April 3, 2007
via Slashfood: An amazing look back at some of the most outrageous fads, Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads could make our avant-garde molecular gastronomy look like meat and potatoes.
Here’s a taste of the “The Worst Salad of the Twenties.”
Banana and Popcorn Salad
1 banana, peeled and cut in half, length-wise
1 lettuce leaf
Popcorn
Mayonnaise
Place banana on lettuce leaf. Scatter popcorn over banana and place dabs of mayonnaise here and there. Makes one serving.
February 13, 2007
via OldCookbooks.com, from the Ceresota Cookbook: “This recipe is reprinted exactly as found from a charming product promotion cookbooklet circa 1910 by the Northwestern Milling Company, Minneapolis. Make these “Pound Cake Waffles” for Valentine’s Day breakfast and let us know how they turn out!”
Pound Cake Waffles
1 1/4 cups Ceresota flour
1 teaspoon lemon or vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1/3 cup butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 teaspoon salt
Beat the butter and sugar till light and creamy; add the well-beaten yolks of eggs, then the flour, salt and baking powder sifted together; add the flavoring and beat till smooth and light. Last of all fold in the whites of eggs, stiffly beaten. Bake the same as ordinary waffles.
August 22, 2006
Richard Hellman opened a deli in New York City in 1905 and the rest is history.
Also courtesy of NPR, here’s a recipe for Cracker Jack-Style Caramel Popcorn with Peanuts
May 23, 2006
Brush up on proper sushi etiquette, for example It is OK to eat nigiri-zushi (sushi) with your hands. Sashimi is only to be eaten with your chopsticks.
On the cover of “500 Tasty Snacks — Ideas for Entertaining” (1949) is my very favorite food photo: A circle of beige appetizers and canapes on a platter. In the center, toothpicks speared with olives, pearl onions and cheese cubes have been stuck into what looks like a mutant purple brain from a science-fiction B movie. Maybe it’s purple cabbage?, one co-worker suggested. Eggplant? Tinted cream cheese? I couldn’t find a recipe in the book, but every time I look at it, I expect the mound to hop off the cover and chase teenagers down to the local movie theater, where they will meet an untimely death after putting up a terrific fight for survival of the human race.
That’s Suzanne Boyle, a writer at the Belleville News-Democrat in her whimsical look back at vintage cookbooks, including recipes for such delicacies as Peachy Bacon Skillet (1966) and Coconut Prune Whip (1953). Pick up your own long-lost cookbooks at OldCookbooks.com.
Last but not least, excite yourself with Flickr’s Food Porn Photo Pool.
May 1, 2006
I found Grubbag: An Underground Cookbook
at a friend’s home among his motley collection of thrift store scores. It is a collection of food writing that began as a column in the Liberation News Service (LNS), a leftist alternative news service. It’s a time capsule of early 70’s foodways, food politics and philosophy in an unmistakeable style:
“Start dinner with bowls of light soup. End with dark fragrant coffee, a wisp of incense, a strain of Scarlatti, and whether the day is sunny or gray, whether the night is balmy or hot, whether you lie down with an old friend or stranger, peace will pervade.”
Stuffed Oranges
1. Buy a pint of orange sherbert and let it soften
2. Cut the tops off two large, firm oranges and very carefully scoop out the insides, being careful not to tear the skin. Thick-skinned oranges are easiest to work with.
3. Chop the orange meat fine, drain off the liquid and save it for another use. In the bottom of each orange, spoon 1/2 inch layer of chopped orange.
4. Spoon in softened orange sherbert until orange is half full. Add another thin layer if chopped orange, maybe some pine nuts, then more sherbert. Replace the tops on oranges and put them in the freezer. Before serving, let them stand at room temperature for a minute or so.
April 7, 2006
Ziplock? No way, I’ve got Plum Party storage. via design*sponge.
As easy as clicking here.
