Rawleigh Thinks Spring!

Happy almost May! (Well, mine won't technically be happy until I get all the goddamn grading done, so give me a couple more weeks. Of course, by then I'll surely find something new to complain about. But at least it will be May!) A new month means it's time for some more recipes, horoscopes, and product promotions from Rawleigh's Good Health Guide Almanac Cook Book (1953). Are the recipes as unsuitable for the time of year as they have tended to be so far? Let's check.

Surprisingly enough, the menus seem mostly spring-appropriate! The desserts rely on rhubarb (one of the few spring plants that can be made desserty) or whatever dried apricots and prunes survived the winter and need to be used up before the fresh berries are ready to make life 167% more fun. There's a beef tongue to boil for three hours on one of the chillier days, or Tomato Aspic in Pepper Rings to keep everybody cool on a warmer day (and to meet the mid-century gelatin-consumption requirements!). Plus, the Peanut Butter Macaroons that I was ready to rail against for ruining perfectly luscious peanut butter with the pencil shavings soaked in sunblock (known to most as "coconut") seem to sub in rice cereal for a clean and crave-worthy crunch! Things mostly seem spring-ish and occasionally even sound good.

As for the horoscope, I don't imagine anyone (even Taureans) in the 1950s as being able to do things their own way and let others do the same. I imagine people living in the suburbs as doing nothing except speculating that Brenda and Cheryl were a little more than roommates, if you catch my drift, and that was definitely not okay for ... reasons. And then the bored suburbanites would move on to counting the number of months between Kathy's wedding and the birth of her first baby, and then they'd notice that Nancy and William had started going to the other church-- the one on the other side of town-- and there had to be some kind of reason for that....

At least I'm pretty sure the point about being "fond of the comforts of life" was accurate for Taureans... and pretty much everybody else. It's not like we'd call them comforts if we didn't like them.

The Rawleigh advertising supplement across the page from the May menu does make perfect sense for the month: gardening supplies.

I'm not sure why this says the products are for gardeners and their wives, as if women for some reason couldn't be considered real gardeners. I mean, the '50s were pretty buttoned up, but come on! I thought most people back then were perfectly able to accept the idea of lady gardeners, especially ones who wanted "pretty flowers, good-looking trees and shrubbery." Okay, well, maybe interest in shrubbery was historically male, but still... In any case, Rawleigh wanted everyone to "Give Plant Food a trial" in May, and if it worked out well, it might give peas a chance (to grow big and tasty). We'll have to check in next month to see if they're doing anything good with the fresh produce, or if it the June menus will be for roast turkey, winter squash, and mince pie.

Calumet Experiments with Tiny Variations on Baking Powder Biscuits

Today we have The Calumet Baking Book (new edition, 1931). I'll admit that it's kind of boring, as it mostly has pretty standard recipes for baked goods that mostly sound just fine. I couldn't resist though because it was $1, and I loved the very soothing and old-timey illustrations of cakes, muffins, cookies, etc.

There's just something about slightly misshapen cookies and cinnamon rolls or cakes that appear to be just a big old pile-o'-frosting that I find so charming. I love that food in old cookbooks tends to look like, well, actual food, and not like something only semi-edible that has been styled with tweezers and glue for a couple hours in a studio with a few hundred styles of tableware to choose from.

The recipes, though... Pretty boring, like I said. There's a whole chapter on baking powder biscuits that seemed emblematic of the book. The biscuits are mostly incremental changes of the base recipe-- things that would barely even count as a variation in another book. 

Want to know how to turn these basic Baking Powder Biscuits into Afternoon Tea Biscuits?

If you thought it would be something exciting like adding a bit of sugar-- nope! Add slightly more butter (or other shortening). Plus cut them with the half-size biscuit cutter.

I thought that the Emergency Biscuit Recipe at least might be interesting, as emergency recipes tend to be the version cooks could make if they were completely out of (or at least desperately low on) some necessary ingredient. Maybe this one would tell how to substitute cake flour for all-purpose or make do without milk?

Nope. The recipe should have been called "Biscuits for When You Have Slightly Less Butter Than Is Ideal," as they use slightly less butter and slightly more milk than the original recipe to make drop biscuits instead of cutouts. Big whoop.

At least I got a free hand-written recipe card for BEEF LOAF in the booklet!

This seems to be written by someone who did not need a bunch of nearly identical recipes for baking powder biscuits, as she was not too precious about measurement, allowing for 2 to 2-1/2 cups of cornflakes, specifying that the heat should be reduced "some" after the first half hour of cooking, and noting that the cook might want to "Add a little water if necessary before carving meat." No word on how the cook would know if it was necessary. If you know, you know. If you don't know, then you're the type of person who needs to be told to use slightly more milk if you have slightly too little butter for the biscuit dough.

