Being at home all the time is not much fun.
This does not mean I'm going to drive around sticking my maskless face out the window and screaming “MY ROOTS ARE SHOWING! GOVERNOR BAKER, OPEN THIS STATE!” at all and sundry. I'm well aware of the need for state lockdowns and the closure of essential industries, and I've been careful to wear a mask when I go outside. My roots are showing, at least around the gray streak at my part-line, but business as usual is simply not worth the risk. I've been bored before and will be bored again, and if I've blown through most of Rick Steves' Europe and Midsomer Murders over the last few weeks, well, there's some interesting true crime shows on Hulu to pass the hours when I'm not doing something else.
I've also finally gotten around to watching Picard, and holy warp nacelles, it is superb. Patrick Stewart is one of those actors who could recite his laundry list and still win an Emmy, and Michael Chabon's scripts are several orders of magnitude above Sir Patrick's wash-day favorites. Best Star Trek in ages, and I say that as someone who actually watched the second season premiere sitting on my father's lap.
(Note for the curious: that was the episode where Mr. Spock goes into heat and nearly chops Captain Kirk in half with a Vulcan battle axe during a mating frenzy. I did not understand any of that since I was only seven, but looking back on it as an adult I am stunned that they managed to get it made at all, let alone broadcast it early in the evening. Never let it be said that Gene Roddenberry wasn't a risktaker)
It's also been rather pleasant staying up later than usual and getting some extra sleep, taking walks around the neighborhood, and doing some serious handicrafts. I finished a sweater that I was expecting wouldn't be done until sometime this winter, made my minister a stole of foundation-pieced silks, and did enough research on the paper I'll be presenting at Kalamazoo next year that I'll be able to avoid the usual “OH MY GOD KALAMAZOO IS IN THREE WEEKS AND THIS PAPER REEEEEKS, I AM A TOTAL FRAUD KILL ME NOW LORD THIS IS HORRIBLE AIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE” frenzy that usually compels my bestie to drag me out of the house and walk me like a dog around the nearest mall until I calm down. I've caught up on my reading, gotten back into exercising, tried out new recipes, done more scratch cooking than I've done in years, and somehow managed to avoid running out of toilet paper, especially the Scott 1000-sheet rolls that last more than a day.
I'm especially proud of the cooking. I'm not a natural cook, nor do I particularly enjoy experimenting with foods, spices, techniques, and so on. I do manage to go through most of my farm share every summer, especially I've started splitting it with Beata and Hot Toddy, but if I didn't have to, I probably wouldn't. I'd rather read or knit or spend time with my friends than chop and simmer and season to taste, and then of course there's the endless dishwashing and spice rack stocking and veggie-squeezing to make sure I'm getting something fresh and....
In all seriousness? I am one of those women for whom the late, great Peg Bracken wrote the I Hate to Cook Book, which has a funny title and some silly recipes but is basically a manual for cooks who would rather be doing anything else. I enjoy a good meal as much as anyone, but actually making one is another matter entirely.
Of course this time I haven't had a choice. I have done my best not to spend unnecessarily, being unemployed, and most of the local eateries have either been closed or gone to delivery or curbside pickup only. I've picked up the occasional meal from the local Indian place or the pizza parlor owned by my neighbor across the street, and I've done my best to patronize only my local grocery store - I love my little town and its people, and I want my favorite shops and eateries to be there when the current crisis has passed – but that doesn't mean I've been particularly happy or content in the kitchen. There are only so many times one can cook the same dish before losing one's mind, and how my poor mother survived all those years of broiling my aunt Betty's steaks until they were “very very well done, burnt” without whacking Betty upside the head with a rolling pin I will never, ever know.
This is why tonight, I'm bringing you all some suggestions for new culinary treats, all allegedly edible, from the culinary wonderlands of Badbookistan.
Recipe Books So Bad They're Good are so plentiful that I could write a year's worth of diaries devoted entirely to them. I don't just mean the cheap little spiral-bound fundraising recipe collections for St. Chipton-in-le-Bogge’s restoration fund, either, the ones that preserve Mrs. Sopwith's Spicy Cuban-Style Perfection Salad or Mr. Diddlydoo's Vegan Polish-Thai Minestrone for the ages. There are way too many coffee table books of recipes written by famous caterers, chefs, bartenders, and bakers where the dishes turn out to require rare ingredients, specialized equipment, or tricky techniques that the average home cook can't get, doesn't own, or is unable to master. Worse, some are so beautifully photographed, so expensively produced, and on such rich, glossy paper that actually taking one into a kitchen and risking it getting wet, greasy, or stained seems almost criminal.
