The cover of Betty Crocker's Dinner Parties (7th printing, 1978) promises all kinds of plans, including those for "impromptu suppers."
While there are recipes for more complicated menus (like the homemade lasagna on the cover), the first menu in this cookbook is definitely of the "impromptu supper" type.
The Deli Dinner in Disguise is not joking about the "deli" part. This is just a deli run slightly disguised by light personalization-- the kind of instruction I don't imagine '70-s cooks as even needing. The barbecued deli chicken is just that:
A reheated barbecued chicken from the deli. The cook can brush it "with bottled Italian salad dressing or barbecue sauce" before reheating to make it slightly easier to pretend that this isn't just reheated deli chicken.
The Hot Spiced Fruit 'n Melon?
A can of "fruits for salad" (I'm assuming this is an attempt to make fruit cocktail sound fancy) combined with a jar of watermelon pickles and a little allspice. The cook does have to heat it up so it's clear they exerted some effort beyond opening the packages.
The Garden Patch Coleslaw is-- you guessed it!-- dressed-up deli coleslaw.
It's "garden patch" because it has a bag of defrosted peas dumped in (plus a little Italian dressing to keep the dressing ratio sufficient).
My favorite item in the menu is probably the Onion Rolls.
I love them primarily because the cook is supposed to cut each roll into 3 strips and then reassemble them before heating them in the oven. I have absolutely no clue why the rolls should be hacked up and reassembled. The cut surfaces are not spread with butter and seasonings, as I assumed they would be when I initially saw they were being cut into strips. It doesn't seem like cutting the rolls into thirds will help that that much in distributing the six rolls evenly among four diners. (If that were the goal, cutting them into halves or quarters would have been a better choice.) This strip-cutting is just random, pointless busywork as far as I can tell. Betty Crocker must have gotten tired of trying to think of things to do to make items from the deli seem at least kinda homemade and just said, "I don't know! Cut them into little strips?" when she got to this "recipe." She was done with this menu before she was done with this menu. It's good to know that even symbols of domesticity sometimes got sick of pretending to care.
Now I'm wondering if you can eat thawed out frozen peas without fear of some food born illness. It seems to me that I've seen frozen vegetables advise that they must be heated to a certain temperature for safety.
ReplyDeleteAs for the spicy fruit, I do have a friend who ate a can of fruit cocktail about 11 years after it expired. It was when we were in college (their mom hadn't looked at expiration dates when cleaning out the cupboard). They described it as being unusualally tangy. That might be close to spicy. Another shortcut for a cook who keeps canned goods way too long.
I'm thinking, wouldn't the peas be mushy and sad?
DeleteWhen I was really little, I refused to eat peas unless they were frozen. They never made me sick. I think a lot of foods meant to be heated just put the "heat to this temperature" warning on them as a "cover our ass" move.
DeleteThe New England Wildlife & More guy says canned fruit doesn't last well over the REALLY long term. Sometimes the cans he opens look like they're full of used motor oil. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5b_pRh0r5tI
This reminds me of my aunt who cannot bake. Every year for Thanksgiving she buys a pumpkin roll, sprinkles on powdered sugar, and says "There! Now it's homemade!"
ReplyDeleteThat works. Everyone in my family was relieved when Grandma gave up on making pie crust and bought the frozen stuff. It's an easy recipe to hand down.
DeleteMy grandma would have advised to brush just a little on your face, too, so it's clear you've been doing manual labor.
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