Barbecue time machine

How about some time-travelling grilled recipes for the weekend?

If you want to be a '70s Casanova, Thomas Mario's The Playboy Gourmet (1972) recommends a mixed grill:

Okay, the instructions are actually to broil rather than actually grill cook, but this mixture is sure to seduce. Besides having the always-phallic sausages, this also includes the current sex emoji-of-choice eggplant. (If you want to go really far back, the Wife of Bath had some unflattering things to say about her old husbands' "bacon" in The Canterbury Tales.) This recipe has got your sexually suggestive bases covered no matter what the time period.

As a teacher, I would also give this recipe an award for being most in need of a transition. It goes from "Brush each [tomato] half with salad oil and sprinkle with sugar" to "Remove fat from kidneys." I had a brief moment muttering "But tomatoes don't have kidneys!"

If you want something more '50s family-friendly, The General Foods Kitchens Cookbook (1959) has a meal for six campers:

I love mom and son in their matching flannel shirts, her stirring the pot over the fire while he stares blankly ahead. The star of the menu is Barbecue Rice with Ham:

Ham with mushrooms and rice doesn't sound too bad, but I'm not so convinced by the mustard and chili sauce.

Based on the spots over "steak" and "pepper," I suspect a previous owner actually made something on this page! I'm guessing that it might have been the jelly roll, though, since the splats look like they're from a dough and not from chili sauce.

If you really want to travel to the '60s, The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (1963) offers this outta sight recipe:

Whether you consider Barbecued Flapjacks to be figuratively outta sight or whether you want them to literally be out of sight (and upwind too, if possible!) depends on your feelings about a pancake and burger layer cake with "catchup" sauce.

I love the practicality of this recipe too. You're supposed to be cooking outdoors, so of course you want to try to simultaneously heat the sauce and grill the burgers over the fire while also mixing up pancake better and turning it into pancakes in an electric skillet. (Hope there's an outlet!) What fun would it have been to just slap burgers on pre-made buns and call it a day?

I'm going to stay firmly in 2017 this weekend, maybe have a Tofurky andouille sausage from the grill, and be glad I didn't have to be a '50s mom or put up with '70s guys.