vegetable Cookbook (Nika Hazelton, copyright 1976, but mine is from the 1980 Bantam printing) is both exactly what I expected (with a lot of relatively standard veggie preparations) and a surprise (in its introduction of dishes that were likely unfamiliar to mainstream American cooks and its occasional unexpected preparations). 

So, honestly, a lot of the book is about how to turn any random vegetable into a creamed, au gratin, or sautéed-in-olive-oil-and-garlic(-and-maybe-tomato) version of itself. Not terribly exciting. But the book does remind me that the food scene was quite different back then, as concepts that wouldn't need explanations in mainstream America now required commentary back then. It would be hard to find somebody who didn't understand the concept of salsa today, for instance, but mainstream Americans in the late '70s/ early '80s needed to be told that it was a "sauce... found on all Mexican tables" to be served "on any dishes that can stand a little livening up."

At least they called it "salsa," though. "Hummus" (something that most grocery stores dedicate many square feet of refrigerated shelf space to now) was such a foreign concept that the recipe was Americanized to "Chick Pea Appetizer," with "hummus" left as a parenthetical note.

It should also be served with "flat Arab bread" because "pita" was apparently not a common term either!

There's a recipe for something that seems to have gone mainstream significantly later than salsa or hummus, as well. (At least, it seemed like it to me... I knew about salsa and hummus long before I knew this one...)

I imagine a lot of people would argue that this quickly-made, non-fermented, "less powerful" version is not really kimchi, but I was surprised to see it mentioned at all in a mainstream cookbook this old.

And of course, it does occasionally have somewhat-oddball recipes. I expected the cabbage section to include stuffed cabbage leaves, for instance, but I figured they would be stuffed with rice and ground meat and flavored with tomato sauce. Hazelton had something else in mind, though.

These are filled with a buttery mushroom-and-bread stuffing that probably tastes like Thanksgiving.

I expected iceberg lettuce to be cut into wedges and slathered in dressing...

...but not hollowed out, stuffed with a cream-cheese-based filling, chilled to solidify, and served as cheese-stuffed wedges.

I'll admit I wasn't really expecting a potato pizza at all, but the title made me imagine a crust topped with thinly-sliced potatoes and maybe an oily, rosemary-heavy sauce with plenty of cheese.

I was only sort of right. We've got the cheese and rosemary, but the potatoes are mixed into the crust! I could almost see somebody replacing the flour with a gluten-free flour (and/or maybe some eggs?) to make a gluten-free crust today. 

And while I was generally unsurprised to see so many vegetables get au-gratined, I'll have to admit I wasn't quite prepared for this one.

I primarily think of bean sprouts as an Asian ingredient, so the idea of layering them with a bunch of cream sauce and cheese had not really occurred to me...

The Unabridged Vegetable Cookbook is a great little time capsule, with a lot of recipes that remind me of the past (when everything was served creamed), many that look to our more multiculturally-aware future, plus a few little blips to remind me that the late '70s was a weird time.