Getting ready to grill supremely

Happy almost-Memorial Day! I'm ready to kick off the unofficial beginning of summer (and prepare for Yinzerella's upcoming Wiener Wednesdays) with some hot dog recipes. 

The last time I looked at The New Hotdog Cookbook (Mettja C. Roate, copyright 1968, reprinted 1983) for Memorial Day, I focused on salads featuring hot dogs so cooks could get their gloppy, disgusting salads and cases full of discarded animal parts in the same place. This year, I'm going to be nice and focus on something people are more likely to actually want to do with their dogs. Let's look at the grilling chapter!

This section of the book mostly focuses on classing up the usual grilled dogs by flavoring them with something other than barbecue sauce. Want to go fancy and marinate in olive oil, wine, and herbs?

Then the Oregano Hot Dog Grill is perfect! You just have to plan ahead to start the marinating process at least three hours before you want to start grilling (and have a red wine you don't mind wasting on hot dogs).

If you'd like something a little sweeter (Maybe you're the sausage-n-syrup type. Shudder.), there's the Hot Dog and Spiced Crab Apple Grill.

I'm always kind of shocked that canned crab apples seem like they used to be a common enough thing, and here they're threaded on a skewer with hot dogs, then basted with honey, spices, and just a tiny amount of brandy so you're not wasting too much booze on them. There's your salty-sweet combination if you're a fan.

If you're like me and love both adverbs AND weirdo old sandwich combinations that make you wonder if people used to just slap anything on bread and declare it a sandwich, there's always Dogs Grilled Supremely.

They're easy! Cut the franks into quarters (lengthwise and widthwise), arrange beautifully on white bread, and then splop on a tomato sauce/ cheese/ onion/ oil/ olive/ seasoning mixture. This is broiled, so I'm not really sure why it's in the grilling chapter, but it's here for when you can't decide whether you want chopped-up hot dogs or a substandard pizza and decide to split the difference.

Have a not-too-substandard holiday weekend (if you are lucky enough to have one), and don't let the wieners take all the alcohol!

Potpourri with Potatoes, Mariana, and More!

 I can't say that I'm super-tempted by the title of Police Potpourri (Iowa State Policeman's Association Auxiliary, 1977). (Interesting that their association is apparently for only one policeman, by the way.)

I imagine police potpourri smells like gunpowder and bullshit... Not too enticing. But let's take a look at their recipes.

I like that many of the recipes are so straightforward. I often joke about recipes calling for "cream of something" soup since so many casseroles required cans of cream of chicken, mushroom, and/or celery soup as a flavoring/ binding agent. They usually actually call for specific varieties, but Easy Casserole just cuts to the chase. 

Yes, this recipe actually calls for a can of "cream of something soup" (though tomato soup is an acceptable alternative)! Anything will do since the soups mostly taste pretty similar and have minimal amounts of the chicken/ mushroom/ celery add-in.

The Italian Cartwheel casserole recipe is also interesting-- only in part for its sauce.

I'm not how/ sure why Minute Rice baked in "Mariana sauce" and topped with relish-and-mustard-stuffed wieners is Italian. The Mariana sauce makes me think more of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre than of Italy, and why it should be topped with an Independence Day picnic is anyone's guess.

The book also offers a variation on Tater Tot Casserole (a recipe that I am secretly obsessed with!) that I hadn't seen before.

It looks pretty standard: hamburger, onion, tots, veggies. (I'm pretty sure cream-of-something is also supposed to be involved! It's usually part of this recipe and the instructions mention adding "soup," but the ingredients don't actually include it.) The part that surprised me the most, though, was the type of veggies to add. Sure, you could add a can of peas or corn, but look at the third option.

That's right! Potatoes! This is the only version of the recipe I've ever seen that suggests topping potatoes with tater tots. Yvette Sawyer's family must really have loved their potatoes.

If topping potatoes with more potatoes isn't your thing, Gail Brown has a different potato-based recommendation.

Take those frozen fries from boring to crisp and seasoned with a soak in a little vegetable oil with Tabasco, followed by a coating in Shake 'n Bake with Parm. (I have to admit that this sounds pretty good, even if it does remind me how much I hate the "And I helped!" girl in those old commercials.)

I'll end by saying that the book did make me question what constitutes a carnival in Iowa.

With a name like Carnival Cookies, they should be loaded up with colorful sprinkles like the flashing lights on a midway, and/or maybe deep fried like at least two thirds of the food offerings, right? But according to this recipe, carnival food is just full of raisin bran and oatmeal.... Not exactly what I was expecting. I don't think Iowa carnivals are really that health-conscious.

What I like most about this book is those little touches that I was just not expecting! Thanks to my sister for sending it, and if you want to see someone actually cook a different recipe from this book, check out the post at A Book of Cookrye.

