Going places with Kraft

Of course, I knew that Kraft's Main Dish Cook Book (1970) would feature a lot of salad dressing, cheese, and/or macaroni. It is here to sell Kraft products, after all. 

I just wasn't anticipating that Kraft would act like the recipes created some kind of time portal or mini-vacation.

You know, like back to the old West, when colonizers staked their claims on freshly-uninhabited land.

I'm sure the homesteaders had plenty of Velveeta cheese spread to go around! 

If we want to be more glamorous, Kraft suggests we could just retire to our estate to dine with the country set after a day of riding to hounds.

You know how those fancy people love sitting down to a nice plate of macaroni and cheese topped with boiled frankfurters after a long day of hunting. It's even classier if the treat is assembled to roughly resemble a campfire before it gets devoured.

Or maybe Kraft could take diners on a nice tropical vacation.

One that involved hamburger buns full of ham, pineapple, green pepper, and sweet 'n sour sauce/ dressing.

Or maybe some weird shortcakes if you're not too hung up on the idea that shortcakes should be dessert-y.

Nobody will be the least bit disappointed when you say you're serving shortcake at dinner and it ends up being hot tuna salad full of pineapple tidbits on top of a biscuit.

Maybe it's best to forget about Hawaii and try a nice Hacienda Dinner.

I'm not sure what makes mac and cheese with added sausage, veggies, and barbecue sauce "hacienda" exactly. Maybe the veggies? Tomato with green peppers and onions usually makes dishes Italian in old cookbooks, but you need a little oregano for that to work. It must be that these veggies are coupled with barbecue sauce.

At least I can guess that the Mariachi Supper of mac and cheese with added vegetables and sausage was so named because it started with a package of "Mexican Style Macaroni Dinner."

Apparently, that used to be a thing. (I kind of doubt the wickedness of the advertised "wicked little touch of chili," but I am a skeptic.) 

There's even a picture of this one!

Something about the color balance makes me see the sausages as pickles, which does not help....

Maybe we should just go for a nice trip to England instead. People make fun of their cuisine anyway, so how much could Kraft mess it up?

Granted, it's not usually too risky to count on Americans to be a bit unclear on the details of other cultures, but I'm pretty sure most of us realize that "Fish 'n Chips" does not refer to corn chips! (Especially not to fish under a layer of green-beany cheese sauce topped with corn chips!)

You know what? Let's just go for a good old American-style pizza. 

You know, the kind topped with frankfurters, dill pickles, fried onion rings, and pasteurized process cheese spread. Pizza! 

I can't help but wonder whether the recipes inspired some stay-cations when families wondered why they should travel if the food everywhere is just this bad. (Why pay more to get questionably gussied-up mac and cheese in an exotic location?) Or maybe they inspired more actual vacations when families felt like the cook was losing her grip on reality and needed to find out food elsewhere didn't just consist of questionably gussied-up mac and cheese. (More likely, the booklet inspired the cook to file it away in the less-used corner of the bookshelf and forget about it entirely.... It was better to just go back to adding a can of tuna and some frozen peas to the mac and cheese and calling it good.)