Starting 2023 in questionably good health

Happy New Year! Of course, a new year means a new seasonal cookbook. This year, we're celebrating the 70th anniversary of the 1953 Rawleigh's Good Health Guide Almanac Cook Book.

Thank you, Rawleigh, for taunting January me with a carefree summer cover. Yes, eventually it will be eating-fresh-watermelon-in-the-sun weather, but right now I'm steeling myself for a couple months of freezing my ass off.

Anyway, you may recall that I am semi-obsessed with Rawleigh because my family got roped into this pyramid scheme. The other books just listed products and recipes, though, while this one actually lists specific recipes for specific months, so we'll spend this year looking at the recipes for the month. What does January look like?

You'll see that this has a week's worth of dinner menus , a few recipes for the starred items on the menus, and a bonus horoscope.

Like many community cookbooks, this has a skewed entrée to dessert ratio. I guess back then, it was assumed that everybody knew how to make things like veal birds, scalloped onions, twenty-four hour salad, and Swiss steak with no instruction. Everybody just wanted the dessert recipes! It's also funny that the desserts listed here don't really seem to match up with January at all. Rosy Apple Dumplings seems more like a fall dessert, and Festive Cranberry Pudding with Butter Sauce sounds more like a Thanksgiving or Christmas offering, not something for mid-January. At least these desserts are supposed to be served warm, though, as the Chocolate Refrigerator Chiffon Dessert seems the most out of place. I always thought of chiffon pies as being more summer-appropriate, since they're served nice and cold. Chocolate chiffon pie would still taste fine, but it wouldn't hit the same in January as it does in July. (I'm also not sure how the heavy fixation on desserts relates to the good health of the title, but I guess people back then thought growing children and hard-working husbands needed all that sugar for energy.)

The Ham Casserole looks pretty unremarkable: mostly ham and spaghetti in an under-seasoned tomato sauce (Salt, pepper, and paprika!) under a layer of cheese. I'm more curious about Monday's dinner, though, as it doesn't seem to feature a protein of any kind. I wonder if somebody forgot to finish editing this very sweet, fruit-heavy menu of pineapple juice, candied sweet potatoes, buttered asparagus, cornbread, mixed fruit salad, and Festive Cranberry Pudding with Butter Sauce.

I'm not sure what to think of the person at the bottom of the page gazing into the crystal ball that seems to be emitting a heavy fog of green gas. It must make the seer very agreeable, as they have nothing but good things to say about Capricorns. Those sea goats better be as patient with children and as great at story telling as the horoscope suggests, as they're bound to spend January holed up with the little rug rats.

And finally, across from the menu and recipe page, each month features a page of Rawleigh products that the family may find useful that month. January is unsurprisingly dedicated to Rawleigh medications.

What a beautiful collage of people coughing and sneezing! I can almost feel their germs reaching out from 70 years ago. My favorite recommendation is that for a sore throat, "you can swallow a little Medicated Ointment." There is no better way to begin a new year than to eat a little ball of something that-- in case you're not familiar with it-- seems like the love child of Crisco and Vicks Vaporub. I'm not even sure this would have been safe, but apparently Rawleigh wasn't overly concerned about poisoning its customers. It's a shitty month anyway, so if you might get poisoned, I guess January would be the best time to do it.

I wonder how Rawleigh will make February interesting....