Funny Name: Loose Leaf Edition

Something about this recipe from Appetizing Slenderizing Recipes (Patrick J. Conway and Mary Ellenwood Pettinger, 1974) reminds me of Troy, the kid who in third grade would eat a wad of paper if you gave him a quarter. 

Yum! Veal Paprish! (Okay, I'm pretty sure they meant paprikash, but come on. Proofreaders existed in 1974.)

Have a Crepe-y Day!

 Need something wonderful today? How about Wonderful Ways to Prepare Crepes & Pancakes (Jo Ann Shirley, 1979)?

How wonderful are the crepes? It depends on your definition of "wonderful," I suppose. If you think of "wonderful" as being decadent, then some recipes will fit that idea. How about a luxurious four cheese crepe with sour cream?

I'm sorry. I mean a "Chinese-Beef Crepe." (I have no idea how this got labeled as "Chinese," what with the four cheeses. There's not even the whisper of soy sauce that was often enough to make old cookbooks label something as "Chinese.")

If "wonderful" in your book is a bit more health-conscious, some recipes fit that idea too-- at least, to an extent. 

I'm not sure how helpful using skim milk will be if the batter also has more than an ounce of butter in it, but at least you can enjoy the lovely design on the edge of the page. (Every page had this edging! I just didn't usually copy it.)

If you want a bit more fiber in those crepes, there's Bran Crepe Batter (which has slightly less butter than the skim milk variety).

To split the difference between healthy and decadent, here's a sweet/ savory/ pork fatty combo dropped into a veggie layer.

I'm just confused by the "mashed summer squash" component. How well would summer squash mash? It seems like a creamier winter squash like a delicata would work better for a mash, especially one flavored with maple syrup.

Of course, if you want a crepe with some of that good old inexplicable mid-century flavor, I've got that too. If the ham banana rolls with cheese sauce are just a little too much, how about some simple Ham and Banana Crepes?

The cubed ham and diced bananas will give you an ambiguous enough shape that you can maybe deny that you're eating that cooked-banana-and-ham combo, especially if it's mixed with the cheese sauce and all wrapped up in chic crepes. Why it's not something better-- like plain old ham-n-cheese or sweet and fancy bananas foster-- who knows? It's just good '70s recipe weirdness in all its glory-- especially if you swap out the basic crepe wrapper for a bran or skim milk model...

A semi-inspirational post, mostly about nonfat dry milk

 You know how you can just go to the grocery store now and find Cool Whip Lite or Egg Beaters or 27 different brands of diet buttery spread? Today, The Slim Gourmet Cookbook (Barbara Gibbons, 1976) is here to remind us that dieters haven't always had it so easy. People who wanted "diet" foods used to live in a strictly diy world.

So what was the equivalent of Cool Whip Lite?

If you guessed that it would involve nonfat dry milk, you were right on the money! There's also gelatin, of course, since no old diet recipes were complete without gelatin. (And the note has the exciting news that there's a whipped topping mix for those who are too lazy to start from scratch-- but it's still a mix-- and aerosol whips are okay too.)

Egg Beaters did exist back then, but they weren't easy to find or convenient, plus diy was cheaper, so...

Cooks had to just make their own with a dozen egg whites, the ubiquitous nonfat dry milk, some yellow food coloring, and a single yolk if they felt really daring.

What about diet buttery spreads? Well, there are two options. For the decadent cooks, it's actually REAL BUTTER.

It's just butter whipped with an equal amount of water, so it will look like you're getting twice as much butter as you actually are. (I imagine a lot of dieters ended up using twice as much butter as they normally would to make up for the diluted flavor, and figuring "Why the hell not? It's low-calorie anyway.")

For the more austere dieters, there's a version with margarine too.

Even the "Almost Butter" is still a quarter butter, though, so Gibbons was only willing to compromise so much.

Of course, cooks in the '70s needed one more thing that modern American cooks rarely think about anymore. (Hint, it was on EVERYTHING in the 1950s and though perhaps fading by the 1970s, was still pretty popular.)

White sauce was still so popular that it needed not one...

...not two...

...not three...

...but FOUR whole recipes. And they're basically all a skim milk product, a thickener, and some fake butter flavoring. Still, a cook had to have options!

So here's my big inspirational speech of the day: When life sucks, just remind yourself that you don't have to spend your days churning out disappointing replacements for butterfat like '70s cooks did.

Yeah, I'm not much one for inspirational speeches.

Quintessential Midwestern "Secrets"

 Pssst! Ready for some more secrets?

This time, they're Home Cooking Secrets of Cedar Rapids (Scarlet Angels Color Guard and Drill Team, 1972-73).

This cookbook is extremely midwestern, as one might expect from an Iowa home-cooking book. You've got your "salads" that consist mostly of sugar.

Canned pie filling AND marshmallows! Or, if you're feeling decadent, sugar plus dairy fat.

