A More Metal Margaret Mitchell

Are you ready for a celebrity cookbook?

Too bad! Margaret Mitchell's Mealtime Magic Cookbook may seem to fit the bill, but this book came out in 1964, fifteen years after the writer of Gone with the Wind died.

This Margaret Mitchell should be at least kind of a celebrity on my blog, though. I didn't realize it when I added this book to my stack at the thrift store, but Ms. Mitchell was the home economist for a company we are getting to know and love this year.

Look carefully at the cover. Notice anything special about the way the (presumably tuna) casserole is presented? Is there something odd about the turkey surrounded by tiny baskets? Does the gift bread look extra shiny?

And just in case the description that meals will be "better than ever before...through the truly sensational secrets of aluminum wrap cookery" isn't enough of a clue for you:

How about Rarebit Stuffed Peppers? The yummy cheese sauce stuffing you might (reasonably) be expecting is questionably augmented with ketchup and canned kidney beans before being dumped into peppers, and the filled peppers are wrapped in (you guessed it!) Alcoa foil. It's turning out to be more of an Alcoa year than I anticipated.

If you want something spring-themed and aluminum-wrapped, there's always this:

Nested Chicken in Foil doesn't sound too terrible, but I can't say that the thought of chicken "nesting" on soggy, oniony shredded wheat sounds particularly enticing, either.

Surprisingly, not every recipe calls for foil. Some are scary all by themselves, like Hawaiian Ham Loaf:

Or as I like to call it, Bizarro Pineapple Upside Down Cake.

For those who have always longed for a way to waste some perfectly good white wine, there's Pano Estofado:

Dump it over turkey covered in prunes, onions, and olives, along with plenty of sugar! No foil is harmed in the making of this dish... but pretty much everything else is.

I keep running into all these uses for aluminum foil and Alcoa recipes. It seems kind of like a conspiracy. I should craft some kind of headgear to protect me from these frightening outside influences. Just let me reach for some... foil? Foil!? It is a conspiracy, and there's no way to stop it!