It would seem that Zero Mostel was a sucker for foot jelly -- a veritable fiddler on the hoof. And it must be said that there's a tremendous visceral appeal in having a trotter all a-bubble on the stovetop for the better part of a day. For goodness sakes, many a savory pie or festive aspic demands it, and heaven forfend that boeuf go sans gelée.
It's the "pleasant gas" part of this recipe that perplexes. Sure, Sammy Davis Jr. was all peppy for petrol in this early '60s Shell Oil ad, but it's not especially likely that the Candy Man was tapping out "What a Gas!" in celebration of cholodetz. Seeing as I had a Styrofoam tray full of cow feet in the freezer on this past, rain-drenched Saturday, it seemed written in the stars -- or by the stars assembled by Ms. Dinah Shore in her 1966 "The Celebrity Cookbook" -- that I find out for myself.
Read on for highlights from 'The Celebrity Cookbook' and see how the Calf's Foot Jelly recipe turned out after the jump.
Scanned from Cooking and Traveling the Cape Cod Way (1953)
Forefather's Day isn't celebrated until tomorrow, but I'm posting this in anticipation of the East Coast's wintry mix blowing up the collective skirt of many folks' salt pork acquisition schedules. I'm a huge sucker for dishes made expressly in observance of regionally significant holidays and events -- especially so when the tenor of the recipe matches the spirit of the occasion. In New Orleans at Mardi Gras, it's all wild-hued, cream-slathered King Cake. On a chilly Christmas Eve in North Carolina, there is sweet, hot Moravian Love Feast coffee, and light potatoey buns, made to be split and shared.
It seems appropriate that a feast in commemoration of the Pilgrims' arrival in a bitter and bleak new terrain would involve some rather hardscrabble fare -- sustenance and utility, rather than sybaritic excess. Then again, I could be projecting 'cause I've never met a succotash I've really liked. Should I be able to get my frozen paws on some pea beans within the next 24 hours, I'll give this one a go.
If you should decide to do the same, please let us all know how it goes in the comments below. All I ask is that you remember to pay for the corn.
Scanned from Time to Entertain by Charlotte Turgeon (1954)
Fifty-four years after this printing, I'm hard-pressed to argue with Ms Turgeon on the import of having a few staple schmancy things tucked around the house, should mid-week meal boredom encroach or a party break out. Can't say I'm especially aligned with her specifics, but that could easily be a function of the 5+ decade divide.
I pride myself on being able to entertain at a moment's notice, due to the presence of these just-slightly-left of my central (olive oil, stock, Parmesan, fish sauce, double-black soy, tomato paste, rice/red wine/balsamic vinegars, fresh herbs) everyday ingredients.
Scanned from Be Milwaukee's Guest, Recipes Collected and Tested by the Junior League of Milwaukee - 1959
I could scarcely be crankier at myself for muffing the opportunity to present this comb-bound recipe gem on a particularly Wisconsin-centric holiday, such as the recently passed St. Nick's Day, but hey -- any day is a great day for pork cake!
I'm a big fan of the melding of meat and sweet (mmm...bacon candy...), and surely have been known to savor a sumptuously larded crust, but I can't swear that I've ever seen a baked good quite so aggressively piggy as this. Pinwheel rolls studded with flecks of seasoned ground beef, yes, but those were generally presented as a savory, hand-wielded Wellington sort of course rather than spiced, as this seems to be, in the manner of a dessert or breakfast sweet. I'm pleading woeful ignorance about the pastries of the Badger State here, so might someone be so kind as to enlighten me -- is this a traditional Wisconsin breakfast or dessert treat, or a relic of the cookbook's era? If the former, I'm booking a trip on Midwest Airlines posthaste. If the latter -- who's up for a bake-along this weekend?
My grandma Bunny was known throughout her community of friends, neighbors and family as an excellent cook. She worked full time as a writer, editor and art director for most of her adult life, so her recipes had to be reliably easy to prepare, hard to ruin and always tasty.
This little recipe for Chewies was one of her go-to desserts, good for those occasions when one of her kids did particularly well at school or when she was called on to bring a contribution to a church bake sale. Another handy thing about this cookie is that the entirety of the batter can be mixed up in a single pot, making quick work of clean up.
A recipe with a bit more detail is after the jump.
Lo these many years ago, a UK-born boss of mine attempted to wheedle me into swifter production by offering me a small mincemeat pie if I finished a pressing task by 4 p.m. I begged to be allowed to take only half if I knocked it out by 3, and remain fully un-minced if I had everything squared away by 2.
