Yeah-- you know it's not going to be a good secret if it's coming from me. I don't have news about a new horror movie Rob Zombie is working on or leaked proof that PB Max is just about to be re-released to make up for the lack of trick-or-treating this year. Nope. I've got Secrets of Salt-Free Cooking (Jeanne Jones, 1979). It has plenty of the super-bland, super-boring recipes that are the hallmarks of this genre.
Yeah-- guests are sure to be excited when the hors d'oeuvre is cooked and chilled string beans. (At least this calls for fresh green beans rather than draining a can and dumping it right onto the crudité platter.)
The book also offers recipes that are such sad substitutes for popular items that you're probably better off just making something else rather than trying to reproduce the thing you actually want.
I'm not one of those die-hard bacon lovers, and I've enjoyed plenty of avocado-and-veggie-"bacon" sandwiches, but subbing bacon with unsalted mayo lightly seasoned with Bakon (smoke-flavored yeast, which I didn't even realize was a thing, but it's still around!) is a step too far. Just skip the BLT altogether rather than pretending this sad little pile of ingredients is a functional stand-in.
The best part of the book, though, was the recipes that seemingly come out of nowhere. Some of these recipes really just made me wonder what thought process could possibly have led to the recipe. Occasionally, Jones seems to realize this and provides an answer.
Why the hell would anyone want Low-Sodium Jelled Milk? The end note claims that mixing jelled milk "with an equal amount of low-sodium low-fat milk" will make it seem richer, so I guess this is an attempt to make low-fat milk seem more like whole milk. (And if you're wondering about the low-sodium part, a cup of milk has about 5% of a day's worth of sodium, so Jones recommends mail ordering canned low-sodium milk! That seems like a lot of work to eliminate a pretty minor source of sodium...)
The jelled milk is followed by an even weirder cereal topper.
Again, there's a brief justification for Egg-and-Milk Cereal Topping-- it will make the cereal higher in protein! (And covered in egg slime possibly laced with salmonella...)
Sometimes, though, the reason for the recipe is a complete mystery.
Why add a cup of chopped lettuce to a quick bread batter? It's not subbing for higher-calorie ingredients. I can't imagine it will add much in the way of taste or texture. It's just there, for no apparent reason, and Jones has no plans to explain it.
A few recipes seem to exist just because Jones apparently had odd and very specific tastes, and imagined that someone else must share them. Have you ever wished you could eat parsley like it was cotton candy?
Well, the author is convinced that somebody else wants this besides her, and maybe she's right. If there's a big enough market for mayo-and-marshmallow "salads" to show up in nearly every regional cookbook, maybe there was a bigger market for parsley "cotton candy" than I imagine. The world is a big, weird place. (I just wish it had been big enough to sustain PB Max!)
Hmm, instead of making kale chips you make parsley chips, and instead of covering the leaves with oil and salt you use sugar water. I was quite baffled by the concept of low sodium milk. I know that they just wait for the cream to rise, and skim that off to make low fat milk, but how do you take the sodium out? So many questions (including why would you put lettuce in bread).
ReplyDeleteI agree, I liked PB Max, too. Then again, we always did have weird taste compared to everyone else, but WHY would anyone object to a candy that put chocolate and peanut butter together?
The peanut butter was more peanut buttery and less sugary, if I remember right, and the cookie was nice and crunchy. I love Reese's, but there should be a place for PB Max too!
DeleteI remember it the same. I actually liked the more peanut buttery filling better than Reese's.
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