Maybe the tiny size is because the title Wick and Lick (Ruth Chier Rosen, 1954) couldn't bear too much scrutiny? Were the people of 1950s America really so pure of mind that they could only think of Sterno wicks and finger-licking good sauces? Or maybe the 1950s people who thought of something else knew better than to share their ideas with the purity brigade? In any case, the cover of Wick and Lick tries to keep things classy with its fancy chafing dish and candelabra.
A lot of the recipes seem pretty straightforward, like orange French toast...
...or creamed mushrooms.
If you read the last line of the creamed mushrooms recipe, though, you know what the kicker is.
Yep. The creamed mushrooms are supposed to be the topper for the orange French toast. I guess I can understand the fear of making French toast overly sweet, but I can't say I've ever had anything orange-flavored and thought, "You know what this needs? Mushrooms and anchovy paste!"
The book's real specialty is trying to make things fancy by setting them aflame. Of course, that's long been a staple of sweets like Bananas Foster or Cherries Jubilee, so this brunch dish is not as big a shock as it might be.
I have to say, though, that if I'm going to go to the trouble of covering towers of pancakes in meringue, broiling them, and then igniting them with brandy, I'd probably make the pancakes from scratch instead of a mix.
Sometimes the flames are meant to elevate a more pedestrian food. If your family is tired of liver and onions, maybe a fire will make the meal seem more exciting.
Especially if you class it up with scallions in place of onions.
While there were not a lot of really head-scratching recipes in this tiny book, the ingredients in Career Eggs are almost as puzzling as the recipe name.
What makes scallions, hard cooked eggs, canned lima beans, cream of celery soup, and light cream glopped together in a chafing dish and garnished with "popcorn croutons" into Career Eggs? A Google search yielded nothing except hints for getting into egg-based careers or alarmist articles about "career women" freezing their eggs so they can put motherhood off until later, so your guess is as good as mine. (Mine is that the resulting glop was so weird that women would make it in the hope that their families would be convinced that maybe it was time to let mom try to get a job, as she was clearly going crazy when she had to stay home all day. In her case, the chafing dish was a cry for help-- home is chafing!)
I'm imagining the burn consult call now, they lit a stack of pancakes on fire and sustained burns to their hands, forearms, and face. I never understood the idea of intentionally lighting your food on fire - whether it's flaming alcohol, or flaming marshmallows in a camp fire.
ReplyDeleteWell, most people aren't quite as clumsy as we are, and some people really like to put on a show if they have guests. I can see how flaming food became popular, but it's not something I would ever try unless I had a well-insured place that I didn't care about and actual medical coverage.
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