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.