Gettin' Festive with Betty

The cover of Betty Crocker's Festive Fixin's with a Foreign Flare (General Mills, 1964) pretty accurately sums up its contents. 

It's full of sweet baked goods-- great for holiday sharing, but less so for a blog that focuses primarily on the more horrifying aspects of vintage recipes. (About the meanest thing I can say about the cover is that the bûche de Noël looks like a loaf of sandwich bread with a BIG outie belly button and the start of a mold problem.) But you just know I can persevere and find at least a few weird odds and ends in such a booklet.

The most cynical aspect of the booklet is that it's partially intended to help sell Saran Wrap, so it includes a couple of decorating ideas that will incidentally require anyone who follows them to waste yards and yards of Saran Wrap to make pointless decorations like imitation bunches of grapes out of hard candies.

Yes, why put out actual grapes (or even cheap and no-effort bunches of plastic grapes) when you can waste a couple hours of your time Saran Wrapping hard candies to thin wire, briefly boiling them (so the wrap will be good and tight), using florist tape to wrap them all together, and adding artificial grape leaves? It's not like you've got anything else going on in December.

Alternatively, if bright green wreaths with red decorations are a little too cheery, you can waste your time turning nuts still in their shells into a big brown wreath using similar methods.

I'm sure the squirrels would agree with the observation that "a nut wreath also makes an attractive outdoor decoration." (I really don't see a flimsy layer of plastic as being too much of a deterrent.)

If you want actual recipes, though, there's an interesting one for gnocchi. I used to think that gnocchi was always made from potatoes, but I've watched enough Food Network by now to know that while choux gnocchi might not be the first kind to come to mind, it's also not that uncommon. Putting it inside a tart shell, though?

Can't say as I was expecting to see gnocchi in a pastry and covered in a cream sauce and cheese! The pastry seems wholly superfluous, but as a carb lover, I could see this as a pretty fun treat.

Most of the recipes are for European baked goods, but America does make a brief appearance near the end of the pamphlet.

We are a nation of snackers lorded over by overdressed creepy dolls, apparently. And General Mills thinks your snacks should be Cheerios-based, obviously. If you're more the traditional "Chex mix" type of person, then Festive Mixin's will turn Cheerios and Kix into an approximate equivalent.

Or, if you want a peek back into the time before Cheerios was trying to equate itself with heart health, there's Crispy Mixin's, loaded up with bacon and Cheddar.

I can't imagine trying to eat this-- sounds like it would be a big, gloppy, greasy mess-- but maybe 4 cups of Cheerios would be enough to absorb all that animal fat.

Okay, fine. If you really want an actual cookie recipe with a European pedigree, I'll leave you with Viennese Devils.

Mostly because the cookie looks kind of horrifying. The torso makes me wonder if this is about to become a scene from The Thing. And on that happy note, I will leave you to whatever you are busy with at this time in December. I'm gonna go Saran Wrap some nuts.

Holiday recipes with some "modern" flair

Tired of the same holiday spread, year after year, but also afraid of changing things too much-- so much that it won't feel like a holiday at all? If you live in the 1960s (or at least appreciate the casserole-and-gelatin aesthetic of the time period), Modern Approach to Everyday Cooking (American Dairy Association, 1966) has some small twists on some holiday classics just for you.

If it's too much work to make both poultry and a green bean casserole (or if you've got leftover cooked chicken or can easily procure a precooked one from the grocery), Chicken Green Bean Casserole handily combines them into one main dish.

In addition to the usual green beans, there's also a can of chop suey vegetables, some cheddar cheese, and some chopped fresh onion, along with the usual topping of crispy fried onions. So it will feel familiar and yet (perhaps a bit alarmingly) different.

If you miss the tang of cranberries from Thanksgiving, add a festive Layered Cranberry Salad.

It's packed with cranberry and orange flavor-- very festive-- but your tolerance for it may depend on how you feel about lumpy cottage cheese as part of a Jell-O salad, stringy and vegetal wads of celery hiding out in a mostly-sweet salad, and/or soggy (and often rancid-tasting) walnuts soaking away in those jellied depths.

If you're an eggnog fan, the Eggnog Christmas Salad may be more your style.

It still has festive cranberry and orange-- along with some eggnog diluted with more than a pound of crushed pineapple. So... maybe it's better if you only kind of feel like eggnog occasionally, rather than being a true eggnog lover.

