I’m so glad that the floors are done and now it’s time to clean up all the dust off of everything and really get down to packing!

But before I do, I found a few more vintage cookbook images.

I think these are called Hurry Up Ham Puffs because after you eat one you have to hurry up to the bathroom.

Hey Billy, would you stop trying to give your saucy franks to your sister.  There are laws against that!  (And yes, Saucy Franks is the name of the recipe that’s pictured.  I’m wondering if they named the recipe the chef’s bachelor party in Vegas.)

These are Cherry Sauced Ham Balls.  I’m pretty sure there was a kid I went to school with that we nicknamed Ham Balls and it wasn’t because he had these for lunch everyday.  Cherry Sauced Ham Balls sounds like yet another STD.   What is wit the names of the recipes from the 50s – late 70s all sounding like STDs?

And finally, my personal favorite…

I had a friend who would ocassionally use the term “crap sandwich.”  This is pretty much what I pictured when he would say “crap sandwich.”  I can only assume that the red stuff on the top of the crap sandwich could only be red magic aka ketchup.  I mean really… what else besides red magic would make a crap sandwich palatable.

Anyhootie…

I always do a quick spin thru the cookbook section of my Goodwill store. And Goodwill did not disappoint.  So here’s a few more gems to add to the collection.

When I’m travelling thru Arizona and New Mexico in the middle of summer when the heat is oppressive, I like to take my trusty bbq grill out and “air her out.”  Then I throw some meat and veg on the grill to alert all the wild, hungry and meat eating animals within  a 100 mile radius that I’m alone… with meat.

This tasty recipe is called Hocks ‘ Kraut with apple.  I’m not sure about you, but when I’m really hungry, I crave pig knuckles and fermented cabbage.  Nothing gets the gases flowing quite like this meal.

I think this might have been a misplaced photo.  It looks like it should have gone into a book about biological experiements gone wrong.

“I think my mom’s hittin’ the sauce again.  I found this crazy crab claw and baked beans in a bisquit in my lunchbox.”

If these are fancy franks, I don’t want to see what the down and out franks look like.  This book, The Better Homes and Garden Meat Cook Book from 1972, boasts a short chapter on Frankfurters.  Technically, I’m not sure they’re meat, but I’ll let it slide.  This chapters has several tantalizing recipes as Wiener Heights, Jiffy Cheesefurters, Deviled Hot Dogs, Frank ‘n Corn Crown, Wiener Winks (I don’t even know where to begin with that one) and my personal favorite Wiener Doubles.  I haven’t really read the recipe for Wiener Doubles, but I believe it involves a viagra pill.  Wait, that might be Wiener Heights.

“Damn it!  I dropped the damn ham while crossing the lawn to the picnic tables.  I’ll just tell that that green stuff is parsley.  They’ll never know.  Bobby, get mommy another hi-ball I can’t walk a straight line yet.”

I don’t know what’s more offensive – the ham itself or the fact that there’s an illustration of a plantation behind it.

Mom, I’d like to talk to you about the minimal amount of plating you did for me and dad when it was dinner time.  The way something looks on the plate definitely can make or break the dinner.  I mean, you could have dressed things up a bit.  For example:

Doesn’t that ham look even more mouth watering with a Monet inspired mural on it and then surrounded by daisies.  Or what about this one -

Perhaps if you had piped a little cream cheese on the ham as it was resting and then fashioned a doily cannon explosion out it’s back end, dad and I would have been more willing to do the dishes.  A little effort would have been nice, that’s all I’m trying to say.

And finally,

This is what I like to call the Meat Monster.  It’s like the swamp thing meets luncheon meats and olives.  I joke about this one, but it’s a dual purpose dish.  Everything is toothpicked to a large cucumber.  So this dish can go from a polite, grandma friendly bridal shower to  a really raunchy bachelorette party.

On today’s menu, a mold pimento loaf and some grass in jello!

I’ve got two for this one – the standard – Nice Rack Bob!  And,  it’s like he’s back in high school… he got a little too excited for no real reason and now he’s using the ribs to hide his, er… um… excitement.

I’m not sure if this is an appetizer, main course or dessert, but I can tell you one thing – I will never eat anything that looks like a baboon’s ass.  It’s just a rule I have.

“Hey kids, while mommy was whipping up her favorite drink, bourbon with a whiskey chaser, I made you all some sundaes to make up for the other mistakes.  Let mommy just light her cigarette and I’ll  bring them out… Holy shit!  The sundaes are on fire!  Goddammit!  I am done with this housewife shit!  We’re getting someone in here to do this crap for me!”

cas

I’m so glad – radishes, hard boiled eggs, olives and cat food.  A perfect meal in under $2!

I’m pretty sure I’ve fished something like this out of my cat’s litter box, it just hasn’t been presented to me as nicely as pictured above.

I would like to lodge a complaint with my mother… Why did I never have toast like this?

I was lucky if it was uniformly browned or burnt.  I didn’t get any fancy designs in my toast.

The quote under this one read “Party going casserole – with bells on!”

“what up Bro!  Where da’ casserole at?  You know it ain’t a party til Casserole is here!”

The bells refer to the rolled up salami with, and I quote (because I could not make this up) “parsley clappers.”

