Yes, my longstanding affection for 4-H meant I had to pick up Ohio 4-H Blue Ribbon Cookbook. The Ohio 4-H Foundation put the book together with recipes "prepared by 4-H members who received outstanding-of-the-day recognition in the 4-H Food and Nutrition Show classes at the Ohio State Fair." There was no fair this year, so we might as well head back in time to the 1982 one!
Since 4-H is for kids and teens, I'm sure most people would expect the book to be filled with cute kid-pleasing recipes like No-Crust Pizza.
Yes, it's basically pizza burgers with faces fashioned on top with condiments.
A lot of non 4-H-members might be surprised by how much effort went into a lot of the recipes, though. This meat loaf might initially sound easy...
This was just the first step though. Meat Loaf would not be complete until it was transformed into Meat Loaf Maruel.
Resplendent in a coat of eggy potatoes with piped-on cheesy potato rose buds and cheesy greenery, this was a meat loaf to impress the judges along with the family.
Similarly, enchiladas do take some work, what with all the rolling and layering, but it still seems like a reasonable effort for a teen cook.
The recipe right before the filling shows that Rhonda Bush didn't wimp out and go for store-bought tortillas, though. She made her own. The 4-Hers in this book really believed in making things themselves.
The recipes often have a surprising level of sophistication. Fruit Layer Gateau calls for homemade cake, filling, topping, and glaze, and takes a bit of assembly.
Not to mention, I'm not sure how many parents would really trust their teen cooks making a recipe that calls for orange liqueur. (Granted, 18-year-olds could buy beer in 1982 Ohio, but still....)
It's amazing how middle-aged so many of these young cooks seem, too.
It would never occur to me to spend the better part of a day making my own Onion Celery Salt when I can buy a 5+ ounce bottle of onion salt for less than $2 and/or 4 ounces of celery salt for less than $4 at Meijer. It would also never occur to me to complain about how "the commercial salts have a high price tag!"
And not only were the kids baking their own bread (an activity I learned through 4-H too, and practiced regularly once I realized it meant I could pack my lunch without resorting to the gross, squishy, overly-sweet Home Pride bread our dad insisted on buying)....
...but they were baking a round loaf to be fashioned into that pièce de résistance that mom used to make for her bridge club before the kids were born: a Party Sandwich Loaf!
I wasn't shocked by all the effort these kids put into cooking. I remember longing for those state fair ribbons! I was just shocked by how much this cookbook felt like it was twenty years older than it really was, what with the sandwich loaf and the homemade seasoning salt to save a few cents. It seems like I barely cheated on the date at all.
Well, if you think about it, the judges were used to looking at older style recipes of their youth, so decorated meat loaves, and sandwich loaves were the norm (at least in cookbooks). That could explain why the recipes seem older than the publication date.
ReplyDeleteI also cringed a little when you mentioned home pride bread - that stuff was nasty.
The judges weren't the ones making the recipes, though, and kids aren't always that aware of their audiences. It just seemed odd that they would have gravitated to the older-style recipes. (Of course, a lot of the recipes are craft-adjacent, so that could be a draw for crafty kids.)
DeleteI don't miss Home Pride one bit! It's apparently still around somehow because I saw C looking at a loaf a couple months ago and told him he'd probably want something else. He saw the sugar content and agreed.
The cookbooks the kids had at home were older though. No trendy food blogs.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. There were not nearly as many places to get new recipes back then.
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