My guess is that most people will just think "Huh?" unless they collect old cookbooks or aluminum cookware. Mirro is technically still around, but they're nowhere near as popular as they were when they put out this Mirro Cook Book (third edition, 1950). As you can tell from the cover, this is the height of mid-century cooking trends like making delicate radish-"petal" topped salads and loaves of something starchy covered in a layer of phlegmy white sauce to serve at flower-bedecked ladies' luncheons. Back then, the company was rich enough to put out an affordable cookbook with some full-color pictures so readers could admire the splendor of all the Mirro-enabled creations.
The book starts right out with a very 1950s appetizer spread.
I adore all the carefully cut-out slices of bread bedecked with delicately tinted cream cheese! They are so '50s. The book doesn't label the pictures, but I'm pretty sure this platter is full of "Canapés or Snacks."
"Canapés" is apparently French for "slightly damp bread with semi-random morsels spread/ piped/ piled on it."
This is distinguished from Hors d'Oeuvres...
...which are other random tiny foods, often served on toothpicks. (Got to love the classy "American cheese cut in 1/2 inch squares" and served on toothpicks. So fancy!)
Of course, you probably already know what the photo at the beginning of the salads chapter features. (Hint: Mirro made more than a dozen gelatin molds.)
I can definitely see a star-shaped gelatin mold decorated with red cherries and greenery taking a place of pride in 1950s Christmas buffets. (And you know somebody had to say it looked almost too good to eat.)
The picture is across from this recipe for Cherry Salad.
I think it looks too blindingly white to actually contain cut-up cherry bits, but otherwise, the recipe seems to fit the picture....
In case the star mold isn't enough to show off Mirro's line of gelatin molds, there's also a colorful plate of other molded salads in the background.
A whole tray of variously colored and shaped gelatin salads spread across a sea of iceberg lettuce may be even more '50s than the decorated star!
The book also reminds me that the doll cake Grandma used to make for my birthday had been around for decades before she ever made it for me.
Of course, the doll in the center wasn't Barbie back then. The delicate ceramic figure in the white dress with a delicate petit four backdrop makes me think this might have been seen as a bridal shower cake rather than a child's birthday cake.
I'm not sure, but for a shower maybe this cake would be served with a platter of pear halved dyed a delicate pink and stuffed with (icing? cream cheese? There's no explanation for this one, and I know the recipes for mint and currant jellies on the opposing page don't apply!) and red hots. Nestle those blushing pears into a field of frilly lettuce and the ladies will really be impressed.
Your guess is as good as mine about the dip in the middle. Mayonnaise? Custard sauce? Canned cream of mushroom soup with all the mushrooms strained out?
The most '50s of all recipes just might be from the "Combination and Casserole Dishes" chapter, though.
Noodles baked in a ring mold? Check! Cream of something-or-other (with pimiento for color)? Check! Jell-O mold in the background? Check! This is just about as '50s as it gets. I love it sooooo very much.
It might be the Golden Egg Noodle Mold from the opposing page, perhaps with the bits of vegetable left out of the noodles so they will pop in the filling.
The center filling is not the recommended creamed mushrooms, but I'm pretty sure it's the Creamed Tuna Fish or Salmon from the same page.
I love this book so much for the pictures alone! They make me want to pretend I have a whole array of molds... and that I would actually want to put in the effort to make things in them... and that the molded food wouldn't suck... and that I wouldn't immediately get sick of being the only one to eat whatever the hell I made in a mold that holds eight servings....
These recipes, just like the fifties, are at their best when they're only imagined in their idealized form from a very great distance.
Ah, the 1950s, when moms knew their place and stayed at home... making dinners that look like someone already ate them, then vomited them up in the middle of a ring mold (or on top of a loaf of something or other, or just congealed it in a mold to make it look pretty). The 1950s didn't live up to the 1950s, and the recipes prove it.
ReplyDeleteYes-- people's ideas of what it was are definitely better than what it actually was... Even though I have no firsthand experience, I'm sure this is true.
DeleteIn the context of a bridal shower, those pears start to look a bit rude, if you know what I mean. 😂
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'd eat that cherry star, especially if there were actual cherries in it.
Ha! I love readers with their minds in the gutter.
DeleteThey definitely are suggestive! I'm a bit surprised I didn't note that.
ReplyDeleteI would say that cakes are likely to be good because dessert is pretty hard to mess up... but then I'd look back at some of my other posts and know there are ways it can go very wrong.
The pear look like the female reproductive system. And the cherry is the g-spot, I guess?
ReplyDeleteI hope! Or maybe they're just starting their periods.
DeleteWow! Most of my books are not worth much, so I assumed that was the case for this one too. I don't know what I paid for it, but it must have been $5 or less. I do some real soul-searching (and online price checking) if it's $5+.
ReplyDelete