Yep! A bottle of Coke helps when the Jell-O is just insufficiently sweet, and the cream cheese makes it substantial. These recipes don't even bother advising a lettuce leaf or two to legitimize the "salad" part of the title.

You've also got your noodle-y casseroles whose only vegetables come from multiple cans of cream-of-something soup.

Oooh-- cream of celery and cream of mushroom! Two types of veggies! So healthy! (Plus a bonus can of cream of chicken to fortify the protein from the straight-up canned chicken! A casserole can never have enough cans of cream soup.)

You've got your recipes that assume you already know how to make major components of the recipe (and if you don't, tough luck!).

Pat Sebetka hopes you had the foresight to make your own favorite biscuit topping for the Church Supper Chicken Pie because she has no plans to tell you hers! Sure, you can know how to make the filling, but show some initiative and make your own damn topping. (No, now that you ask, I did not accidentally leave off a biscuit recipe appended to the end of the chicken pie recipe.)

And if you'd expect a Noodle Ring with Chicken à la King to have a recipe for, well, you know, Chicken à la King...

...you are expecting way too much. Apparently in Cedar Rapids, the cooks will give you a recipe for either the chicken part of a recipe or the starch part of a recipe. That means Helen Carnicle is only willing to tell you how to make the noodle ring and inform you that its function is to hold Chicken à la King. You better have your own recipe for that. (And you better not try to fill the noodle ring with some other bullshit! Try adding a mound of hot buttered peas to the middle and you'll never be invited to a potluck again.)

Plus, there's the midwestern insistence that this one recipe can do pretty much anything, as long as you're accustomed to foods with almost no seasoning and you think ketchup is a great stand-in for any and all tomato products.

Yes, this ground beef/ onion/ celery top/ "catsup" mixture makes mock pizza when it's slopped on a bun and topped with cheese! Add it to spaghetti with a little Parmesan and it's spaghetti sauce! Throw in a couple cans of kidney beans, and it's suddenly chili! No chili powder required.

There are a few unexpected touches, though. For the midwestern precursor to today's chicken fries, there's this:

For "LIVER - that doesn't taste like liver," just cut it into strips, dredge in seasoned flour, deep fry, salt aggressively, and don't tell the kids it's liver. 

And if all else fails, make a Beef Macaroni Bake.

Put a half-cheesed but otherwise prepared package of macaroni and cheese deLuxe dinner on the bottom of a baking dish, a filler-free meatloaf mix on top (I guess the mac underneath is the filler?), and then dot the top with the remaining cheese sauce mix and garlic croutons. With meatloaf, mac and cheese, and a salad (Croutons are enough to make it count as a salad, right?), it's got everything you'd expect in a midwestern dinner.

I loved this pure distillation of the secrets of midwest cooking! Thanks to my little sister for sending the collection my way. It makes me so happy that I don't have to try to feed a husband and six kids with a little ground beef plus "catsup," whatever cans of canned whatever that are left in the pantry, and three and a quarter pounds of sugar.

Notes from a slim gourmet

A lot of my diet cookbooks look like they've never been used before. No notes. No food stains. Just pages of untouched recipes calling for unconscionable amounts of nonfat dry milk, cottage cheese, and eggs. The Slim Gourmet Cookbook (Barbara Gibbons, 1976) was different because it was clearly used! Whoever owned this before me actually made the recipes and took notes, so let's check out a few comments.

Apparently, the previous owner was serious about cutting calories. Putting eggs in everything was a staple of those old diet regimes, but this cook didn't buy it.

Why add an egg to the Italian Spinach Meatballs when you can omit it to cut calories? The cook is technically right-- one large egg is about 78 calories. Dividing it by four (the number of servings) means saving a little under 20 calories a serving, which apparently was enough to make it worthwhile for this cook. I also like that the note claims this has a "very interesting taste." Interesting is not generally a word I use when I'm praising food-- It usually means I'm trying to say something nice when I don't actually have anything nice to say. The suggested pairing of spaghetti and "italian zuchinni" seems to suggest this was genuinely meant as a compliment, though. Why suggest accompaniments for something you're never going to eat again?

This cook really seemed to like Italian-ish dishes with zucchini, too.

I was amused by the note that "zucchini makes it seem more robust, spicy." Their spelling of "zucchini" improves when the word is written on the page, so that's good. However, I'm not sure robust is a word I'd ever think to use to describe zucchini, and spicy is definitely not (especially when the only seasonings in the dish are garlic salt, pepper, and oregano)! The underline of "optional" by Parmesan makes me think this cook cut out the cheese to save calories, just like they omitted the egg.

The cook wasn't wild about everything in the book, though.

I love that Sweet and Sour Cod is "good ≠ great but good." Not great. I don't know whether the underline for good is to emphasize that it's still a pretty solid choice despite falling short of greatness, or to emphasize that it's just mediocre at best.

