Food Art History

In the past five months of writing this blog, I've come a long way. I've made pot roasts and pies, cookies and cakes, dips and sandwiches--all with varying degrees of success. There's no doubt, my skills have sharpened with each new recipe, and I'm feeling much more comfortable in the kitchen.

But more fun than the cooking has been the hunting. I've spent hours picking through dusty shelves at area antique malls, uncovering great old cookbooks to add to my collection.  Most of the books were published by food companies or growers' associations, with recipes featuring their specific products--like Ohio apples, Chiquita bananas, and Sunkist oranges, to name a few.

Of course, in addition to publishing their own cookbooks, the food companies also advertised the old-fashioned way--in magazines. Take a look at some of the gorgeous pages below:

What I love about these recipes is that they call for the inclusion of a specific brand of ingredient. It's not just Green Beans Caesar, whatever that is. It's Del Monte Green Beans Caesar. Remember when I made Joan's Apple Cake? That recipe called specifically for Wesson oil, and sure enough, that's what I used. Marketing at its finest, people!

Many people say that cooking is an art form, and I get that now. Long before Pinterest was a thing, there were companies pushing their products with beautiful spreads in print. I've found there's something really rewarding about re-creating the image from the page. Even when the flavors are questionable, I still have a feeling of accomplishment when I see my complete creation!

In the new year ahead, I'm eager to continue my study of food art history. I'll keep making more vintage recipes, and striving for more victories on the kitchen front. Onward!

Pot Roast of Beef

A few weeks ago, Taylor and I were passing through Urbana, and we were "strongly encouraged" to take some beef from the freezer. Again. Unlike last time, though, we took full advantage of this offer and packed about 5 different cuts of meat into our cooler. Hey, I've got bellies to fill and blog posts to write! Free food for the win!

Once home, I flipped through some cookbooks to see what I could make with this bounty of beef. My Family Fare: Food Management and Recipes cookbook had several promising candidates.

Printed by the Kroger Company in 1950, this is one of the more "normal" cookbooks in my collection. It isn't based around a particular food or brand, it gives practical food handling tips, and it has a good variety of recipes, like this simple recipe for "pot roast of beef." Having never made pot roast before (I know, I know, I'm a pitiful adult), I thought I'd give it a try.

Pot Roast of Beef

1) Select 4 to 5 pounds of beef--chuck, rump, or round.

You know, I don't care how many times I've cooked with meat, I'm still grossed out by the juices in the package. I know it's not blood--it's myoglobin and water--but still. Yuck.

2) Rub the meat with salt, pepper, and flour, and brown on all sides in a little hot fat in a deep heavy pan with a cover.

With no instructions for how much salt, pepper, and flour to use, this is the part of the story where I threw caution (and flour, apparently) to the wind. Normally, I'm conservative in my mess-making, and at the very least, try to clean up as I go along. This time I let the flour fly. And I didn't clean it up for at least 20 minutes. Live dangerously, that's what I never say!

3) Slip a low rack under meat to keep it from sticking to pan. Add one-half cup of water; cover pan closely.

I didn't have a rack, but I fully believed I could keep the meat from burning by sheer will power. And water.

4) Cook slowly over low heat until done--about 3 hours. Add more water as needed.

While the roast cooked, I chopped some potatoes, onions, carrots, and sweet potatoes so that I'd be ready for the next step.

Here I'd like to add my apologies for the quality of the photos from here on out. When I started the roast, it was daytime and I had good light for photos. And like an hour later it was dark because it's winter now and everything is sad and hopeless starting at 5:30 PM. So, yeah, we're going to have some weird shadows and glare from the flash, okay? Somebody pass the Zoloft.

5) During the last half hour, cook vegetables with meat--quartered potatoes, onions, and whole carrots. 

Finally my roast was complete, and I was ready to cut the meat and serve with the roasted vegetables.

 

I'm not a meat connoisseur by any means, but my dinner guests affirmed that the roast was tender, juicy, and well-cooked. We did notice that not all of the vegetables softened quite like we would have liked; there were a few particularly crunchy sweet potato chunks on my plate. I probably should have added more water to fully submerge the vegetables--steam was not enough!--and I think maybe I could have added the vegetables to the pot a little earlier, too.

Otherwise, here it is! A pot roast of beef recipe, still going strong 65 years later. Don't mess with the classics, right?

And before I conclude this post, I just want to draw your attention to this drab photo:

This photo is significant because it is the last one depicting our old kitchen floor in a post. That's right--just a few days later, that old vinyl floor would be replaced by this nice new ceramic one:

From this post forward, those gorgeous gray-brown tiles will serve as the backdrop of the blog. We've still got a few things to finish--like the baseboards, and the backsplash--before we can call this renovation complete, but in the meantime, maybe I'll cook up a post with the before-and-after process. Or maybe I'll cook up some jello. We haven't had any jello recipes yet...

