Some high notes and low comedy from the Toledo Opera

Okay-- I teased you when I introduced Culinary High Notes (Toledo Opera Guild, 1978) because the post was just a bunch of weird opera-related cartoons-- no recipes! Now let's check out some of the recipes in the book that promised to "turn your meals into dramatic performances."

When I noticed that this 1970s Toledo book had a section for celebrity recipes, I checked right away for a Jamie Farr recipe. So what recipe did the man best known for playing Klinger on M*A*S*H* want to be known for? Answer:

An eggplant appetizer. It probably sounds fine if you like eggplant and olives. I was kind of hoping for something more flamboyant-- maybe a Jell-O loaded up with hot dogs and pickles from Tony Packo's. I am actually more amused by the note that accompanies this than the recipe itself. All the unnecessary quotation marks make it look as if the writer is skeptical about the concept of talk shows and finds it unlikely that the actor was ever a boy.

The book has plenty of party recipes for the readers who liked to gather with their opera friends and show off a little. There's a requisite Party Sandwich Loaf. 

It's filled with the usual discordant layers of ingredients-- this time, layers of avocado-pineapple mash, egg salad, and tuna salad, plus a frosting of cream cheese mixed with cranberry jam. This sandwich loaf should be dramatically pink and quite memorable!

For something a bit fancier, there's a twist on beef Wellington.

I imagine Cornish hens would already have seemed kind of fancy, but stuffing them with orange-scented rice, swaddling them in canned crescent roll dough, and ultimately presenting the whole shebang on a platter with crab apples, watercress, and a currant sauce must have seemed pretty dramatic.

The recipes could be playful, too. I'm used to seeing fun salad recipes aimed at kids, perhaps shaped like a rabbit for Easter, or like bugs or mice just for fun. This book has an opera-themed Juliette Salad for grownups!

I love the thought of adults sitting down to a deviled-egg-headed, tomato-bloused, lettuce-leaf-skirted and tuna-salad-stuffed Juliette.

The recipe that might lead to the most dramatic performance of all, though, might just be the Spaghetti à l'Opéra.

You might ask what is so dramatic about spaghetti in garlic butter/oil with some mushrooms and Parmesan. It's the serving size: a full cup of olive oil plus a half-cup of melted butter in a recipe that claims to serve "one to two people." That much grease in a single meal is likely to prompt a lot of people's digestive systems to put on a pretty dramatic show.... If they're lucky, it will be a private performance.

Ha! I drew you in with the promise of high culture and ended with a poop joke. My work here is done.