Everything's coming up Eckrich

I'll say so right up front: I'm cheating a little today. "Now You're Cookin'... with Eckrich" is undated, but it sure looks like it's from the '80s and I usually post about things from the '70s or earlier.

I got this baby in a grab bag along with "The He-Man's Cookbook," so I had to check it out, even if I wasn't sure I would use it here. As I paged through, the cat on my lap (black, with 13 toes on his front feet--a pet to match my personality) got increasingly annoyed by my laughter and kept slapping his tail against my stomach, so I knew I had to feature this one after all.  

The premise of this booklet is that readers should work Eckrich cured meats into every meal of the day. For breakfast, maybe start your day with this:

Bologna Quiche Lorraine: because there is no better way to start your day than by pissing all over French cuisine. Of course sliced and diced bologna is a perfectly acceptable substitute for lardons or bacon, and evaporated milk is close enough to nice, silky cream. (At least this still calls for Swiss cheese. I half-expected it to call for American!)

Want a quick lunch? Tacos might fit the bill:

Old Fashion Tacos, that is! What makes them "Old Fashion"? Well, the filling is made from sliced Old Fashion Loaf, mixed with green chilies, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, and sour cream. Part of me wonders if the veggies and dairy (not even any spices!) will be enough to cover up the taste of the loaf. Then I remember how I used to feel half-nauseated just by the smell of that stuff when I worked in a deli and think probably not.

Eckrich is really dedicated to fitting their products into Mexican-style menus. For dinner, they suggest this:

When I read "Sausage Enchiladas," I thought it sounded a little odd, but I could see it with some smoked sausage maybe. Smoke makes just about any savory dish better, so smoky enchiladas might be pretty good.... Then I saw that the sausage in question was Polska Kielbasa! Polish-style enchiladas just don't seem right to me. 

If Eckrich for everyday breakfast, lunch, and dinner isn't enough, the pamphlet also suggests Eckrich should star on the holiday table too:

Festive Ham starts out sounding promising: just good old ham 'n' [cream] cheese. Things get weird when we move on to the holiday theme: top with cubes of red and green gelatin! Dumping a pile of ham and cheese topped with Jell-O cubes on the table should be a good strategy to get people to stop arguing over politics (and instigate whispered conversations about whether it's finally time to put mom in a home). 

Since cured meats are suspected carcinogens anyway, maybe the best way to see this book is not as a self-serving attempt to get people to put Eckrich in everything, but as a sneakily noble attempt to get people to give up on eating this stuff entirely. This booklet is a hero! (Okay, maybe not...)

Happy Cookbook Wednesday! As always, thanks to Louise from Months of Edible Celebrations for hosting.