Funny Name: Trouble Shooter Edition

Happy Earth Day! I got you cake from St. John's Joys (St. John's Episcopal Church, Gig Harbor, Washington, ca. late '70s/ early '80s)-- and not just any cake, but one with a name that's just a string of words that makes me wonder what I'm missing, but it does have "Earth" in it.

Yes, good old Trouble Shooter Earth Cake. How is it a trouble shooter? Trouble shooting for what? How is earth involved? Aren't all cakes earth cakes? I mean, if someone is making a cake elsewhere in the universe, I don't know about it, so any cake I'm aware of has to be an earth cake. I have no idea what this title is supposed to mean (except maybe gesture toward health food from an earth mother, with its oats, raisins, nuts and seeds). At least I know that Carol Sloan thinks it's "SUPER GOOD."

The quirks of Lancaster recipes (No, not THAT Lancaster)

I love organizations that use original titles like Our Favorite Recipes for their fundraising books because it's nearly impossible for me to remember whether I already have this one. I took a chance on this version of Our Favorite Recipes from Les De'Voueees' Ohio Child Conservation League of Lancaster, Ohio (undated, but a few recipes include pistachio pudding mix, so I'm going to say mid-'70s). I figured I'd have remembered a name with so many vowels and weird apostrophes as De'Voueees.'

I would only have been out $3 if I had been wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is my only version of this particular Our Favorite Recipes. The recipes in this often seem like I probably already have them too, but then I notice some small twist that makes the recipe Lancaster's own.

For instance, I see a lot of cake recipes that begin with a box mix for cake and another for pudding. The dry mixes are usually combined as is, but in Lancaster, cooks actually make the pudding first!

Then the cake mix goes into the hot pudding, along with some chocolate chips and chopped nuts for good measure. I have to admit that it sounds pretty good.

I see a lot of recipes for pizza burgers and English muffin pizzas, but in Lancaster, they call English muffin pizzas pizza burgers.

The "burgers" also start with ground baloney and pepperoni. I think this may be the only recipe I've encountered that calls for ground pepperoni. (Plus, "chilli powder" is added to the pizza sauce!)

I see a lot of recipes for stuffed cabbage rolls. Most of them get stuffed with ground meat and cooked in a tomato-based sauce. In Lancaster, though, the tomato-based sauce starts out with chili sauce...

... and then gets mixed with grape jelly. Cabbage rolls here are treated like cocktail weenies! (And I am not nearly so enthusiastic about this recipe as I was for the Triple Fudge Cake.)

I also enjoyed the Lancaster method of spelling. They don't make Veal Parmesan like everyone else.

They make "Veal Parmegian." And just as I was reasoning that it was harder to look up words you didn't know how to spell back in the 1970s than it is today, I noticed that the ingredient of parmesan cheese is spelled correctly! Now I'm wondering if Barbara Olds knew one of the spellings was right and wasn't sure which, so she covered her bases by spelling it both ways, or whether she didn't realize that the title of the recipe had anything to do with the ingredients. Maybe she thought "parmegian" was some cooking style or technique, and that the cheese in the recipe had nothing to do with the title?

I'm afraid I'll never know, but I am glad I picked up this puzzling little glimpse into Lancaster. It was worth the $3.

Funny name: More Mockery from Snobs Edition

The Bach fans in Cleveland liked to mock lovers of cream cheese, but the Women's Auxiliary of the Fayerweather Yacht Club, Inc. (Fayerweather Auxiliary Cookbook, 1977-78) think snack mix is sillier.

They feed their idiots Chinese noodles and Spanish peanuts. At least everyone is willing to keep their idiots fed!

A peak-'50s potluck

Potluck Cookery (Beverly Pepper, 1955) promises "delightful ways to make a royal meal from leftovers or whatever you have on hand." 

As always, the "delightful" is a bit suspect. Tastes always vary anyway, but if people in the 1950s thought it was great... well... that's not usually a selling point today. The book is seriously committed to the "leftovers or whatever you have on hand" part of the premise, though. The chapters are built around various types of leftovers, and the final chapter tells what to make if you're out of pretty much everything except a few pantry staples. (Make bread-crumb-based dumplings in bouillon or gratinée that leftover bread!) I could see this book being a great help to families on limited budgets and/or with one car and no nearby grocery.

The recipe writing reflects this "use what you've got" attitude too. 

Besides specifying only the minimum amount of leftovers you need to make this recipe work (at least a cup of leftover cooked ground beef), Pepper emphasizes that the soup can incorporate "Cream of chicken soup, bouillon, or what-have-you (at least two cups)." I love that flexibility and the feeling that it's almost a friend cheering you on to use what you've got and reassuring that it will be fine.

Some recipes sound like they'll be familiar, but they're a bit of a surprise. For instance, when I hear "Sweet Potato Pie," I think of dessert.

