How outdoors do the recipes have to be for an outdoor cookbook?

Summertime means outdoor dining, and that goes double this year! That means it's time to look at another outdoor cookbook.

El Patio Outdoor Cookbook (editors of Southern Living, 1973) uses its full color pictures to suggest that carefree outdoor parties are easy.

You've got to love the idyllic scene: swimming, sunbathing, colorful skewers roasting on the grill... It's interesting that the commentary on the page facing the picture emphasizes "Watch that Grill!" and highlights the danger of dripping fat leading to a flareup, instructing readers to "Get an easy chair, a cold drink, a bottle of water to put out flames of your charcoal fire, and settle down by the grill to keep a watchful eye on the meat as it cooks." You might think the picture should also show somebody actually taking the advice and tending the grill, but the editors are not too hung up on the premise of and the content actually matching-- in the pictures or anywhere else.

Of course this book has some outdoor grill recipes as one would expect. I'm not saying the content and premise are entirely divorced from each other.

The ever-popular luau party could feature Hawaiian Grilled Spareribs marinated in the '70s classic beverage Champale. (That's a little more imaginative than the usual pineapple-based Hawaiian-themed rib lacquer.)

For guests who preferred prune-studded meat to malt liquor-soaked meat, there was a Barbecued Pork Loin.

Plus, this version has pineapple juice for those who really need it for any outdoor party! It also repurposes ice cream salt as a meat rub.

A lot of the recipes don't really seem to fit the outdoor cooking theme too well, though. Garden Row Casserole might sound like a good way to use up fresh veggies from the garden-- and maybe a foil pack casserole would work on a grill and give the veggies a bit of smoke flavor?

Nope! This is just a plain old canned veggie casserole (It doesn't even call for fresh onions!), and it's supposed to be baked in a casserole dish-- apparently in an oven, given that an exact temperature is specified and it could have been hard to maintain a consistent grill temperature like that for nearly half an hour-- especially if everyone wanted to be in the pool.

Garden Row Casserole is representative of a lot of recipes that don't seem like they really belong in a book about outdoor cooking, but it's hardly the most egregious offender. At least it would be pretty easy to throw the casserole together quickly and then set it out on the patio once it was hot.

Sweet Surprise Soufflé, on the other hand.... Well, with all the melting, mixing, whipping, folding, and then the need to serve immediately after the individual soufflés are baked, this is just not something I can see any reasonable person expecting to make for an outdoor party. It's like the editors wanted to hang out by the pool too, so they just threw together whatever recipes were easiest to find and said, "Hey, if you can eat it inside, you can eat it outside too!" Why bother to choose outdoor-specific recipes just because it's an outdoor cookbook?

Then I saw why they might be so eager to get it all thrown together.

The caption for this picture notes, "A sunny summer picnic and romance naturally go together." That full spread of goodies is way more food than the two lovebirds in the background could consume on their own, and they're not going to be eager to get everything properly chilled after the meal. This picnic is fuel for a nice outdoor orgy, and nobody wants to miss out! That must be why the editors were so eager to get the recipes submitted already, suitability for al fresco dining be damned! They were much more eager to do something else al fresco, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.