1970s foods: fun with franks, puns with penises

Immediate confession: There will be no penises in this post. Nor will there be puns, because all my wit and humor drained out of my body from fear when I saw this recipe card:



There are so many levels of disgusting in this picture that my eyes can't decide where -- if anywhere -- to land on this photo. The split wieners? The stuff oozing out of them? The forks and toothpicks jabbed in willy-nilly? Take your pick, it's all here, a nightmare-like Lynchian horror show. What's worse is that there is an unpictured recipe on the back called "Glazed Franks." Glazed. Franks. Wieners that have been made to look wet and shiny.



Ah, now here's something we've all wanted for dinner: Food made from a recipe with the words "Tuck" and "Loaf" in the title. (Please leave your "tuck game" jokes at the door. Thank you. -- Mgmt.)



This is meatloaf stuffed and topped with hard boiled eggs. In this photo, the sliced eggs on top blend in with the eggs inside the loaf and it took me a while to realize there were eggs inside. And nothing says classy like setting a meatloaf on top of 5 lbs of lukewarm frozen peas.

Recipe here with a bonus recipe called "Tuck Away Baby Beefies." I am not funny enough to make this shit up.


Ladies' Seafood Thermidor:


Oh my god that is sick. I swear to you that I have not adjusted the colors on this card. This card isn't particularly discolored from age, either, you can tell from the white border. The food is supposed to be that color. I just can't with this, you guys. Recipe here, although I don't think you can find condensed cream of shrimp soup anymore. And who would waste lobster on this pinkish-brown globbity goo?



Now this is just sad.


"Twirlin' Turkey for a Crowd" is a phrase that will stick in your head for a week, especially if you've ever had too much to drink and started twirlin' your turkey in a crowd. While your best frenemy catches it on her cell phone and uploads it to YouTube while you're passed out after your 16th shot of butterscotch schnapps, and in the morning you don't remember exactly what happened, all you know is that there are a few dozen messages on your voice mail, most expressing various levels of disgust, but there's a couple of proposals in there, too, and... ahem. Moving on. All this "recipe" consists of is (1) turkey, (2) salt and pepper, and (3) melted butter. But check out this crazy shit in the background:


It's a glass of iced tea sitting on a daisy. A huge damn fucking mutant daisy with the strength of a circus freak! RUN!


This is one of the best photos on the cards:


But "Tres Chic Pic-Nique"?! I am embarrassed for everyone involved in the creation of this card.



At first I thought this was ridiculously offensive, then I remembered that when I was a little kid in the mid- to late-1970s, hobos were the bomb. I read books about hobos, especially hobos that took trains, and The Boxcar Children was one of my special favorites. I owned a Boxcar Willie album and one year I dressed up as a hobo for Halloween, complete with rope for suspenders. The proof is here! The picture is from 1981 and I still have that end table and the chair, I'm sitting between them right now! Anyway, in regards to hoboness, it would be hypocritical of me to go off on the tastelessness of this recipe card...


...especially since it tells you how to make a "hobo dinner" and dessert -- called a "Shaggy Dog" -- in a coffee can over a grill. That. Is. Awesome.


Less awesome is the unfortunate name given to this recipe, which includes 2 cans of "boned chicken." You can buy chicken with bones in cans? Really?

I'm always up for a campsite quickie, though.


And finally, we're back where we started:


Hot Germans, you say? Men's Favorites, you say? Sigh. I miss Jack.

This is Part II of a very special episode of technoknob about 1970s foods. Tune in tomorrow for Part III: Putting the 'Duh' in Dessert.

1970s foods: deliciousness optional

A year and a half ago on my old LiveJournal account, I mentioned a set of My Great Recipe cards that I got from mom's house after she died. These cards were either given out or sold by the Betty Crocker company, which becomes obvious once you realize every recipe calls for at least one pre-fab box of Betty Crocker product. Also, the cards say "The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library." I'm all researchy like that.


Several cards were labeled as "Ways With..." and many used "'n" instead of "and". You know, to be hip and fun. This one uses both, which just drives me up the wall. Recipe scan here.

Mom's cards are apparently from 1971, with a few more added in 1984. We had the big custom made box that held all these cards, as well as the dividers and example menus. Mom even added a few other cards and her own recipes, and the numbers/letters written in the upper right hand corners were part of her own organizational system. The one that the cards came with just wasn't good enough for her, oh no.

My god, the things we ate in the '70s. These cards have an entire section devoted to fondues. That's plural, as in more than one fondue, which means great lengths were taken to create new and different fondue recipes:






A delicious, cheesy combination of ground up kitchens and teenagers.


Notice that the fondue is "Mock Fondue", meaning it's suitable for teens because doesn't have wine in it. Then they follow that recipe with a "Psychedelic Fondue" -- nothing says "acid trip" like melted cheese! Odd that the corporate minds of Betty Crocker felt a half cup of cooked wine in a teen dish was a bad idea, but the "psychedelic" drug reference was fine.

Another section was called "Men's Favorites". One of the salads in that section was an entire huge steak, sliced thin and placed on top of a single leaf of lettuce with a couple of rings of green pepper for garnish. The Man Salad looks delicious, but it is not a salad.

Speaking of Man Food:



This is a Man Drink. It is canned beef broth with horseradish and dill weed, heated and served in a glass. It is called "Pow!" It is to be paired with Rumaki, which I discovered today is chicken liver marinated in a soy-and-ketchup sauce:




As one would expect, these cards contained some really disgusting gelatin salads.


Jellied. Chicken. Two words that have no damn business being in the same sentence. Protip: Pink food is not appetizing. Scan of recipe here.

The funniest was this huge orange salad with carrots in it and slopped into an enormous rhinoceros mold. I stared at this picture for 5 fucking hours until I figured out what it was.



Seriously, how much pot must be consumed for someone to decide that what a standard molded Jell-O recipe really needs to make it fresh is a rhinoceros mold? Recipe here, but it's just Jell-O with carrots and pineapple in it. I hope no one paid for this "recipe."

And things just get weirder from there. For example, someone thought the name "Crusty Salmon Shortcakes" sounded good, and then went out into the world to find the worst professional food photographer in existence to illustrate the deliciousness:




It's pink, it's "crusty," it's got olives jammed into it. And it's paired with the weirdest fucking green nobbly shit I've ever seen in my life, I mean goddamn that's bizarre. Want to make dinner for someone you wish to emotionally destroy? Get your Crusty Salmon recipe here.




OH MY GOD IT'S STARING AT ME FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuu

This has been Part I of a hard-hitting expose on food. Tune in tomorrow for Part II: Fun With Franks, Pun With Penises.

i'm only here to help

Useful and educational. From lesmy on tumblr.

things are fun

I've been having fun lately finding props and outfits that were used in more than one movie. Today milesadrift has a great example on her tumblr blog:



Above, Lucy, Desi, and a teeny tiny James Mason in "Forever, Darling" (1956). Apparently, Lucy got to keep some of her wardrobe from the film:




It's the same dress, only instead of the Auntie Mame-style coat dress worn over slacks, it's been shortened and the skirt sewn together. Neat.

gah

When you see it, you'll shit bricks. From awkwardfamilyphotos.

everyone loves the stang

I've been given to believe that one of you likes the Arnold Stang.

water sports

From sloth unleashed. The guy is playing with a Tomy Waterfuls Ring Toss toy. I know, because I had one just like it. Looks like he's doing pretty well, too.

That 18-inch long thing on the coffee table in front of him is apparently an ash tray. People may have smoked a lot in the 1970s. I'm just speculatin' here.