Ground beef gets patriotic

Ground Beef Cookbook (Favorite Recipes Press, 1967) opens with a "Ground Beef Favorites from First Ladies" chapter. For America's 250th birthday, let's check some of those patriotic ground beef recipes out. 

The president at the time was LBJ, so his wife submitted Pedernales River Chili. I had never heard of Pedernales River before, so now you know I'm not from Texas.

This has no beans-- as Texas chilis DO NOT include them. It also use Ro-Tel tomatoes, so it may have been a little spicier than mainstream midwestern readers were used to. I thought the six teaspoons (Why not just say two tablespoons?) of chili powder sounded pretty substantial for back then, but then I realized that it is mixed into four pounds of meat... So maybe not quite as seasoned as I thought. Still, I appreciate that this recipe seems like it could plausibly be a chili recipe a Texan might use-- not some midwestern bullshit "chili" made of catsup and kidney beans or hamburger with cream of mushroom soup.

Mrs. Hubert Humphrey (the vice-president's wife) offered Dinner-in-a-Dish.

I see various recipes with this title all the time, and they tend to rely on hamburger, long-lasting vegetables that the family is likely to have on hand, and canned vegetables, just as this one does. I guess this was Mrs. Hubert Humphrey's way of seeming practical and relatable.

The section also features recipes from the wives of the governors of about half the states, and there is quite a bit of overlap. (The Massachusetts recipe is also "Dinner-in-a-Dish," nearly identical except that it uses five tablespoons of butter instead of four of shortening, and it bakes at 350 for 45 minutes.)

There are a lot of meat loaves, too. The Governor's Meat Loaf tries to sound interesting by mentioning the governor, but it's still pretty standard.

We could definitely have gotten a more interesting regional specialty from Louisiana! The most interesting meat loaf recipe in this section is the uncredited "Crazy Meat Loaf."

It's crazy because it features a vein of mixed vegetables and cheese down the middle. I'm not sure whether the editors forgot to credit the contributor or whether they didn't have enough recipes from politicians' wives and just threw this one in (along with a photo!) to fill out the pages. 

I imagine it would look even crazier if it were actually in color. 

The wives of governors from the upper midwest predictably offered some "Hot Dish" recipes, like this one from Montana...

...and this one from North Dakota.

I always associate hot dish with tater tots, though, so I was kind of disappointed not to find any in the hot dish offerings! Tater tots have been around since the 1950s, so they definitely existed by the time this book was published. Maybe they're most associated with Minnesota, though, and the book didn't have a recipe for Minnesota.

Some recipes seemed very fitting for the areas they came from. I could have guessed Tamale Pie was from Arizona. 

(And this has two tablespoons of chili powder for two pounds of meat!)

Crunchy Oriental Meatballs?

Even though this doesn't have pineapple, I still could have guessed Hawaii.

And while "Hickel's Hash" doesn't really conjure up much of a mental image on its own...

The simple mixture of things you probably already have on hand does seem pretty practical for a place like Alaska, where you're liable to be snowed in anyway.

Some recipes had me scratching my head, though. I expected Hamburger Fiesta to have some Mexican spices and be from somewhere in the southwest. 

But it's basically just a recipe for sloppy joes from North Carolina. (This makes 48 servings, though, so maybe Mrs. Dan K. Moore was just thinking about the "feast" aspect without realizing the additional overtones that come with the word "fiesta"?)

And then there is a recipe for tacos that are so bland, I would have assumed they were from Indiana.

Absolutely no seasonings in the beef aside from onion, bacon drippings, tomatoes, and a "Dash of Picante." You could nearly as credibly consider this to be the start of a (bland) spaghetti sauce. And yet, this is from Texas. (I imagine Texans were relieved they had Mrs. LBJ's chili to represent them front and center, so perhaps fewer people would notice this recipe was also supposed to represent them.)

I imagine that current politicians and their spouses are less likely to have recipes at the ready to send out whenever someone asks for one (and I can't help suspecting that those who do might now simply send out recipes provided to them by a food-related industry in their state). Maybe this shift  is a sign that we're a little less sexist, not necessarily expecting all political spouses to be women or that they will have an interest in cooking. Maybe it's because the average person is less likely to do any substantial cooking now anyway, and they can easily find recipes on the internet if they do want to cook something. Maybe it's because even food is so partisan that sending out a recipe would risk alienating too many potential voters. (Being vegan and hating on vegans are both nearly industries in their own right, and that's only one example.) I don't really have any meaningful reflection on all of this, beyond the obvious that things change over time. The important thing is to think about which changes are for the better, and which are for the worse, and what we can/ should do to get a raise the percentage of changes for the better. So happy 250th, America! 🎆 I hope we figure out a way to change more productively than we have lately...