Betty Lives!

When my brother-in-law Scott came up with the idea of writing about recipes I prepared from my vintage cookbooks, I was over-the-moon excited. I treasure these books for a million reasons. I love the graphics, so distinctly mid-century, I love the photos, drenched with color and kitsch garnish, I love the recipes which are short and without much detail because there was an underlying assumption that most women (yes, women) knew how to cook the basics. And although there was this presumed innate culinary sense, many mid-century cookbooks reflect the dawning of the age of condensed-soup convenience which is fascinating to me. I love the books for anthropological reasons; how we ate 50 years ago was such a distinct reflection of who we were as a country. Turned mostly inward, but cautiously beginning to glance elsewhere for inspiration. I feel an ironic allegiance with the women that used these books. Ironic because, although I was raised by a totally liberated, leftist, hippie, feminist, working mother, I have chosen to quit work, raise my kids and cook dinner for my corporate husband. I’ve always been aesthetically drawn to this era too. We have a lot of mid-century furniture, pottery, even Tupperware. It was a perfect project for me.

The only obstacle was the recipes themselves.

 

My parents were early devoted foodies and I have distinct memories of being dragged to various gritty New York City neighborhoods to try Indian, Japanese, Thai, Spanish, authentic Chinese, and god only knows what else. Spanish may have been the only clunker; I told them that everything tasted like soap (the saffron). They were passionate greenmarket shoppers decades before it was a chic chef requisite, hauling dutifully to Union Square every Saturday even after we had relocated to Riverdale. I grew up to become as food-crazy as they were. My high school boyfriend and I went to restaurants like other kids went to concerts or games. In college I immediately determined where I was most likely to get a good meal in the culinary wasteland of Middletown, Connecticut, and became a devotee of the area’s only indigenous dish – the steamed cheeseburger. My junior year in Paris produced the typical myriad epiphanies, mostly in cheese form. And then after a two-year tour as a banker, I dashed back to France to get myself an actual cooking diploma and then cooked in various insignificant capacities for the next several years. My husband likes to tell people I’m a chef but I am not a chef and never was. The fact is that I have earned my living writing, not cooking.

 

The last years of my culinary “education” have been spent with my husband Doug, whom I fell in love with because, like me, he wouldn’t think twice about driving ten miles out of his way for a better sandwich. I prepare elaborate feasts for him, our friends and our families with intricate, thoughtful menus and ingredients I source from greenmarkets and random ethnic groceries. I like micro-greens. I can’t even help myself when I see heirloom tomatoes. All of this is my way of explaining that my taste in food is sophisticated and varied. I love my vintage cookbooks for many reasons, but when Scott suggested I use them as a platform for a web site, the idea of cooking from the recipes did not sit right. Loving Betty Crocker circa 1958 because the cartoons were so cute was one thing, making full-on mid-century meals was something else altogether. So I procrastinated. I told Doug that I needed to buy more vintage books on Ebay (it would be a tax write-off!) I also explained with my typical twisted rationale that collecting gorgeous dresses from the 1950’s would be part of the project (think of the photos!). And then I paged through the books I wanted to use (this took several weeks). I procrastinated some more, talked to friends about all my big ideas, and had a minor depressive episode when The New York Times ran a story on Betty Crocker recipe card collecting, thinking I had been scooped. What finally got me over the edge though was when I thought about some of my favorite foods. My mother makes a veal dish that she cut from a Comstock Apple label in the early 1970’s. It’s insanely simple – sautéed veal, a can of Comstock Apples, brown sugar and cider vinegar. I swear this is the most delicious veal dish ever. My friend Judith makes a wild rice breakfast casserole recipe that she got from her mother. It’s not very pretty (we call it Kitty Litter), and I always substitute fresh mushrooms for canned, but the combination of the wild rice, sausage, mushrooms, and water chestnuts is divine and addictive. Whenever she makes it I start out politely and serve myself on my plate, but within the hour I’ve commandeered the entire bowl onto my lap and am spooning it directly into my mouth.

Much has been written about the unmentionable cuisine of the 1950’s – the gelatin molds, the neon-colored cakes, the cream of mushroom-covered vegetables – but the more recipes I flagged the more excited I became. There is a treasure trove of goodness in these old books, both interesting and creative, with tentative forays into the cuisines of other cultures. It is unlikely I’ll ever make gelatin salads, and I’ll always use fresh fruits and vegetables instead of canned, but for the most part my goal is to cook these recipes the way they were written and see what I can learn.