Try not to feel too salty (or sad) about this post

I didn't scan the cover of today's book, The Fat and Sodium Control Cookbook (Alana Smith Payne and Dorothy Callahan, 3rd edition/ Sunkist Growers Special Edition, 1965), because it's just plain orange. A Google search suggests the book once had a dust jacket, but mine is long gone, so just imagine an orange rectangle and you'll have a pretty good idea of what my copy looks like.

I don't want to make you feel too bad with today's post, so if the recipes start to get you down, just remember that the audience probably mainly consisted of old white people who raised their blood pressure by getting upset about the civil rights movement. If anybody deserved these very sad recipes, it was them.

What do I mean by "very sad recipes"? For one, the book includes not only a chapter on soups (which, unless they're dessert soups, usually rely heavily on salt to have any flavor), but also recipes for soups that need to be rich, too.

I can only imagine how flavorless a big bowl of slightly thickened nonfat (and possibly low-sodium) milk would be, regardless of the hints of white pepper, onion powder, Riesling, and paprika. Will the addition of vegetables that are so overcooked they are easy to mash be able to save this mess? You know my answer just by the wording of the question.

The book offers some gelatin salads, but they can't use flavored gelatins since the flavored ones have too much sodium. 

That's okay, though, as I'm not sure what flavor of gelatin goes with grapefruit, sherry, avocado, and green pepper. Plain might be the safest choice in this context....

The book offers a lot of sweet main dishes, as adding sugar is an easy way to add flavor without adding fat or sodium. The Pineapple-Veal Patties are a good example.

Maybe I'm overly cynical since I hate sweets combined with meaty/ savory flavors anyway, but I wonder how long it would take for anyone to get tired of leftover meats served on pineapple and coated in a brown sugar and pineapple juice syrup.

As a side note, I love that so many recipes end with a note to "Add salt for regulars." "Regulars" in this case appears to refer to family members who don't need to restrict their sodium, back in the days before writers thought so much about trying to use inclusive language.

The book attempts to offer some international foods, which goes about as well as you can imagine, considering the authors have to contend not only with the restricted tastes of 1960s middle America and the limited offerings of grocery stores but also the dietary restrictions. For instance, the American Chop Suey is even sadder than the usual "mix a few cans of La Choy together" variety.

It's nice that this version uses fresh bean sprouts, but the "glaze" that consists primarily of water and lemon juice with a hint of sugar can't possibly add much flavor-- and certainly nothing that would overtly remind diners of Chinese food. The headnote's claims that chop suey "is unknown in the Chinese tradition, and is considered the corruption of culinary tradition" may be a bit overstated, but I'm sure no one other than the authors of the book would want to claim this particular variation.

The weirdest variation of a common American dish might just be the Tamale Pie.

Instead of using the usual cornmeal mush topping, this layers "brown granular wheat cereal" cooked in low-sodium skim milk on the bottom and top of the filling. The filling itself is seasoned not with the expected chili powder, but with curry powder. Calling this "Tamale Pie" just makes me want to ask whether words actually have meanings anymore.

Oh, well. The addition of curry powder probably makes this a "foreign" food that half the original audience of this cookbook may have refused to taste on principle alone. Remember, we can't feel too sorry for whoever had to eat this stuff.... No sense ruining our days. 

But then again, if you read this blog, you may have a masochistic streak. In that case, imagine your dear friends and relatives being stuck trying to eat this stuff for the rest of their days, and it will hurt way more. You're welcome.