1978

This book attracted me because the font, which I can’t name, is so emblematic of the 70’s and the photos have this great 70’s style to them.  Also, who doesn’t need extra chicken recipes?

check out those teak serving pieces!

The Potato Flake chicken was like the high school delinquent boy for me, I was drawn to it even though I knew in my heart it would be a mistake.  I just couldn’t stop myself, the intrigue was too much. On the surface it seems like a perfectly good idea: oven-roasted chicken coated with dehydrated mashed potato mix.  It’s got chicken, it’s got potatoes, all good.  But this is probably the first unqualified disaster (worse than the Klops) of the Betty Lives project. I stand before you humbled for  I could not repair this mess.

The chicken is dipped first in evaporated milk which has been mixed with 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp mixed Italian herbs, and 1/8 tsp pepper. Then it is dipped in the potato flakes and baked for one hour at 350 degrees.  Problem number one: evaporated milk does not have enough viscosity to be used solo as coating, it needs an egg.  Without a nice sticky egg, you dip the chicken in and then all the milk drips right off.  Problem two: the potato flakes (I bought basic Pilsbury) have no flavor and require seasoning or at least salt.  Problem three: when fat is not part of the chicken coating it will not brown in a dry oven.  Halfway through the cooking time I took the chicken out of the oven and sprayed it with olive oil.  But nothing could save this dish, it was dreadful.  The coating was flavorless and the underside of the chicken pieces which had been pan-side down just developed into instant potato mush.  The kids ate it without complaining, although I had to provide both ketchup and mustard, and Doug feigned interest until he couldn’t take it anymore and said,  “this is gross.  Do we have anything else in the fridge?”  Poor guy.

Dale Brown and the Editors of Time-Life Books

1968

I know I’ve described several books in my collection as being “encyclopedic” but this is the one actual cooking encyclopedia I own in that it covers all branches of knowledge on one subject.  The Woman’s Day series is certainly large and comprehensive, but even most of their regional cooking chapters are test kitchen interpretations of what was actually going on in those regions.  The Time-Life series is a whole other animal.  This is a 26 volume collection - not including the 26 companion recipe books - that spans the entire globe. The editors went places that no one in America had ever thought of going to explore cuisine, talked to locals, took photographs and reams of notes.  They did their best to present the recipes in all their local glory, exotic ingredients and all, from Africa to Acadia to Poland, Japan and Morocco.  And I am happy to proclaim that to this day, the recipes hold up.  Even before my little Betty project I used these books all the time:Paella from Spain, Red-Cooked pork from China, dozens of Indian recipes, stuffed plantains from the Caribbean.  Plus they’re really fun to collect because they appear at yard sales and flea markets in bits and pieces.  I completed my collection thanks entirely to my Mother who took it on as her personal quest. Thanks Mom!

The ribs from the Northwest cookbook just seemed interesting to me; pork and applesauce with a twist. One rack of pork ribs, about 3 1/2 lbs, is cut in half and seasoned on the meaty side with salt and pepper.  Then one half of the rack is placed meaty side down and layered with sliced green apples (peeled and cored) and halved prunes.  The recipe calls for four apples but apples in 1968 must have been tiny, because two was plenty.  Plus I couldn’t find my apple corer which made the whole thing a bit of a pain.  I looked for it everywhere and concluded that someone must have borrowed it.  So that person, and YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, bring it back! Anyhoo, after the layering you’re supposed to sprinkle 1/4 cup brown sugar and two tablespoons of cinnamon but this seemed really unfair to the apples underneath as well as the lower rack.  In the interest of apple equality I dumped my nicely layered fruit into a bowl and tossed the whole thing with a reduced amount of sugar and cinnamon and re-layered it.  The second rib half is placed on top to make a nice porky-appley sandwich of sorts, tied and baked at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours.