Betty Crocker’s Absurd, Gorgeous Atomic-Age Creations

For all of you mid-century fans out there, you may have already enjoyed perusing this article that ran last week in the New York Times. It's a delightfully eye-popping attempt to make sense of the strange culinary concoctions from the 1950s and 60s. 

Betty Crocker’s Absurd, Gorgeous Atomic-Age Creations   

The iconic brand’s midcentury recipes evoke the era’s peculiar optimism, encased in gelatin and smothered in mayonnaise.
 

Photographs by MAURIZIO CATTELAN AND PIERPAOLO FERRARI and TEXT BY TAMAR ADLEROCT. 27, 2015

One of my favorite passages from the article:

And yet maybe because I was born too late — because I am unscarred by the trauma of festive buffets abundant with canned green beans in white sauce — I see qualities in the Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library that do not seem ridiculous or deserving of pillory.

Its recipes weren’t written to appeal to the palate. Their instructions were designed to make the Teenage Fondue or Party Sandwich Loaf look a certain way: theatrical, performative, misleading. The focus on tuning precise colors and shapes — the shocking green of ‘‘Lime Ribbon Delight’’ or the perfect heart shape of ‘‘Cherry Berries on a Cloud’’ or simply the persistent symmetry of concentric circles and shingles — is here, as in all arts and crafts, a means for triggering observation.

There is something very human in the desire to turn food, which we are impelled by biology to notice, into a spectacle.

It certainly speaks to what I've enjoyed about writing this blog--and maybe a little of what you've enjoyed about reading it. :) 

So feast your eyes on this delectable spread and come back here soon for my latest take on such a fascinating era of food. You know, maybe it's time to break into the gelatin recipes...

Making It Modern with The Glamorous Housewife

Happy Wednesday! I'm busy whipping up a few new concoctions in the kitchen today, so while I work, I thought I'd share another fun vintage blog to tide you over.

Introducing: The Glamorous Housewife! This blogger shares a love of all things vintage, and has lots of posts about decorating, style, entertaining, and more. Most recently, I discovered her new series on YouTube called "Making it Modern" in which she adapts old recipes into modern creations. So far she has featured a pineapple upside down cake-inspired cocktail, an emerald jello salad masquerading as a modern strawberry salad, and her updated take on sausage boatees. It's a lot of fun, and I'm excited to see future installments in the series!

So take a visit to her blog today--and come back here for more vintage apple-themed recipes just in time for the first few days of fall!

To the Home Economists and Engineers

Hey there! You're here! And by here, I mean the post-war Cape Cod kitchen of a 20-something woman who still doesn't know her way around a frying pan. Naturally.

Sure, I can handle the basics--fried eggs, grilled cheese, pancakes--but cooking a complete, age-appropriate meal with real ingredients? Yeah, that's another story. It isn't that I can't read recipes. The 'reading' isn't the problem; it's the 'adhering to' and occasional 'improvising with' that's so intimidating. Good recipes always seem to have complex steps, tiny pictures, and lots of obscure ingredients. Would you agree? To put it simply, cooking has always been overwhelming, and I've never really bothered to learn.

Until now! I've decided that enough is enough--it's time to roll up my sleeves, don my apron, and get my hands dirty. But where to begin?

Fortunately, I didn't have to look far for inspiration:

I found this gem at the Tri-State Antique Market in Lawrenceburg a few weekends ago. Published by Frigidaire in the 1940s, this booklet was designed with dozens of practical tips to maximize meager food rations and make efficient use of limited refrigerator space during wartime.

Take a look at the Foreword:

Shopping is done less frequently. Food for the weekend is purchased as early as Wednesday. People are buying 'variety meats' they never used before. Preparing foods they used to buy in cans. Making greater use of leftovers.

I don't know about you, but fast forward 70 years or so, and that still pretty much describes our household:
Grocery shopping less often? Check.
Storing food longer? Check.
Trying new ingredients? Check.
Preparing more fresh food? Check.
Using leftovers to help stretch our food budget? Check.

In addition to featuring some brilliant bits of nation-unifying rhetoric, this booklet showcases real advice from 'home economists, engineers, and service experts' to help folks do more with less. And you know what? I find that kind of ingenuity in the kitchen inspiring. For the first time, I'm EAGER to cook something! And for that, I dedicate this blog to those mid-century heroes who literally wrote the book(s) on simple, creative cooking. Thanks for the spark.

I also dedicate this blog to the mid-century aficionados out there. I share your admiration of solid wood furniture, your appreciation of original advertisements. What can I say? We're old souls.

And I dedicate this blog to you, dear friend. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll join me as I uncover some hidden treasures right here in my kitchen.

Engineering meets Home Ec? Heck yeah, this is gonna be good.