Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Salads with awkward pointy bits

Today we're going to laugh at some old salad recipes even though they are Jell-O free! Instead, our theme from Betty Crocker's Hostess Cookbook (1967) is salads with awkward pointy bits.

The picture for this one makes me laugh because someone clearly put a lot of work into composing the layers, but the finished product just looks like someone tried to pass off a compost heap as a salad by edging it in sliced hard cooked eggs and throwing in a few skewers full of pepperoni and olives.


There is just something comical about the celery tops shooting off in every direction and the green onions swimming upstream. The name for this construction is terrific, too:



Kabobed Antipasto Salad! I just love "kabobed." It sounds like a death in Strongbad's Teen Girl Squad comics.

Kabobed!
























In comparison, our other dish today looks fairly sedate:


The fruit plate looks good-- nice berries, grapes, melon balls, various dipping sauces. The pineapple in the middle looks like a colorful little porcupine. And that is where I would have a problem because I would assume the toothpicks are meant to spear the fruit on the platter. There are no tongs or spoons, after all. Here's the real plan:


The pineapple is actually a "Pineapple Tower" cut into pieces and reassembled with the toothpicks keeping the pieces stuck to the core. If I were at the party and the first person to touch the fruit tray, here's what would happen: I'd want a toothpick so I could spear a few strawberries. I'd try to pull out a toothpick and the pineapple would come with it. I would be totally freaked out for nearly ruining the centerpiece, shove the pineapple back where it came from, and get as far away from the whole thing as possible (preferably in another room or maybe another house!) in the hopes that no one would know I was the dummy who nearly ruined the adorable porcupinapple.

Then half an hour later I would go back to the room, see the leftover pineapple core, and realize that I was just the dummy who couldn't figure out that we were allowed to eat the pineapple too. The joys of being socially awkward....

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