It was delicious but I’m glad I stuck with my decision to reduce the amount of apples.  The ones that cooked between the ribs were softened by the heat but not mushy, perfect consistency.  If there had been four apples they wouldn’t have cooked properly in  that amount of time and would have stayed too crunchy.  The ribs were perfect and slightly fruity tasting.  The dish is described as being “a German contribution to Northwestern fare” and I believe the writers are speaking specifically of Milwaukee.  It is shown served with traditional German potato salad and a stein of beer but I served mine with simple roast potatoes tossed with mustard and a green salad.

the editors of Better Homes and Gardens

1963

Right here is everything I always hope for when digging through vintage cookbooks: a deceptively simple recipe that yields surprisingly delicious results which then leads me to peruse more carefully through a book I would have otherwise avoided.  You see, of all the Kodachrome-bright mid-century books I have, this one gets the prize for the most eye-poppingly vivid photos.  The end papers are BRIGHT yellow, the pictures are so intense they look like they were taken in color and THEN colorized with glow-in-the-dark paint.  Observe:

But the Spinach Bake was perfect.  It contains: 1 10-oz package frozen spinach, cooked and drained; 1 cup cooked rice; 1 cup shredded sharp cheese; 2 slightly beaten eggs, 2 Tbl softened botter, 1/2 cup milk, 2 Tbl chopped onion, 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp rosemary, crushed.  Combine, bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes and serve.  As for my changes, there were only two.  I used brown rice and 1/2 tsp fresh rosemary instead of the dried.  It was really, really tasty with a very high ratio of spinach, not at all like a quiche, with the perfect amount of seasoning.  My only issue is that it didn’t have enough bulk.  Even in the 10″x 6″ baking dish called for it was way too thin.  Next time I would definitely double the recipe and adjust the cooking time/temp.  And there will definitely be a next time, especially when we have some leftover basmati rice from take-out Indian!

Peg Bracken

1960

My friend Susan called me last week and proclaimed: “I have re-discovered the smoked oyster, they are fabulous and you must go out and get some!”  Because I always do exactly as Susan tells me (she is small but she is fierce) I went out and bought two tins of smoked oysters.  Then I called her.  “I got them!”I announced proudly and then read her the list of ingredients.  “No,” she said firmly.  “My oysters only have oysters in them, you have to get a different brand.”  Because I always do exactly as Susan tells me, even if I can’t see the point, I went out and got more oysters.  Once the list of ingredient (s) was approved, I set out to find a recipe.  Susan prepares her smoked oysters with scrambled eggs and spinach, which I admit sounds tasty, but I had a feeling that a food as convenient as smoked oysters in a tin had to have a mid-century application.  And lo there it was, the 5 O’Clock Biscuit in Peg Bracken’s book.

The recipe (if it can be called that) requires only the oysters and a package of tube-type refrigerated biscuits.  You cut the biscuits in half, top each with an oyster, fold, seal, brush with oil from the oyster tin and bake.  I think that tube biscuits from 1960 must have been much smaller because Bracken says to cook them at 450 degrees for 8 minutes.  The biscuits I bought were about the size of my fist and took about 18 minutes to cook.  Then I had to shave off the burnt bottoms because 450 was way too high.  No matter, they were extremely tasty and perfect with a cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

A Treasury of Great Recipes

Mary and Vincent Price

1965

I had the idea to prepare one more recipe from the Prices’ book as a tie-breaker before I retire it for a bit.  But truthfully this recipe from the celebrated Hostellerie de la Poste is a French classic and hard to ruin.  Plus I love braised chicken in wine so the decks were pretty stacked for a positive outcome.

The preparation begins with three strips of bacon diced and sauteed with one medium onion and one carrot, chopped.  Once the veggies are slightly browned you add a quartered chicken - I cut mine in eighths because the cooking time seemed short for quarters - which is browned.  Then my favorite part: you get to add 1/4 cup of cognac, light it on fire and watch it go whoosh!  4 tbl of flour are stirred into the bacon drippings/vegetables which will thicken the sauce later, plus 2 cups Burgundy, 1 cup chicken stock, 1 tsp salt, peppercorns, 2 cloves minced garlic and a bouquet garni (thyme, parsley stems, a bay leaf). The lot gets cooked over low heat for 45 minutes and then the ultimate irony in French technique occurs: you strain out all those yummy vegetables and bacon that have been stewing in the wine and toss them.  Sigh.  At this point I diverged slightly from the directions and reduced the sauce by a good amount until it was rich and thicker.  I like my wine sauce to coat, not run all over the plate.

