Betty Lives!

The General Foods Kitchens Cookbook

The Women of General Foods Kitchens

1959

Let me just qualify what I am about to write with the following: My children are BOTH fabulous eaters and this is a source of tremendous pride for Doug and for me. We have dragged them on our most exotic culinary adventures and they have survived and even thrived heartily.

But here’s the beginning of the story: Lulu and Nicky were motivated to speak for entirely different reasons. Lulu was motivated to speak in order to express her love for us. As soon as she could cobble the words together she was asking for affection (“Daddy, hugs!”). After she learned to write her name she wanted to learn how to write the word “Love” and nine out of ten of her drawings will depict some kind of Mommy-Lulu-love theme (“You are the queen and I am the princess and we are in the butterfly castle and we are holding hands because you love me so much.”) And these days when she leaves for school she shouts endearments to me until she is all the way out and halfway down the stairs (“Mommy, I just can’t stop loving you!”). It is both wonderful and worrisome in its implications of later burdens and possible psychotherapy.

Nicky however was motivated to speak so that he could express his very particular culinary needs. As soon as my nutty little son could cobble the words together he was asking for “ficey”. Gingerly at first, I added salt and pepper to his foods, then little drops of Tabasco, now I just leave the bottle on the table and let him go crazy. I have watched as he has eaten pizza with chile pepper flakes, Indian curries, Jamaican jerk with beans and Peppa sauce, and an entire bowl of Kimchi. What we realized about a year ago is that when he requests “spicy”, he is actually just asking for foods with flavor. He will not go near any foods that are white: plain rice, cheese, chicken breasts, bananas, deli turkey, yogurt, or eggs, but he will eat a huge bowl of pernil from the Dominican joint down the street. You know, like your average, picky three year-old.

So when it came time for me to pick a dish to cook for the end-of-the-year school picnic, it broke my heart a little to have to make something I knew the other kids would eat, but that Nicky wouldn’t touch. I just didn’t think Turkish lamb kebobs would go over well. And the whole idea of a potluck school picnic in the park is already so fabulously retro, it practically screams for something called Baked Noodle and Cheese Casserole.

If I had to pick one favorite old cookbook from my shelf, I think The General Foods Kitchens Cookbook would be it. It is the most comprehensive, widest ranging book I’ve ever seen. In addition to recipes it provides entire menus, organizational tips, and even motivation. If you need a perfect menu for a Silver Wedding Anniversary, Graduation, Christening, or Engagement Luncheon, you can find it in this book. Or if you’re just looking for an excuse to entertain you can find that as well: Everybody come to our house before we go to the rink, How did you like the concert?, or maybe Back from bowling. Before people had “lifestyle” magazines and Martha Stewart, the General Food Kitchens Cookbook must have filled that void. Its chapters are broken down into broad categories such as “Company for Dinner”, “Home for the Holidays”, “Family Milestones”, “It’s a Party”, each of which have dozens of sub-headings to accommodate groups of different sizes and ages. The illustrations are classic, the photographs are vivid, and the text is priceless:

“Nowadays, when the ‘cook’ is also housemaid, chambermaid, waitress, nurse, chauffeur, gardener – as well as wife, mother, job-holder, and community leader – the ‘dailiness’ of food preparation is more challenging than ever. Planning, buying, preparing, and serving three meals a day means 1,095 such efforts a year (add three for Leap Year)!”

The casserole was perfectly easy to prepare – cook the noodles, mix in the additional ingredients, top off with cheddar and bake. I did close one eye as I added two entire cups of sour cream because the horror was too much, may the General Foods gods forgive me. I used roasted red pepper, essentially what pimento is, and more than was called for because 1 tablespoon in relation to 12 oz of noodles seemed sad. And I added some saltine crumbs to the top for texture (I had them leftover from the Crab Imperial plus it felt like the natural thing to do.) It was very yummy and the parents and kids at the picnic, with the exception of Nicky, totally downed it. I would say that the 25 minute cooking time was a little short given the fact that there is raw, grated onion in the casserole. Next time I would undercook the noodles in the first step, and then bake it longer in the oven to mellow the onions and really brown the top.

Nicky, by the way, ate some other Dad’s vegetarian chili made with refried beans and lots of cumin. It wasn’t “spicy” but in his mind at least it wasn’t white.