That's not the only note I could read two ways. Spicy Sole has my favorite ambiguous comment.

It's "good - if you like steak sauce." I can imagine the person who wrote this being a steak sauce junky and meaning it as praise, but you know my tone would be unrepentantly sarcastic if I read it out loud.

In short, I loved that this book had some running commentary! The writer just had such an interesting take on the recipes.

In which a midwesterner guesses at Louisiana favorites

Travel and restaurants are opening up more and more as the vaccine rolls out, so I thought you might be ready for a trip to New Orleans.

It could just be so beautiful there that you'd want to spend most of the time outside anyway, or at least that's what the figures enjoying a day at the creek on the cover of Cotton Country Collection (The Junior Charity League of Monroe, Louisiana, copyright 1972, but mine is from the 1979 ninth printing) seem to suggest. Stand on the shore with an indistinct pet! Paddle through the brown waters! Hope that no one gets eaten by giant reptiles!

I saw enough recipes that seemed like they might be genuinely regional (at least to this midwestern reader with little real knowledge of southern cooking beyond what I can find on the internet or see on cooking shows) that I decided to present a menu of foods that are unlikely to show up in midwestern cookbooks. I already have 1001 things to do with cans of cream-of-something soup, so maybe it's time to look for regional flavors?

Of course, if we're in Louisiana, you'd expect something from the creek, so we'll start with some of Howard's Boiled Crawfish.

The recipe does not have the same hesitancy to season as I see in midwestern recipes. I'm not sure exactly how big the cans of red and black pepper are, but the recipe calls for using multiple whole cans, plus eight pounds of salt, half a box of bay leaves, a 4-ounce bottle of Liquid Crawfish Boil (which comes in gallon jugs, too, so I suppose this is a pretty restrained amount), and four bags of crawfish or shrimp boil. Of course, this is to season 15 gallons of water for boiling (not eating as part of the recipe), so all those flavors will definitely be diluted, but still. Midwestern recipes might have called for a tablespoon of each seasoning at most if they were going all-in on flavor. Even if they might be appalled by the enormous quantities of seasoning, though, midwesterners would be happy to know that the boiling water can be repurposed to cook and flavor a potato accompaniment.

We'll need a salad to go with the crawfish and potatoes, and I'm going with something regionally appropriate this time rather than getting an easy laugh from a little Jell-O number. 

I thought I'd never heard of mirlitons before, but when I looked them up, Wikipedia said they're more commonly known as chayote. I've at least heard of those, but never had them. In any case, the Mrs. Kenneth C. Landry doesn't know me because my favorite French dressing is none, but maybe with some whipped cream cheese and paprika to make the salad company-ready, it could be good?

Good southern meals have biscuits, and instead of a honey topping, let's go for something a little more regionally specific.

Mayhaws are harvested in (surprise!) May, and apparently they're tart enough that jellification is one of the best routes to go for their use.

Finally, on to dessert. We've all heard of sweet potato pie, so I thought I'd pick something a little bit different.

Surprise! It's Sweet Potato Surprise Cake, which seems kind of like a carrot cake-- only with sweet potatoes instead of carrots. The cream cheese icing gets replaced with an evaporated milk, egg yolk, and coconut number, so that seems like a loss to me (Team Cream Cheese forever!), but your mileage may vary.

So there you have it-- a very southern (as far as I can tell?) menu from Louisiana cooks. (And if you're disappointed about the lack of gelatinous salads, don't despair! Pride month is coming, and I found a rainbow.)

Chilly or beautiful? Chunky or ethereal? Recipes for any kind of May...

I'm so ready for a month of flowers and sunshine! I just hope that May is that month (and not, say the month of sleet and frost warnings that it so often is). Regardless of whether May will be as beautiful as I hope it will be, The Chamberlain Calendar of American Cooking (Narcisse and Narcissa Chamberlain, 1957) is ready!

Is this May going to seem like another uninspired recap of March, right down to the raw winds? Well, the Chamberlains suggest warming up with a nice pot of chili.

While I am impressed that the recipe calls for detectible levels of seasonings (up to three tablespoons of chili powder in four to six servings!), I am not sure the Chamberlains really understand the concept of Texas chili. I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought the legal penalty for adding beans to Texas chili was putting rattlesnakes in the offending cook's boots.

If May actually ends up being a nice month, then something cool and creamy might be in order.

Honestly, though, I kind of like picturing the Chocolate Icebox Mousse as an accompaniment to the chili-- rugged cowboys finishing up the last of the chili so they can carefully unmold the lady fingers variation and try to divide it up evenly so Levi and Sawyer don't get in a fight over whose piece is bigger.

Happy May everyone! Here's hoping it is a month of mostly good surprises (and that Levi and Sawyer can work that shit out without driving the rest of us crazy).