The chicken is served with the classic “Grandmother garnish” which means glazed pearl onions, sauteed mushrooms, croutons, and crisp lardons (in this case bacon).  It’s delicious but requires the use of FIVE pans on the stove; the culinary opposite of a meal-in-one. Maybe I’ve been away from Paris for too long, but I went insane for this dish and pretty much licked the pot clean.  Doug loved it too, as did the kids which made me very proud of them.

You’ll notice in the photo the heart-shaped crouton:

This is a Cordon Bleu tradition.  The Chef-Instructor (who thinks he’s a stud but hasn’t really been one for twenty years) prepares the heart crouton at the end of his demonstration, looks lecherously at some poor, young female student in the front row, and offers her “his heart.” You gotta love those French!

Mary and Vincent Price

1965

It was necessary to give this book another chance after the semi-failure of the Konigsberger Klops.  My daughter requested veal  and this recipe was one of the few veal preparations that was not in stew form.  It comes from The Four Seasons in New York where Price describes the food as “not elaborate, but served beautifully and always with some small imaginative touch that lifts it above the average.”  In this case, the veal breading contains the zest of 2 1/2 lemons which definitely lifted it way above average to my taste.  The breading proportions given for eight cutlets also include: 1 1/2 cups fine bread crumbs, 1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, 1 tsp salt, and 1/8 tsp pepper.  The veal is first dredged in flour, then dipped in egg, then the crumbs and fried.  It was absolutely fabulous and the lemon zest was the perfect astringint counterpoint for the Parmesan.

But the best part of the meal for me was serving the veal the way my mother used to.  I don’t know about other people’s families, but my mother served certain meals with specific sides and as hard as I try nothing suits fried veal cutlets like buttered noodles with a sprinkle of garlic powder and Le Sueur peas. It is the most perfect combination and intensely comforting to me.  I enjoyed it in that very profound way that only taste-memories can trigger.

1963

If Betty Crocker’s Quick & Easy Cook Book or  The General Foods Kitchen Cookbook are on one side of the mid-century spectrum in that they have mass appeal and a lot of Jello, books like Vincent Price’s or the Gourmet Cookbook are clearly on the other side.  This is the side for which gourmet meant French, or at least European (the end papers have fleur de lis on them). A huge proportion of the recipes are listed with their French titles and no translation: Celeri Amandine, Truite au Bleu, Cassoulet de Castelnaudary. A lot of the recipes list a multitude of ingredients, contain recipes within recipes, and require fanciful presentations.  The Gourmet Cookbook was in its fourteenth printing by 1963 so you can only imagine what’s inside the two-volume beomouth.  Volume I is 733 pages, not including the index.    But it’s a cool book; there’s an entire chapter on Innards and they don’t sugar coat anything. One recipe begins “Have a small hog’s head cut in half and the eyes and brain removed.” Awesome!  The photos are typical.  Not as colorful as Betty, not as interesting as Price.

We had friends over for dinner on Saturday night and needed a little hors d’oeuvres to begin the meal.  Doug received a subscription to a Bacon-of-the-month club for his birthday so I decided to try these.  The stuffing is made from 2 cups bread crumbs, 2 Tbl each grated onion, chopped chives, chopped parsley, salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg.  Once combined the mixture is moistened with hot meat stock to make a paste.  The stuffing is “applied” to each strip and then the strips are rolled and fastened with toothpicks.  I broiled them in our toaster oven for about 20 minutes; ten minutes per side.  I wish I could tell you exactly what our friends said, but mostly they were speechless.  My friend Rachel just kept her eyes closed and nodded.  Jen groaned.  We had made a dozen but if there had been two dozen the plate would have been cleaned anyway. That’s why there is no photo of the rolls.  I just didn’t have time to take one!

1966

I am really hearting this Encylopedia because after tonight I am three for three with winning recipes.  Volume 12 covers Tortes through Zucchini and contains chapters on such esoterica as Western Cooking (10 pages) and West Coast Salads (4 pages).  There is also a little booster in the back entitled “150 Ways to be a Better Cook”.  Well alright then, what do I need to be a better cook oh Magic Encylopedia of all Goodness?  Apparently I need to Invest in a vanilla bean (#4), Use pancakes as a base for unusual main dishes (#s 24 through 27), Fry myself a reputation (#70), and Whip 1 large package cream cheese with 3 TBl milk and 1 Tbl sugar for a dreamy topping for stewed fruits (#126).  Of course I’m poking big fun here. Truthfully, much of the list is sound advice.  And the drawings kick ass:

