If you made this with some applesauce or mashed banana instead of the eggs, it could fit right in with the modern era, 80+ years later.
Grannie Pantries
A place to appreciate the horrors of vintage cookbooks
Saturday, July 5, 2025
Going crackers for substitutions
If you made this with some applesauce or mashed banana instead of the eggs, it could fit right in with the modern era, 80+ years later.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Reluctantly venturing into July
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Tapioca: Not just a bland pudding
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
The question of snacks
I picked up Snacks (Miyuki Iida, 1972) because it seemed like something was off. I mean, look at the cover.
I adore seasoned rice and a big salad-- but I wouldn't really consider something like this to be a snack. The inside cover says this was printed in Japan, though, so maybe Japanese consider this a snack? I wouldn't think so-- I tend to think of Pocky when I think of Japanese snacking-- but I can claim absolutely no real knowledge of Japanese culture. Maybe I'm just relying on stereotypes?
And anyway, why would a Japanese cookbook be in English? The back cover offered up a bit more confounding information, as it included a conversion table to convert "English" measurements (in ounces) to "American" measurements (in cups). I wasn't 100% sure whether that meant about the intended audience for this book, so I perused the recipe for American Hamburger.
Since it called for ingredients in both ounces (minced beef and pork) and cups (breadcrumbs), that didn't really help me figure anything out. Just the fact that the title refers to hamburger as "American" is more helpful, as it suggests Americans are not the audience. (This meatloaf-leaning recipe that recommends "a beef and pork mixture" to avoid drying out the patties also bears little resemblance to the American burgers of my youth, when mom would fry 100% beef with no additions-- not even salt!-- until it was so dry I had trouble swallowing it.)
In any case, I'm not sure this looks much like a snack.
At least the pickles and onions should be easy to pick off! I'm not sure why anyone would serve hamburgers from a two-compartment plate like this, though.
The little book of 20 recipes also lists such snack time favorites as paella.
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Funny Name: Fabulous Edition
I doubt the Morehead Woman's Club had drag queens in mind when they put together Our Ways with Food (undated, but from the early 1960s), but when I hear "Crabmeat Queens," all I can imagine is a drag troupe that primarily performs as entertainment during brunches.
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Stack up the chili! We got a Westinghouse!
I picked up the Recipes.. Care.. Use Westinghouse Electric Ranges booklet (1949) not for the color cover (though it is hard to resist a cover with green petits fours that almost match the pea soup).
I got it because I'm kind of fascinated by pictures of old electric ranges. They always seem so happy, listing all the features as if this specific appliance will change the owner's life.
This model offers extra outlets for appliances, an acid-resistant top, a warming drawer, and an oven big enough so you can bake EIGHT loaves of bread at once! (Never mind that I don't want to imagine what a private, non-bakery life that would require baking eight loaves of bread at once might entail.)
There's even a tiny woman ready to explain the oven's features for any homemaker lucky enough to own one.
Well... A tiny woman with football-player shoulders. She's ready to explain that the minute timer can (You guessed it!) be used as a timer. The "Surface Signalite" lights up so cooks will know when (You guessed it!) a surface unit is turned on. (If you want to know what the "Oven Signalite" does, you'll just have to turn to page 15.)
The recipes themselves are admittedly not the most compelling. If you need to know how long to steam various vegetables or how to adjust a cake recipe if you live in a high-altitude region, this offers up the appropriate guides. Still, a few recipes made me slow down for a closer look. The Chop Suey recipe briefly made me wonder what kinds of weird snack foods were available in postwar America.
A can of mushroom chips? I initially imagined crispy mushroom bits similar to canned fried onions-- like the kind people put on green bean casserole. Then I realized that the recipe also called for "water from mushrooms"-- so this really just means plain old canned mushroom stems and pieces. They're just referred to as "chips" because they're cut in small pieces. So much for that mystery.
I noticed a recipe for "Chili Stack" and was wondering how cooks might stack up their chili, given that it's usually pretty fluid and amorphous.
There is no real stacking involved, though. It's just chili with the suggestion that it be served on toast. (Not even a recommendation for layering toast, chili, toast, chili, which would at least be closer to a stack!)
And there is, of course, the recipe labeled as "Chinese" for extremely flimsy reasons.
The Chinese are known for their cheese-filled omelets with a white-sauce base, right? (And don't even get me started on how this is more of a soufflé than an omelet!) This recipe is just another reminder that the simple addition of rice was enough to make pretty much any recipe "Chinese" back in the day.
I'm not sure how to end this one, so I guess it will just be with an embarrassing observation about myself. In the picture highlighting the Signalite, I noticed that the range has written indications of which control goes with which burner. (Note the "Right Read" near tiny woman's knees.) That means I could easily figure out which burner to use! Stoves now try to be more inclusive by using little diagrams to indicate which burner goes with which control so people who may not read English can still figure out which one to use. The problem is that my spatial sense is so terrible that I am often confused by the little diagrams when they are not accompanied by written descriptions. If I've only got a diagram, I end up turning on a burner, touching it to see if it's getting hot, and then adjusting if I guessed wrong the first time. So-- come to admire my cookbook. Stay to hear me make fun of myself! 😄
Saturday, June 14, 2025
The rainbow returns! Whether you like it or not!
Happy Pride Month! Or perhaps more appropriately this year, Scrappy Pride Month! It's unfortunately getting more important to remind everybody that we're here, we're queer, we deserve to be treated like real human beings because we are in fact real human beings, and also we like rainbows and kitsch. That last item, of course, is where my rainbow of gelatin comes in.
This year, I'm getting a sixth helping of recipes from River Road Recipes II: A Second Helping (The Junior League of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; January 1977 fourth printing). In case anyone isn't familiar with how a rainbow works: start with red. This year is too sour and bitter, so I'm going with (mostly) nice recipes this year, like Strawberry Delight Salad or Dessert.
I love that this Jell-O, like me, can go both ways. It also reminds readers that any gelatin, no matter how sweet, magically changes from dessert into a salad if you just serve it on a lettuce leaf.
Mandarin Orange Salad represents our violet layer. Yeah-- just kidding. The color is given away by the name. (Fun fact: In English, the color is named after the fruit. Before oranges were familiar, the color was just "red-yellow" or "yellow-red." In short, we have a fruit to thank for "orange"!)
I know the other side is always grousing about us "shoving things down [their] throats," showing an unawareness of both phrasing and how practically EVERY bit of culture has some implicit messages (and the haters are only consciously aware of the ones they personally disagree with). I just wish we could get the message down their throats as easily as Jell-O.
In any case, it's Pride Month! And I hope all the jiggling in this post makes yours a little better. Gotta take what you can get...