Not here! It's more of a savory side dish. And it's more of a casserole than a pie. But "Sweet Potato, Onion, and Milk-Toast Casserole" just doesn't have the same ring.

If you want a real pie, though, well... Here's a good old double-up-on-carbs pie.

Yep-- Maria's Spaghetti Pie basically turns leftover spaghetti and meatballs into a spaghetti pot pie! Doesn't sound bad, exactly, but I think I'd feel weird about eating a pie crust full of noodles. (And making the variation by throwing in some sure-to-be-overcooked peas wouldn't help.)

The recipes can definitely suffer from '50s ideas about seasoning, too.

Can you really call it Kofta Curry if the full range of spices is a pinch each of chili powder and ginger, plus a pinch of turmeric if you're really feeling crazy? 

But my favorite representative of 1950s cooking just might be Jellied Ham Salad.

Not only does the ring mold feature ham, hard-cooked eggs, and asparagus floating in a cloud of mayonnaise-flavored gelatin, but the center of the ring gets filled with sliced avocado and American cheese! Yes. Let that sink in. Not only does the book manage to hit peak-1950s recipe construction, but it builds everything on a foundation of leftovers. No wonder I'm in love with this little book. (But not in love enough to make any of this stuff...!)

Funny Name: Verbing It Up

I just need a moment to appreciate the simple joys in life today, like verbing nouns.

Thanks to All New Sophie Leavitt's Penny Pincher's Cookbook (1978)  for gingering and oranging her butternut for my pleasure. (Oh, yeah!)

Coping with April by way of Rawleigh

It's April! And to try to take my mind off how all those April showers might flood my goddamn basement once again, I'll check out this month's installment of Rawleigh's Good Health Guide Almanac Cook Book (1953).

April offers both a seasonally appropriate Rhubarb Cream Pie and a Peppermint Stick Refrigerator Cake-- an angel food cake covered in an odd peppermint candy/ marshmallow/ Maraschino cherry whipped cream mixture that seems better suited for Christmas in Australia (both because Christmas is hot there-- hence greater enjoyment of a refrigerator cake-- and because it's thousands of miles from me, so I won't be expected to partake of the clashing and overly sweet flavors). 

There's also a round steak stuffed with a Thanksgiving-esque bread stuffing, some green rice to match the greens just returning to the yard, and some Creole Green Beans that seem to suggest that "Creole" is code for "coated in chili sauce."

The horoscope for Aries suggests that those born in the sign "have leadership, ambition, courage, and enthusiasm" and are "very aggressive." It also suggests that "Women of this sign are very romantic," which I would imagine to someone in the 1950s would seem entirely contrary to the first half of the description. I wonder if this was Rawleigh's way of suggesting that Aries women deserved to be romantically frustrated? Americans do love a nice round of victim blaming, so I'm going with that interpretation....

As for Rawleigh's attempt to sell more of their non-food products, April is apparently the month of the upset stomach.

I love the way the guy about to bite into a sandwich is staring at the viewer, eyebrows arched, lips pulled back. It looks like he's ready to try to eat a shoe insole on a dare and is hoping that at the last second we'll tell him we were just joking and he doesn't have to do it. He obviously doesn't know us to well. 

It also warms my heart to know that "Uncle Henry has the fun of smoking again-- all because Anti-Acid Tablets relieved the heartburn..." Rawleigh loved helping people achieve lung cancer just that much sooner! 

Anyway, happy April! Thank you for following along as your most unpleasant "friend" vented their frustration at this very rainy month by imagining peppermint-cherry cakes melting in Australia and a guy eating a sandwich made of shoe parts. We've all got our own coping strategies.

Wondering what foolery is afoot

Now that it's April, it's time for another look at the 1953 Rawleigh's Good Health Guide Almanac Cook Book. To combat spring congestion brought on by allergies, Rawleigh suggests a nice, big sandwich filled with medicated ointment....

Just kidding! It's April Fools' Day, so you're getting a food prank(?) today. Rawleigh can wait until Wednesday. In the meantime, may I offer you a treat from St. Ludmila's Parish (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1975)?

Does anybody have any idea of what makes these April Fool Sandwiches? They look like they're just tuna salad warmed up on a bun half-- not the most common recipe, but one I've seen plenty of times in regional cookbooks. Does the catsup make these tricky? Is it that they're open-faced instead fully enclosed by a bun? Is the trick the fact that nobody is that excited about tuna salad, much less hot tuna salad?

I think maybe the trick is just telling people these are April Fool Sandwiches and then leaving them to worry about whether the the tuna salad is stacked on vanilla cupcake halves instead of buns, or whether the cook thinks raisins are a reasonable tuna salad ingredient, or whether the tuna has been stretched with pink fiberglass insulation...

If you've got any theories on what makes these April Fool Sandwiches, feel free to share it.