Fortunately for these diaries, Badbookistan is replete with Cookbooks So Bad They're Good that are neither too pretty nor too full of gelatin salads to be used. Tonight I bring you only one book, but it’s so unusual, with such fascinating recipes, that it’s worth a diary all to itself:
A Calendar of Dinners, with 615 Recipes, by Marion Harris Neil – this sweetly produced 1913 recipe book seems quite innocuous at first glance. Only fifty cents new, it includes a lovely frontispiece of a prosperous multi-generational family sitting down to dinner, complete with a lovely young married couple, an adorable little girl with a huge bow perched atop her neatly combed hair, and a boy whose name should be “Penrod” but probably isn't being served by a waitress with a frilly apron and a crisp white mob cap. There's even a smiling granny and a maiden aunt at one end of the table, a nice reminder of the days when families all lived snug and safe under a single roof, with none of those nasty modern things like over-55 communities or smart phones to disturb the evening meal.
The table of contents is equally innocent, with entries on how to carve various meats, sections devoted to various courses, and a “calendar of dinners” that lists enough unique menus to get through an entire year without forcing Mrs. Penrod (or more likely her cook, Selma) to repeat a single dish from the four page index. There's even a five page section devoted to vegetarian recipes, some of which could pass muster today (Bean Cutlets, which could easily be adapted to veggie burgers by a clever cook).
Better yet, all the recipes were tested by “Domestic Scientists,” better known today as Home Economists, so they were guaranteed to be nutritious, wholesome, and easy to prepare. Outside of a few recipes for shellfish, most of the dishes were even guaranteed to be kosher, which must have been a godsend to middle class Jewish families looking for a recipe book that didn't rely on treyf like lard or combinations of cheese and meat when cooking like their all-American neighbors.
So what makes this a Recipe Book So Bad It's Good?
It was published by Proctor & Gamble to showcase its exciting, innovative, all-vegetable cooking fat: Crisco.
Yes. Really.
The first clue that this charming little book might, just might be a hardcover advertising pamphlet comes with the endpapers, which are printed with delicate little pale gray illustrations of Crisco cans (some large, some small) and plates with big white heaps of the stuff piled on plates like mashed potatotes. The pretty frontispiece of the happy, healthy family is entitled “The story of CRISCO” even though the actual story of this amazing scientific discovery only comes after the index, list of recipes, and a one-page introduction that deserves to be quoted in full:
INTRODUCTION
The word “fat” is one of the most interesting in food chemistry. It is the great energy producer. John C. Olsen, A.M., Ph.D., in his book “Pure Food,” states that fats furnish half the total energy obtained by human beings from their food. The three primary, solid cooking fats today are:
Butter (illustrated by a stick thereof)
Lard (illustrated by a small metal bucket thereof)
Crisco (illustrated by the same fluffy potato-like heap in the endpapers)
There are numbers of substitutes for these, such as butterine, oleomargarine, and “lard compounds.”
The following pages contain a story of unusual interest to you. Because you eat.
The next dozen or so pages are devoted to the story of Crisco, which had only come on the market two years earlier. There's a picture of an earnest, bearded scientist peering at lard and butter through a microscope, another of the clean, hygienic, thoroughly modern production facility, and plenty of prose about how Crisco is a “rich, wholesome cream of nutritious food oils in sanitary tins.” There's even a statement from one “Rabbi Margolies of New York” that “the Hebrew Race ha[s] been waiting 4,000 years for Crisco,” who liked Crisco enough to join “Rabbi Lifsitz of Cincinnati” in approving “special Kosher packages” of Crisco even though every single package of the stuff was made the same way from the same ingredients.
Then it's on to the recipes, and as one might guess, every single one includes Crisco as a substitute for every imaginable fat. Croquettes are fried in melted Crisco, pie crusts are cut with Crisco, and icings for even the most elaborate sweets are beaten with Crisco instead of butter. The introduction does concede that some people might prefer the taste of butter, but insists that shelf-stable Crisco is so much more economical than any other fat that a wise housewife will of course pick up a tub instead of heat-vulnerable butter.
As for the recipes themselves...speaking as the daughter of a woman who used Crisco in her pie crusts, I can testify to how flaky and light baked goods made with the wholesome cream of nutritious food oils can be. However, a pie crust is one thing. For a true taste of the offerings in this amazing little book, though, you can't do better than the following recipes, all of which I've presented as written.
Let's start with this salad, which is a real turn of the century yum-yum:
Orange and Tomato Salad
3 tablespoons melted Crisco
4 tomatoes
4 oranges
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Tarragon vinegar
Salt
Peel oranges and tomatoes, and arrange slices alternately in salad bowl. Mix juice squeezed from “tops and bottoms” of oranges with an equal quantity of tarragon vinegar, add Crisco and salt to taste. Pour over fruit and sprinkle chopped parsley on top.
Doesn’t that sound like a perfect summertime refreshment?
