IDK about IDS

"WTF is IDS?" I wondered when I picked up Favorite Recipes of the Women of IDS (1973, but mine is from the second printing in 1978).

I wasn't sure, but apparently the women of IDS have hair made out of butterflies and flowers. The inside cover specifies that the recipes are from the marketing department of Investors Diversified Services, so I guess these women turning into summer meadows were married to investors. I'd have expected them to be hippies, but I guess butterflies and flowers didn't like damn dirty hippies and got associated with them against their will. Butterflies and flowers prefer trophy wives.

Then when I looked at the recipes, I kept having WTF moments, as the recipe titles so often flew in the face of my expectations. Sometimes that was just because I'm ignorant. When I saw Pizza Frita, I expected fried dough covered in tomato sauce and cheese. I was completely mystified to find yeast doughnuts.

I guess my lack of Italian heritage meant that I didn't realize pizza frita is just an alternate name for zeppole.

Sometimes, maybe I'm being a little too picky in my definition. Succotash should be a mixture of sweet corn and lima beans if I'm being a purist or corn and other shelled beans if I'm being more generous.

Can green beans stand in for more hefty legumes? And is it really succotash if it's bound with mayo and cheese and topped with bread crumbs?

Sometimes, my knowledge of '60s and '70s food trends misled me in this book. To most of the rest of America, cheese balls were big wads of cream cheese blended with other cheeses and maybe rolled in nuts or chipped beef. The women of IDS thought of something entirely different.

The women of IDS made cheddar dough to wrap around pitted dates stuffed with pecans.

When I saw Orange Ring Mold, I immediately imagined orange gelatin with semi-random additions of whipped cream, canned fruit, pickle juice, olives, etc. That's not what the women of IDS call an orange ring mold, though.

Apparently, they call fruit-flavored monkey bread an Orange Ring Mold!

Sometimes I suspected the women of IDS of being just a bit pretentious. Think IDS women's sloppy joes are just ground beef with ketchup, brown sugar, and maybe some spices, just like those of the peasants? Think again, buddy!

These are the wives of investors! They make sloppy joes out of crab and olives! (The tomato soup and American cheese help keep these at least a little more down-to-earth.)

Sometimes they made substitutions that just seemed wrong.

Does flattened-out biscuit dough from a can really count as a tortilla? (And for that matter, does ground beef mixed with "catsup" really count as taco meat, even if it does have a dash of cayenne?)

Reading through this book sometimes felt like stepping into a parallel universe where nothing was quite right... and that's what made it so much fun. Hope you enjoyed our step into the alternate '70s with the butterfly-bedecked investors' wives.