Sometimes News Can Be Good

[perzephone]

I like okapis. They're making a comeback.

I'm sitting here reading AIM news, & they have this nifty feature about old cookbooks & the horrible, horrible recipes that lurk inside them.

Liver Mousse in Port Aspic is particularly gruesome, but AIM's blurb is priceless:

Liver Mousse in Port Aspic
From Time to Entertain (1954)

Recipe highlight: "Skin the liverwurst and beat it with the butter...fold in the whipped cream." Do not pass Go. It is not "Time to Entertain." It's time to sit very solemnly and contemplate what's gone so wrong in your life that you've decided that feeding your loved ones liver and jelly in whipped cream is an okay thing to do.

I pretty much have to agree. I'm not a huge fan of Jell-O or gelatin desserts, but meat-flavored gelatin is even nastier. I will never eat a canned ham because of the jelly factor.

Their comment for the Gold Medal Flour Cook Book from 1917:

"We get that wartime cuisine is all about maximizing the use of inexpensive foods, but after reading this, we can happily go the rest of our lives without seeing another recipe that includes the phrase, "Boil head."

I fucking died.

Comments

[greenforest-elf.livejournal.com]

I love old cookbooks, I often wonder - WHAT were they thinking!!!!

I inherited some of my grandmother, they have been interesting to go thru - especially reading the notes she left in them!

Margin Notes

[perzephone.livejournal.com]

Those are the best kinds of cookbooks to have :) I hunt yard sales & used book stores for them. I actually got a copy of Virginia Woolf's cookbook that has a recipe for hash brownies in it. It rocks! (The book, not the brownie recipe...)

Re: Margin Notes

[greenforest-elf.livejournal.com]

What a great book to score!!

I kind of hope cooking some of the dishes will help keep her spirit alive, my grandmother use to rate the recipes so I know what she liked hehe

One weird one was from a canned bean company in India - weird!!

My nan also wrote notes n things she would substitute as well.

aww now Im hungry :(

Re: Margin Notes

[perzephone.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool - a rating system. If I had someone to pass my recipes on to I think I'd implement that :)

So which one is your favorite?