The veal recipe was simple enough: make stuffing, stuff veal, roast.  But I had to make a large alteration from the go-get because my veal was more of a brisket cut and too thin for a pocket.  Instead I butterflied it, spread the stuffing out, rolled it and tied it.  The result was just fine, even with the cooking times given.  The stuffing, which makes enough for a 3 lb breast, is made with 1.5 lbs sausage meat, 3 cups soft bread crumbs, 1/2 cup sliced green onions, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, 6 chopped anchovy fillets, 1 egg, salt, pepper and 1 tsp dried thyme.  So far so good.  4 large onions, sliced and 4 carrots cut in strips along with 4-5 parsley sprigs blanket the bottom of the roast dish.  The whole thing gets doused with a choice of 1 cup chicken stock OR white wine.  I wanted a combination of the two and I didn’t have white wine in the house so I used 3/4 cup chicken stock and 1/4 cup sherry.   Then comes the dotting of the butter (love that!).  The veal is roasted at 450 degrees to brown it and then covered and cooked in a medium oven (325) for another 90 minutes.

It certainly looked gorgeous.  The onions had turned golden and melty and the meat was soft and brown.

The taste was primarily of sherry (completely my fault) as well as the sausage that I used (louganika).  But then again, being a vehicle is what certain cuts of veal are all about. And although I really love to cook with anchovies because I think they add depth of flavor, in this application they stood out a little too much.  The resulting taste, regardless of the dominating flavors and renegade anchovies, was wonderful.  Sweet from the sherry, earthy from the sausage, with that awesome texture that you can only get when you slow-cook veal.  Now I just need to Think of food coloring in a new light (#148).

1961

Although this is a very cool cookbook I only bought it because when I opened the inside flap I noticed that Andy Warhol had done the illustrations.  That’s right folks.  Andy. Freakin. Warhol.  How cool is that?  But in all fairness to Ms Vanderbilt, it is a wonderful book and the person who originally owned it left many positive testimonials to that effect in the margins: “Great!” “Very Good!” “Use more sugar!”  There is nothing better than buying a vintage cookbook that already has personal testimony in it.  Except maybe buying a vintage cookbook that has little newspaper recipe clippings from the previous owner. But we’ll get to that in another post.

Unlike Hilary Knight, there is nothing recognizably “Warhol” in any of the illustrations.  The best I can say is that the drawings are, well, accurate.

The book is one of those comprehensive tomes meant to be the only cookbook one would ever need.  Ms Vanderbilt was not a direct descendant of Cornelius, but what she did have going for her was the title of “America’s Foremost Expert on Etiquette”. She wrote two books on the subject and I believe at least one of them is still in print.  I don’t know what lead her to make the leap to cookbooks but it was an extremely admirable effort.  In addition to the chapters on proper carving techniques and table settings which one would expect from an etiquette expert, the book covers everything from breads, barbecues, picnics, and cakes to game, casseroles, cheese and chafing dish food.

I was in the mood for a casserole and since I feel I’ve overdone the ground meat bit for this blog, I needed an alternative.  The Savory Onion Pie hit the right note with me.  First, 3/4 cup of saltine crumbs are mixed with 1/4 cup of melted butter and pressed into a shallow baking dish.  Then you saute 2 cups of sliced onions (I used Vidalia) in 2 Tbl butter for five minutes.  The onions are spread on top of the crumbs and over the top you pour the following combination: 2 beaten eggs, 1 cup milk, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 3/4 cup grated Cheddar cheese and 1/2 cup ground ham.  The dish is baked for 35 minutes at 300 degrees until set. I made no substitutions other than the Vidalia (does it really count as a substitution if the recipe doesn’t specify?) but opted to chop the ham rather than grind it which is just a texture preference for me.  Doug, Lulu and I loved it.  In fact, I ate it straight from the dish (forgive me Ms Vanderbilt).  Nicky, who cannot stand eggs or cheese, had a leftover chicken leg.  Interestingly, the saltine/butter combo doesn’t really become a crust.  I could taste that the saltines were there but it was more of a crust suggestion than an actual crispy bottom.  Regardless, it was a huge hit.