Food or road kill?

I have an enormous [electronic] stack of pop culture analyses to grade this weekend, so I pulled out the enormous Good Housekeeping's Cook Books collection (1958) and steered to the "Quick 'n' Easy" booklet for some quick inspiration.

This thing was staring back at me:

What the heck? At first I thought it might be splattered spaghetti sauce with olive green eyes glaring up at me, but it seemed a little too shiny and red to be tomato sauce. My mind tiptoed up to uncooked organ meats being prepared, but then I saw the apple in the background... and besides, the yellowish swirl around the edges would have to be pus or fat for that image to work, and not even a food stylist this scary is going to leave that in the picture.

So in the end, yes, this is the least scary of all options I considered: a gelatin salad in non-molded form:

The eyes are just seedless grapes, and the pus/ fat is Speedy Custard Sauce. The sauce could still be a little scary, though. The book lists several possibilities, but my favorite is to mix a can of baby food custard with a third of a cup whipped cream. Surprise! Top your dessert with baby food mousse.

Have a weekend that tastes better than it looks.