I'm not sure these recipes would pass for "modern" in 2025. (Okay, I'm positive they would not!) But this stuff was cutting-edge if you asked the American Dairy Association in the 1960s. (And I imagine that the only ones who asked for this were the members of the American Dairy Association.)

Surprise! Christmas "sweets" that aren't

Old copies of Better Homes and Gardens used to have little tear-out sheets of recipes that could be added to their big, binder-style cookbooks. Today's sheet from the December 1937 issue stowed away somewhere until it found me, so I scanned it just for you. For December, it offers up a "winter salads" section. The front of the page has cute little jiggly "Christmas Salad" stars that look like they might be a Jell-O encased fruit salad.

No such luck, though. The lemon Jell-O might look like a red flavor, but that's just because it's colored with beet juice! Add vinegar, diced beets and cucumbers, a bit of minced onion, and plenty of horseradish, and those little stars will be an unpleasant surprise for any midwestern kid who is used to "salad" being a code word for dessert when Jell-O is involved. Merry Christmas!

The reverse side gives you a green mold to pair with the red. (Well, it's gray in the picture, but I assume it would be green in real life.)

All those grapes and cherries in the middle probably make you think sweet, right? Well, not so much....

The lemon Jell-O gets filled out with equal parts mayonnaise, avocado, and whipped cream... So maybe weirdly green mayo, without an herbaceous flavor one might expect? Or maybe overly goopy avocado? In any case, it's sure to distract you from noticing that the cherries and grapes have been marinated in French dressing until after you've put some on your plate and know you can't dump them back... At least, not while anyone else is watching. 

Maybe this is a holiday spread for somebody who wishes every day were April Fool's Day? Hopefully the guests will know enough to watch out for tricks...

Bust out the gelatin! It's Christmastime!

I ran into a LOT of Christmassy recipes in the past year, so looks like December will be a whole month of them. I originally posted about Marye Dahnke's Salad Book (1954) in the summer because of course I think of salads in the summer, but the book also includes a bunch of salads that seem holiday-ready (and of course loaded with Jell-O since there's always room for it-- even at a big holiday feast).

Some, I've just decided to call holiday-themed because of their color schemes. Tomato Aspic in Green Peppers is an easy one-- red inside of green!

Plus, you get to garnish slices of aspic-filled pepper with American cheese before serving-- easy to cut it into holiday shapes using tiny cookie cutters to be even more in the holiday style. (Nothing is classier than a star-shaped Kraft single sinking into tomato glop.)

If you want to get a little crazier with the flavors but stick to the red-and-green color scheme, the Cream Cheese Cucumber Ring might be for you. 

Okay, the gelatin might be only barely green, since it's mostly cream cheese and the only green part will be grated cucumber. You can always throw in a little green food coloring if you want. The real trick is that the onion-and-cucumber flavored cream cheese gelatin is topped with canned pear halves dyed bright red by cinnamon candies. Top with mayonnaise or salad dressing for a real(ly confusing) holiday "treat."

The book includes plenty of explicitly holiday salads too, though. I thought Poinsettia Salad might be one of those mostly-sweet gelatin salads topped with a marshmallow cut into a flower-ish shape and dipped in red sugar, but I was wrong.

It's tomatoes cut "into 5 sections, poinsettia fashion" (which sounds pretty difficult) and filled with cream-cheese-and-mayonnaise gelatin cubes. (Dahnke must have really liked an excuse to just straight-up eat blocks of mayonnaisey cream cheese. I might be close to agreeing if it weren't for the mayo!)

There's also a Holiday Salad swapping out the cream cheese for avocado if you feel like being just a little more health-conscious.

And it's easier to make because you don't have to try to pretend the tomatoes are flowers-- just slice 'em up for garnish!-- and you don't have to cut the gelatin into little cubes. (You do have to be able to unmold it, though, so maybe not as easy as you'd hope....)

The Holiday Luncheon Plate is supposedly good enough to make "Santa Claus himself... stop to sample this handsome mold." (I can't say as I'd ever think to call a Jell-O mold "handsome," but the '50s were a weird time.)

I have to admit this predominantly fruity version sounds much more palatable than anything so far (especially if you swap out the mayo for yogurt), but it BETTER be good-- 12 to 16 servings is a lot.

