An exhausting 65-year-old Woman's Day

Ever wonder what the women 65 years ago were thinking about? If so, you're in luck! Today I have the April 1961 Woman's Day magazine for our perusal.

That is, if you can get past the creepy kid on the cover. Seriously, she's so translucent I worry she might be a ghost, and that old-fashioned gingham dress and white gloves and bonnet are NOT helping.

I was honestly more pulled in by the ads than the recipes in this one. One page had an actual advertisement for Catholicism! And as part of the pitch, the ad included this paragraph: "Catholic women may be tempted, at times, unlawfully to limit the number of their children to fit the family income. But the Church reminds them this is a violation of God's law. Likewise, the obligation to provide religious training for their children is not a matter of choice. It is a clear duty." So the selling point is supposed to be "This will definitely make your life even harder! Send away for a free pamphlet today, and you can be even more broke, overextended, and haunted by guilt!"? 

You're probably more interested in the food. I mean, the food stuff is ostensibly why this blog is here. Campbell's had a full page of ads with recipes to describe how to use their products in conjunction with pork chops, my favorite of which was the glazed version.

People like pork chops and applesauce, but this version just skewers an apple slice (plus an orange slice while they're at it!) on top of each chop and then douses the whole thing in cinnamon and cloves. (The soup comes in as a can of beef broth that everything has to cook in.) I can only imagine this as smelling like a potpourri packet gone horribly awry.

For those who would rather have weird meat-and-fruit combos first thing in the morning, a Swift's Premium ad offers recommendations for "Hot, Hearty, Hurry-up Breakfasts for hate-to-get-uppers," including this one for Swift's Premium Corned Beef Hash.

How will a tray full of canned corned beef hash topped with cold apricot halves affect those "hate-to-get-uppers"? My guess is that it will work as intended-- They'll try to get out of the house as quickly as possible so they're not forced to ingest this stuff. (I wouldn't be thrilled with that prospect any time of day, but just the thought of it first thing in the morning makes me a little queasy.)

The magazine itself had mostly very brief or relatively boring recipes, though I did enjoy the title for this one:

I'm not sure how socially acceptable it would be to say you wanted to eat an English thin yellow boy, but apparently it was just a name for bits of hot, seasoned hard-cooked eggs spread on toast...

And I'll close with just a few of the 101 ways to use up leftover ham:

• Serve ham slices with fruit salad. (Use fresh or canned fruit for the salad. Top with dressing made from sour cream and mayonnaise.)
• Spread ham slices with peanut butter, sprinkle with brown sugar, and broil until hot and lightly browned.
• In Stuffed Pancakes: Fill pancakes with [ground or minced] ham and pour over them hot cream-of-mushroom soup thinned with a little milk.
• Use it in Stuffed Peaches: Fill canned peach halves with ham; sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake in moderate oven about 20 minutes.

Alternatively, just sign up for the Catholic pamphlet and if you do it right, you'll never have to worry about leftovers ever again! The mass of kids will devour every foodstuff you can ever afford to buy the second it's out of the grocery bag...