Another choice might be this dainty confection, which could just as easily do for a luncheon meeting of the local WCTU, YWCA, or Steering Committe of the Sophonisba Stepford Home for Young Hussies and Trollops:
Daisy Salad
Arrange around border of salad plates a row of crispy lettuce leaves, and in the center put a tablespoon of dressing. This makes center of daisy. Around this put petals made by cutting into narrow strips of hard-cooked eggs. Take yolks of eggs and put through strainer, scattering over dressing in center to give a rough appearance. This will require about five hard-cooked eggs.
The dressing for the center is made as follows: Beat together 3 eggs, add to them 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons vinegar, ½ teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons Crisco, 2 teaspoons mustard mixed to paste with 2 teaspoons water, and pepper to taste. Bring to boiling point.
Boiling dressing appearing roughly! Who could ask for more?
As toothsome as these treats may be, however, a main meal must be hearty, especially if the menfolk are to be happy. In cool months, this hearty main dish would be more than sufficient, especially for a nice Sunday night supper:
Oyster Shortcake
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
1 quart oysters
½ cup Crisco
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ cup cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix flour, baking powder, and salt, then sift twice, work in Crisco with tips of fingers, add milk gradually. The dough should be just soft enough to handle. Toss on floured baking board, divide into two parts, pat lightly and roll out. Place in two shallow Criscoed cake tins and bake in quick oven fifteen minutes. Spread them with butter. Moisten cornstarch with cream, put into pan with oysters and seasonings and make very hot. Allow to cook for a few minutes then pour half over one crust, place other crust on top and pour over rest of oysters. Serve at once.
Sufficient for one large shortcake.
Whipped cream optional, I assume.
If this sounds too bland and conventional for modern palates used to Asian, Latin, and African cuisine, fear not! Domestic Scientists have adapted a South of the Border favorite just for you!
Fried Chicken, Mexican Style, with Corn Croquettes
For the chicken:
1 tender chicken
Salt and pepper to taste
1 glove garlic
1 seeded green pepper
2 large tomatoes
5 tablespoons Crisco
Draw, wash, and dry chicken, then cut into neat joints, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat Crisco in frying pan, add clove of garlic and pepper cut in small pieces. When garlic turns brown rake out, put chicken in, fry until brown, then cover closely, allow to simmer until ready. A short time before covering chicken, add tomatoes peeled and cut in small pieces.
For the croquettes:
2 tablespoons Crisco
1 can or 14 ears corn
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
½ teaspoon sugar
Pepper and salt to taste
1 egg
Breadcrumbs
Drain liquor from can of corn, or grate ears, and chop kernels fine. Blend Crisco and flour together in pan over five, add milk, stir till boiling and cook five minutes, stirring all the time, add seasonings, and corn, cook five minutes, then allow to cool. When cold, form lightly with floured hands into neat croquettes, brush over with beaten egg, toss in crumbs and fry in hot Crisco to a golden brown. Drain. Place chicken on hot platter, garnish with croquettes and serve hot.
Provecho!
And for a toothsome finale, try either this savory vegetarian concoction:
Devilled Bananas
2 tablespoons Crisco
8 bananas
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chopped pickles
Few grains red pepper, or one dessert spoonful of chopped chillies
Slice bananas, mix with salt, chopped pickles and red pepper or chopped chillies and put them into hot Crisco. Cook for four minutes and serve.
Sufficient for eight bananas.
A modern food blogger made it and liked it, so it must be good!
Or this wholesome cake, so reminiscent of endless summer days in the country, with lowing cows, baaing sheep, and the sweet perfume of damask roses floating up from the side yard in the evening cool:
Rose Leaf Cake
1 cup rose leaves
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
½ cup Crisco
3 eggs
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 lemon
½ teaspoon salt
Cream Crisco and sugar thoroughly together, then add eggs well beaten, flour, baking powder, salt, milk, grated rind and 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and fresh rose leaves. Divide into Criscoed and floured gem pans and bake in moderate oven from twelve to fifteen minutes.
Sufficient for thirty-five cakes.
Doesn’t that sound just delicious? And fragrant?
These are only a tiny fraction of the 615 dishes presented by Marion Harris Neil on behalf of Proctor & Gamble's clean, sanitary, ultra-modern wonder fat. Breads, scones, biscuits, omelets, roast duckling and Bakewell tarts and baked macaroni and porterhouse steak, even asparagus soup and molasses candy – they're all here, ready to sampled by adventurous cooks eager to recreate the foods of yesteryear for today's diners with a little help from Crisco, the rich, wholesome cream of nutritious food oils. What could possibly go wrong?
For remember: it’s all because you eat.
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Have you ever used Crisco except for shortening? Seen anything resembling a corn croquette at your local taqueria? Savored the goodness of bananas fried with pickles and chopped chillies? Dropped a handful of fresh rose leaves into a cake? De gustibus non disputandem est, as they say, so don't be shy....
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