When I wrote about Campbell's Great Restaurants Cookbook, U.S.A. (ed. Doris Townsend, 1969), I focused on recipes for hot foods. Lest you worry that the cookbook neglected my beloved genre of scary gelatins, rest easy. They were not just present, but photographed in vivid color, like this Shrimp in Tomato Aspic from the (now closed) Biggs Restaurant.
Looking at this big orangey blob with its frill of shrimp and thinly-sliced cucumbers, I can't decide whether it seems more like a really weird ruffled skirt or a really weird frilly lampshade. It's a nice change from the usual seafood mold shape: a fish with olives for eyes. And what do you suppose is in this concoction?
Why, two cans of condensed tomato soup, of course (what with this being a Campbell's cookbook and all), plus shrimp, sherry, the requisite gelatin, and assorted roughage.
If you're not in the mood for seafood, but want your mold to at least pretend to have some connection to water, the Ham Buffet Mold from The Pirate's House might work.
I'll bet you can never guess what's in this vaguely pyramidal orange lump, pictured here gazing wistfully at what I assume is the Savannah River. (Maybe this mold is sad its protein is terrestrial rather than aquatic?)
Okay, maybe the condensed tomato soup, gelatin, and ham are not really much of a surprise... But there's also cream cheese, lemon juice, grated onion, mayonnaise, and mustard! And you can add garnishes of those old classics: hard-cooked egg slices, olives, and/or radish roses! Fun. (I know it's mean, but I just want to push the thing into the river and see if it will attract some fish.)
In any case, now you know-- you can be just as damn fancy with cold condensed soup as you can be with hot condensed soup! I'm sure this knowledge will come in handy...
Serving canned tomato soup cold reminds me of that marketing campaign for serving Dr pepper hot.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten about being served canned spinach at school until you mentioned it a few weeks ago. Possibly because most of us did our best to avoid getting it slopped on our tray because we certainly weren't going to eat it and we didn't want to smell it or look at it either. I remember tomato soup as being another unpopular school lunch item. A few more kids ate it but not many. Now schools finally gave up and have vendors serving food that's shelf stable for longer than those kids have been alive. Green marshmallows count as vegetables, right?
Some schools are better than others. C was incredulous when I mentioned the schools served almost no vegetables other than canned, with spinach and stewed tomatoes being especially unpopular. Apparently, his thought more about what vegetables kids would actually be willing to eat. If they had spinach, it was fresh. (I was complaining about the agony of pizza days when I wasn't allowed to get school lunch because mom knew there were two sides I wouldn't eat, like canned spinach and canned apricots.)
DeleteNow that you mention it, I don't remember seeing anything fresh on our trays in school. I agree on the agony of missing pizza day. I have no clue how I would have approached that if I were the parent.
DeleteI know that it's horrifying to hear parents talk about the food their kids get in school now. I haven't heard much about the lunches, but school breakfast is pure sugar. No wonder so many kids are on medication for ADHD. They get French toast sticks with syrup and juice. Maybe even a bowl of sugary cereal on the side.