Rice recipes 'n' racism

Rice Recipes Old and New Presented by Comet Rice (undated, but but Michigan State University Library's Alan and Shirley Broker Sliker Culinary Collection estimates it as 1950and offers a full scan of the booklet here) presents a diverse array of rice dishes with all the cultural sensitivity and culinary accuracy one would expect of mid-century Texas (Comet's home). That is, of course, very little, which should come as no surprise from a booklet showing hoop-skirted southern belles watching a riverboat while the white-gloved black butler lights candles for dinner.

The cover's racism is pretty laid-back compared to the illustrations for some of the recipes, though:

The illustrator couldn't decide between mammy or butlers drawn in the most cartoonishly stereotypical ways possible, so readers are treated to both mammy and a whole chorus line of butlers.

My personal preference is for the more inexplicable pictures.

Why is a woman in an apron and graduation cap pointing at a steaming turkey while lecturing a room full of women with identical hairstyles? Why is all of this next to the recipe for Spanish Pork Chops with Rice? Your guess is as good as mine. I'm going to say that the turkey studied physics and was getting ready to graduate, so the "teacher" stole its cap, killed it, cleaned it, cooked it, and then exhibited as an example to the other women of the perils of getting too much non-housekeeping-related education. They're just pretending to pay attention until she turns her back and they can sneak out of the room.

You might look at the recipe and ask what makes the pork chops Spanish, anyway. My guess is that it's the tomato juice. A rule of old cookbooks seems to be rice + tomato juice = Spanish. It's an immutable law, regardless of how well it actually represents Spanish cooking. This recipe seems downright authentic compared to some of the others.

Do you like Chinese food?

Here, Chinese Eggs means not century eggs or tea eggs or even egg drop soup. Nope. It's deviled eggs baked in a cheese sauce, even though one of the defining characteristics of Chinese food, so far as this non-expert is concerned, is that it is not covered in melted cheese.

Do you like risotto?

Well, if you answered yes, Comet Rice certainly hopes you don't know what the term risotto means, because here it's a fancy-sounding name for rice sprinkled with a little Parmesan and liberally doused with a cinnamon-and-ginger-spiced mushroom, chicken liver, and tomato sauce.

Even in the face of all these fancy recipes, sometimes I'm still amused by the simplest. This recipe for Rice with Poached Eggs seems like straightforward comfort food, and it manages not to misrepresent or insult anyone.

The picture, though...

I think I'd title this "Don't eat the yellow snow."

See, Comet? You can be amusing without being a jerk.