In theory, I should love traditional mincemeat. I'm a huge fan of a meat 'n sweet one-two punch -- especially when there's cookin' booze involved -- but I've never been able to wrap my head around the flavor of suet. It's the hard fat from around the loins and kidneys of sheep and cows, isn't especially full and meaty like lard, and is possessed of a particularly high melting point, making it the perfect base fat for many classic British steamed puddings. It seems to be the definitive flavoring agent in all the mincemeat I've had, but I've not been able to convince myself to care for it. I tend to be a stickler when it comes to ingredient lists for traditional dishes from my vintage cookbooks, but I'm wondering if there's a fat I can sub in that would render a texture that would cleave closely to the original. Most suet-centric recipes I've come across warn that the use of butter, margarine, lard, shortening et al leaves the whole dish overly greasy and flat, but if any of y'all have met with a successful swap, I'm all ears. There may even be a bit of Spotted Dick in it for you.
Other Cooking and Traveling the Cape Cod Way highlights include Forefather's Day Succotash (look for that recipe on December 21st), Beach Plum Jelly, Irish Moss Pudding, Scootin'-Long-The-Shore, Skully Joe and a wicked lot of mouthwatering Portuguese cookery. I'm more than happy to share if there's any interest.
In addition to her roles as a singer, performer and talk show host, Dinah Shore was also know among her friends and acquaintances as something of a cook. In 1971, she took all that food knowledge and put it into this book, Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah (lucky for her, she just happened to have the best name ever for a cookbook). She included over 200 recipes, most of which being things she did like to cook at home, as well as a few from close friends.
She opens the book up with a chatty introduction and then moves into some party planning tips. One interesting piece of advice is to give two or three parties in a row, so that you can return a number of invitations on the same flowers and boxes of crackers, while keeping the numbers manageable. It makes some sense, although I don't think that there are quite so many rules about the reciprocation of invitations as there once was.
Surprisingly, her recipes are nearly universally good. They all bear the marks of a true home cook, someone who likes to make big, tasty pots of soups and stews or a batch of meatloaf quickly and without fancy ingredients or fanfare. The only suspect thing I spotted was a hamburger recipe that called for a teaspoon of MSG. I guess this was before the days when it was determined that it isn't so good for you. There are a number of recipes I've marked in the book that I'd like to try, including the Fried Chicken Cuffy, the Tennessee Lasagna and the Beef Stroganoff and Kasha (her Jewish upbringing really shows here, which delights me!)
Now, I know that Easter is over, but I'm a sucker for vintage recipes, so this image of hot cross buns taken with the old cookbook in the back caught my eye. I've never thought of taking a picture of a finished food product in front of the recipe, but having seen this, I'm definitely going to give it a shot. This image comes to us from Flickr user You Can Count on Me, and you can find the recipe over at her blog, Everybody Likes Sandwiches.
I've always had an affinity for potlucks. There is something about the practice of gathering together with a community of people to share a meal that really appeals to me on a basic level. I grew up attending them, both those at the various Unitarian churches in which I grew up, as well as the more informal ones that would occur every couple of weeks within my parents' group of friends.
Over the years, I started inadvertently collecting potluck cookbooks, until I had six or seven on my shelf. This one, the retro-covered The Potluck Cookbook, is one of my favorites. Written by veteran food writer Dolores Kostelni, it contains a collection of classic potluck recipes from the last 50 years. The images are fun reprints of old magazine and commercial shots from the fifties and sixties, with a few quirky line drawings tossed in for added appeal.
This is a good book to have in your arsenal if you often find yourself asked to bring a dish along (office parties are always a challenge) and you realize that you can't bring your standard Tamale Pie anymore (your co-workers have seen it four times in the last year and a half). It's got good, tasty, fresh ideas (all that was old is new again) and is a fairly slim volume (so it won't take up too much space on your shelf).
I picked up this magazine-style cookbook when I was in Portland, during my bi-yearly visit to the bins (the as-is Goodwill Outlet in SE Portland that sells nearly everything by the pound) for $.50 (the books are just about the only things that don't go by the pound). My edition of the The American Homes: Meals in Minuteswas printed in 1964, by the publishers of The American Home magazine (which was headquartered in a building 13 blocks from my apartment here in Philly).
The thing that's fun about this cookbook is that it is a snapshot of a time in American cooking that has since past. I contains recipes for things like "Make-Ahead Frankfurter Casserole" and "Tongue Noodle Supreme." However, tucked among the kitschy and slightly revolting are some really useful and tasty-sounding recipes, including a well-explained and fairly authentic version of Osso Buco. Another useful element of this book is that it prints calories and information about the vitamins contained in each dish under the recipe. I'm fairly certain that they were probably one of the first to be publishing that sort of data back in those days.
Scattered among the recipes are also a variety of tips and tricks for making food look more lovely and for getting the most out of your leftovers. I'm a particular fan of the tip on page 60 that suggests a good way to heat up leftover rice, spaghetti or veggies. They say that you should place the food on a piece of aluminum foil and then cup the foil up around the food, making sure to leave the top open. Then place it in a saucepan with a small amount of boiling water in it and steam for ten minutes or so, until the food is well-heated. Not a bad tip for these days, especially if you are trying to reduce your dependence on the microwave.