“Yo, Bill.  Don’t get to close to Casserole, he’s got the parsley clappers.  I think he got it from the whore Carla.  You know she was in Cabo last week…”

When did rolling up salami and sticking some parsely become haute couture for your casserole?  I seem to remember rolling up lunchmeats when I was a kid.  Maybe I was a savant?  A garnish savant…

If the Beaner Weiner was a hit,, why not try the Veinna Egg-Salad sammie.

Last time I checked, egg salad did not involve Vienna sausages.  I wonder how the men of Vienna feel about Vienna sausages being the smallest sausages around?  I mean, according to this photo the wieners fit width-wise accross a piece of french bread.  That’s not good.

And who doesn’t like a nice Tuna Salad…

and by Tuna salad I mean, just dump a can of flake tuna in the center of yet another jello mold filled with grass shaving and other things that even a rodent would eat.  If historians from 100/200 years from now, find these cooks books, I’m sure they’ll come to a couple of conclusions.

1 – there was a huge jello mold surplus in the 1960s.

2 – gelatin was the way to try and pass off bad food as “fun”

3 – the combo of wieners and pickles was unbeatable.

First I’m going to start with food.

I’m going to preface this by saying, I remember some of these crazy recipes from my mom’s old cookbooks.  I was facinated with all the stuff that people suspended in jello.  I always wanted to make these recipes.  I knew I never wanted to eat them.  I just knew I wanted to make them.  With that, it’s on to the first item:

I think I found how the obesity epidemic started.  It’s was with this ad.

I usually like to follow my corn syrup toast with a shot of wheat grass and msg followed by a bacon grease chaser.  If I can’t start my day that way, then there’s no sense in getting out of bed.

Our next item is the lovely green pea salad.

As far as I’m concerned a salad should not “wiggle” and you sure as hell should not have to cut a slice of salad out.   I’m assuming that’s vodka or gin in those glasses because you’d have to be half in the bag in order to eat that.  And don’t even get me started on the stuff in the background.  Georgia O’Keefe is blushing at the innuendo.

This next one I can only call “the hair nipple.”  I don’t think I need to say anything else.

I’m now a huge fan of Mad Men.  And I wish I were a fly on the wall back when they came up with this little ad campaign.

It’s ketchup. There’s nothing magical about watered down tomatoes and a whole lot of sugar.  Red Magic sounds like some new illegal drug or an STD.  “Did you hear about Ginny?  She’s got the red magic.   She got it from using a public toilet.  Now no one is gonna want to go steady with her.”  Somehow I think the creole people need to be given more credit.  I don’t think that frying up some sausage and covering it in “red magic” is something they want to take credit for.

Hey McDonalds!  If you want to keep me as a loyal fan of the chicken nugget, maybe you should dress ‘em up a bit.  Maybe it’ll class the joint up a bit.

This next one makes me feel a little dirty.

I just have this horrible image of June Cleaver in the kitchen swearing like a sailor on shore leave trying to tie this babies in a knot.  And what in god’s name is coming out of the ends of those wieners?  I’ve gotta move on, or I’m gonna have to take a crying game shower.

This one is one that probably has “surprise” in the name.

“OK kids!  Gather round.  We’re gonna have cake!  Oh wait… it’s tuna and rice.  Sorry.  Mommy needs another cocktail.”  I have to ask, what the hell is that white “frosting?”  Please tell me that’s mayo.

Apparently we weren’t getting enough protein in our diets.  I present the veal cutlet with bacon and an egg.  I’m assuming that red sauce on the top could only be one thing – red magic.

This next one is from a Good Housekeeping magazine.  And the article was about Hamburgers around the world.  This one was from Denmark.  Why hasn’t someone taken over their country?  This proves they have no right to be left to their own devices.

Let’s be honest, that’s just one large meatball covered in cabbage.  No one wants that.

And speaking of meatballs…

No self respecting restaurant is going to put “meatball yummies” on their menu.  “Bob and I went to that new 5 star Zagats rated restaurant.  Well, we started with a bottle of merlot and an order of meatball yummies.  I swear, you take one bite and you’d think you’d died and gone to heaven!”  Again, who’s the marketing whiz kid who thought up the name “meatball Yummies.”  Again, it sounds like an STD.  “Did you hear about Ronny?  He went to Cabo for spring break and came back with a case of meatball yummies.”

I’ve saved my favorite for last.

It’s called the Broiler Bean-er Wiener.  I call it an ad for Beano.  Or for Poof!  There is something seriously wrong with this dish.  From what I can tell it’s french bread (or if you want to get fancy, say company’s coming over… perhaps the husband’s boss) garlic bread, baked beans, cocktail wienies – cut in half length wise (that’s an important step.  You can’t go any other way.  It ruins the look), squirt in a little yellow mustard (again, if the husband’s boss is coming over I guess you could class it up with some brown mustard, but I feel it would take away from the taste of the pickles. But that’s just me), and some pickles – again, cut in half length wise.   Now that I’ve typed this all out, it sounds delicious.  And it could be an eco-friendly way to heat the house.  All that gas after eating this thing should be able to heat a house of the size of the Spelling Mansion.  You could probably kill someone if your tried to dutch oven them after eating that.

Again, I just want to thank Miss Retro Modern for these images.  I can’t thank you enough.  You made my Tuesday.  Also, if you click on the photos, it takes you to their original Miss retro Modern post.  It’s worth going back and clicking on them just to read the comments that other people had.