| Forty years later, soup still rules. |
The scrappy UnPlaza Art Fair held a used book sale again this year, and I stumbled upon a culinary classic from the year 1970: Cooking with Soup, published by the Campbell's Soup Company.
| Plan your teen party now! |
The cover is somewhat confusing: Dad has his sleeves rolled up and two young girls are wearing summer outfits as they watch him cooking steaks -- at least three inches thick, so that you know this is the 1950s. But in the background are autumn mums and a festive display of pumpkins and gourds. At any rate, the book sold for $1 in 1956, back when a gallon of gas was 23 cents.
The book includes tips for throwing a Teen Age Party that will "keep kids in their own back yard" and instead of, presumably, off somewhere being juvenile delinquents. Among the cool refreshments: "Mugs of milk are welcome!"
For dessert? Get the teens together to make barbecued spiced bananas!
| Davidson "Thing" requires a large celery stalk |
Davidson, who turns 69 in December, is also a cook. His recipe for a pasta dish called "The Thing" appeared in a softcover cookbook, A Taste of Class, produced by Century 21 Real Estate back in the early 1980s. This cookbook, discovered in a used bookstore in Mission, also features recipes for Loni Anderson's fettucine and the late Sammy Davis, Jr.'s version of spaghetti and meatballs.
Now that Overland Park's Piccadilly Cafeteria is closed, what local restaurant still offers glistening, jiggling cubes of gelatin dessert as a light, refreshing way to end a heavy meal? Well, the Calypso Buffet at the Isle of Capri Casino keeps the tradition going, thank goodness. Other than the occasional buffet restaurant, however, it's nearly impossible to find Jell-O on a modern dessert menu.
Hey, I'm not saying I would order a Jell-O dessert even if it was on a dessert tray -- but I like knowing that some retro restaurant still serves it.
Though it's considered lowbrow by modern culinary standards, Jell-O has never lost its fan base among home cooks, who have been making the powdered product since it was introduced in 1897. It's an inexpensive dessert and can be molded, mixed with fruit, blended into a pie or a summer salad -- even cole slaw!
This snazzy soft-cover cookbook was available for just 25 cents "and any six fruit illustrations from Jell-O packages" in the early 1970s. Not all of the recipes sound so good (Avocado Pie, Ring-Around-the-Tuna), but the classic recipes are represented, including a couple of variations on the Waldorf Salad, orange-glazed duck (who knew?), and Frozen Ambrosia.
If you happen to have some leftover angel food cake around the house, here's a fun and easy way to use it up in a festive format: Pink Party Dessert!
The oldest vegetarian restaurant in Kansas City would now be 104 years old -- if it was still all-vegetarian. Operated by the Unity Temple, the Unity Inn was in occupied an old frame house at 913 Tracy in downtown Kansas City. The vegetarian dining room was so successful that by 1920, the vegetarian founders of Unity, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, had built a beautiful cafeteria at the corner of Ninth and Tracy (the building is still standing but not, alas, serving meatless fare -- or any other kind of food). That restaurant was moved out to Unity Village in Lee's Summit in 1949 and later added meat dishes.
When this spiral-bound cookbook was published in 1966, the Unity Inn still held to its meatless roots and offered only recipes for meat-free dishes, including a recipe for Unity Stew requiring one 14-ounce can of a product called Soyameat and a stuffed bell pepper recipe featuring one cup of "vegeburger."
The Unity Inn was famous for its salads; here's the recipe for its Unity Cider and Apple Salad.
Jane Kinderleher, the author of this 1971 Signet paperback, Confessions of a Sneaky Organic Cook, explains in Chapter 1 why she has to be sneaky: "Anything that smacks of 'health' is considered square, for the birds, or when they get sophisticated, 'faddist.'
Jane was definitely ahead of her time. She wouldn't cook with aluminum or Teflon ("because at high temperatures, Teflon releases a deadly gas"). She also bemoans the fact that certain healthy items are "not yet available in supermarkets." Items like raw honey, raw sugar, whole-wheat flour, soy, sesame oil, sea salt, wheat-germ oil. Yes, a lot has changed in 39 years.
Not all of Jane's recipes sound very enticing. Brain fritters, for example. And I'd be interested in what modern physicians might say to her advice about Vitamin E as a way to overcome "bedroom fatigue" for men who just aren't sexually satisfying their women. Another helpful suggestion she makes for these tired-out lovers is wheat germ oil in a glass of tomato juice spiked with a generous dash of kelp.
"With this kind of cocktail," Kinderleher advises, "you won't need candlelight and wine."
| Full of gay cooking ideas! |
One doesn't actually cook with ice, of course, but this booklet is loaded with ideas for relish trays, finger foods ("Keep 'em gay, keep 'em cool ... on ice!"), salads and beverages, including Iced Mexican Chocolate.
The recipe follows the jump.
| Swinging '60s chicks with recipes! |
"Guaranteed to do more for the bachelor girl's social life than long-lash mascara or a new discotheque dress, Saucepans & the Single Girl tells how to handle the menu and the man when a Lover with a Leica comes to dinner or A Man with a Million drops in for an evening ... Here is the ideal kitchen guide for the gal who wants to make the leap from the filing cabinet to the flambe."
The filing cabinet? Well, remember, back in the early 1960s, most bachelor girls with careers were schoolteachers, nurses or secretaries (like Helen Gurley Brown before striking it rich with her first book). It took some clever scheming to go from making coffee for the office staff -- one of the complaints about having a "career" in this book -- to finding Mr. Right. And a man's heart is through his tummy, right?
I don't know whether gourmet is the right word, since a lot of the stars provide pretty low-brow recipes. Paul Revere (of the Raiders) offers his chili dog chili recipe. Lesley Gore -- of "It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To" fame -- reveals her fave recipe for "Snick Snack Hamburgers" (tomato soup is the secret ingredient). And Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy has a yen for "Cold Soup Nimoy" made with sour cream and two cans of cream of celery soup. The Rolling Stones submitted "Hot Dogs on the Rocks," which requires only three ingredients: hot dogs, mashed potatoes and canned baked beans.
The book also features Egyptian-born Omar Sharif's fried chicken recipe (who would have guessed?), Sally Field's cheesecake, Jane Fonda's "Curried Chicken a la Kiki" and Sonny and Cher's "Perfect Pork Chops." Each member of The Monkees submitted his own recipe, including Peter Tork's "Mad Mandarin Salad" which the book describes as "a great no-cook dish that everyone flips over."
The recipe's after the jump.
Dewey's Pizza (in Ohio and St. Louis), crust is doughy and light, toppings are amazing,…
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