The Christmas Buffet Mold is a smaller and more simplified version-- you just have to be willing to forego cream cheese and gnaw on the occasional wood chip bit of diced celery to enjoy this one.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip to the past, when pretty much any occasion-- Christmas! Easter! Presidents' Day! Washday! Thursday!-- called for a big plate of food suspended in some reconstituted powder derived from collagen. 

One last look at "Cooking by the Calendar"

The December chapter of Cooking by the Calendar (1978) lets me know what editor Marilyn Hansen saw as the most fun part of the season: imbibing. 

The "Holiday Drinks" section has all manner of options for the adults (plus a few kid-safe ones). Along with the expected eggnog and mulled wines, there's a Malikihiki Mai Tai Punch for those who are spending their holidays in the tropics or-- more likely-- simply wishing they were. 

The "Gifts from the Kitchen" section also recommends giving the gift of social lubricant for the family-togetherness-heavy holidays.

You just have to be the plan-ahead type, as Vanilla-Coffee Liqueur takes a couple weeks to mellow. 

If you have a family of tea-totalers, you still have some gift options, like Winter Strawberries.

I'm not exactly sure who the target audience for strawberry-shaped wads of walnuts and coconut held together with strawberry gelatin and sweetened condensed milk is. Kids won't like the nuts. Grownups will think it's overly sweet. Maybe this is just supposed to be decorative?

And speaking of decorative, if your holiday party won't feel complete without some sort of food-related arts-and-crafts project, the book recommends a Holiday Sandwich Tree.

Guests can choose between sandwiches with a corned-beef-cottage-cheese-horseradish filling or a chicken-spread-water-chestnuts-ground-ginger filling, as long as corners are dipped in mayo and then parsley to resemble evergreen branches. (Or you can just sprinkle the whole thing with chopped parsley if you're running late!) If your guests aren't big on canned meat, the tree might remain a nice, intact centerpiece for hours. And maybe somebody else will host the big holiday party next year.

Whether you're in the holiday spirit or not, I hope December brings you something better than winter strawberries. That's it for Cooking by the Calendar! We'll see what the next year has to bring....

Funny name: That Again?! Edition

I have a feeling some home economics teachers thought getting cute with the name would help them get rid of leftovers, as this recipe from Quick and Easy Dishes (Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers, 1978 edition) suggests.

I'm not so sure their families were psyched about "Repeat Meat," but at least they tried. (Better than mystery meat, I suppose!)

Some alternatives to pumpkin pie

Tired of pumpkin pie every goddamn Thanksgiving? Easy Homemade Desserts That Say You Care (Thank You brand pie filling, undated, but looks like it's from the 1980s) has some suggestions.

Yeah, I know the cover makes it look like all of them would involve cherries, but there are plenty of other types of recipes too! Cherries were probably just the brand's best seller.

If you really like the pop of red, maybe go for some cranberries rather than cherries.

Well, cranberries plus apples-- and oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon! This will definitely feel like fall, even without the pumpkin. 

If you insist on the pumpkin but are apprehensive about the pie part, there's a pumpkin parfait.

It doesn't get much easier than layering pumpkin pie filling straight out of the can with scoops of vanilla ice cream. (Reminder: Canned pumpkin pie filling is NOT the same thing as pure canned pumpkin! Layering plain canned pumpkin with ice cream would probably be pretty gross.)

If you're not so into a heavy dessert after a heavy meal, there's an airy Apple Angel Pie.

(I'll bet you could sub in the pumpkin pie filling for the apple if you wanted. Or maybe you'd end up with a runny mess. I'm no psychic... or ambitious cook.)

And finally, if you want something resembling an apple-and-cheese pie without the bother of rolling out a crust, you could try Apple Cheese Squares.

I don't see too many recipes calling for a pat-in-pan cake-mix-based crust, covered with a layer of cheesy apples. (And I sincerely doubt that using the "lite" apple pie filling is going to save a substantial amount of calories in a dessert filled with cake mix, butter, coconut, and cheese, but I guess Thank You had to advertise that they made "lite" fillings somewhere, and this recipe was as good a place as any.)

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope yours is as weird as an Apple Cheese Square (if you're like me and enjoy weird) or as sweet as a Pumpkin Parfait (if you're the more conventional type).