I have something of a weakness for old recipe indexes. I love that I was able to get my hands on my grandma Bunny's recipe file and I also treasure the box of recipes that I picked up at an antique mall some years ago. There is something about a collection of recipes that were gathered, tested and loved that makes them special and wonderful.
A couple of months ago, Garrett at Vanilla Garlic inherited his grandmother's recipe files. When I first read his post, I was deeply envious, as those card files are ten times the size of the one I have from Bunny (not that I'm ungrateful for what I have). But now that he has started posting recipes and I'm just appreciative, because it's fun to see what his grandmother made and what he chooses to feature.
The first recipe he took out for a test drive was for Banana Cookies. I have made more loaves of Banana Bread in my life than I can count, but I've never thought of using bananas in cookies before seeing this post. He broke the batter into three segments, baking one off plain, stirring in some chocolate chips into the second and mixing in some pecans in the last third of the batter (he liked the pecan batch the best). He says that they turned out to be soft and cakey, two characteristics I particularly admire in a cookie.
Looking for something to make for dinner tonight? Why not try this one from my grandma Bunny's recipe box called Shrimp Curry Improv (I want to make it just for the name). It is a recipe that is definitely a product of it's time (I'm guessing sometime in the late sixties or early seventies) in that it uses a can of mushroom soup to constitute most of the base of the sauce. I don't know if she made this one up or if it comes from some other, more exalted source, but all that aside, I'm guessing it would be pretty tasty, served over rice and with a side of sauteed spinach or other wilted green.
I have a strange fascination with old recipes and cookbooks from the fifties and sixties (which you might have figured out from all my vintage recipe posts). Danny Miller, a writer out of LA who blogs at Jew Eat Yet and mostly writes about movies, music and television, wrote a tribute post last week about Arlene Francis, in honor of her 100th birthday. She was a a regular on "What's My Line" and in 1961 wrote a cookbook called No Time for Cooking. In it, she extols the virtues of casual parties (although no casual party I've ever thrown has looked like that) and items like Luxury Loaf. Go check out Danny's complete post for the full skinny on the food that inspired his mother and countless other women in the early sixties.
Several months ago, my cousin lent me a stack of old recipes that had belonged to her mother. In that pile was a brochure from the Philadelphia Cream Cheese company. It looks like it's from the late fifties or early sixties and contains 44 recipes that use cream cheese (preferably Philadelphia Brand). The one pictured above isn't particularly seasonable, but for some reason sort of appealed to me. I guess because it's the time of year to start thinking about holiday pies.
I love old community cookbooks. I pick them up at thrift stores, bookshops and yard sales whenever I can. I especially like the ones from the fifties and sixties, as they allow a peek into the kitchens and dining rooms of a time before food television and the gourmetification of the world. I rarely cook out of these books, perusing them mostly for entertainment and occasionally for inspiration.
Several weeks ago my cousin and I were going through her cookbook collection to find some recipes for my thesis, when we stumbled across a copy of the Norristown State Hospital Women's Medical Auxiliary cookbook, which she had because her mother had contributed several recipes. The pages are rough half sheets that have yellowed with age. It is bound with a plastic spiral, like the ones we used in elementary school to make books. I've enjoyed flipping through it, checking out the recipes with my aunt's name attached, to see what she was cooking in the late fifties or early sixties.
Although we aren't officially in fall yet, Labor Day marked the end of summer in my mind, so I offer you a recipe that seems to be expressly designated for this time of year. I'm not entirely sure why this dish should be made in the Autumn, but Mrs. Barbanti believed that was when it was best, so I won't argue with her.
I've always had an affinity for potlucks. There is something about the practice of gathering together with a community of people to share a meal that really appeals to me on a basic level. I grew up attending them, both those at the various Unitarian churches in which I grew up, as well as the more informal ones that would occur every couple of weeks within my parents' group of friends. 
I picked up this magazine-style cookbook when I was in Portland, during my bi-yearly visit to the bins (the as-is Goodwill Outlet in SE Portland that sells nearly everything by the pound) for $.50 (the books are just about the only things that don't go by the pound). My edition of the 
Looking for something to make for dinner tonight? Why not try this one from my grandma Bunny's recipe box called Shrimp Curry Improv (I want to make it just for the name). It is a recipe that is definitely a product of it's time (I'm guessing sometime in the late sixties or early seventies) in that it uses a can of mushroom soup to constitute most of the base of the sauce. I don't know if she made this one up or if it comes from some other, more exalted source, but all that aside, I'm guessing it would be pretty tasty, served over rice and with a side of sauteed spinach or other wilted green. 
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