Posted on 11/30/2020 11:56:49 AM PST by mylife
There was a time when bananas were considered a perfectly reasonable option for a dish’s main component. Food in loaf form was also popular. Cookbooks with names like McCall’s Great American Recipe Card Collection and Betty Crocker’s Dinner in a Dish Cookbook trotted these dishes out as quick and easy ways to feed your family and impress your guests, and similar recipes were also featured in magazines like Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens.
We’re not sure if dishes like these were all some sort of prank orchestrated by the editors of these magazines, or whether Betty Crocker and Better Homes were getting serious kickbacks from the mayonnaise, gelatin, and banana industries. But believe it or not, everything here was published with complete sincerity, and, presumably, some people actually cooked these recipes and fed them to their families or friends.
Here are 17 recipes from the 1971 Betty Crocker card catalogue, a collection of dishes we should be glad we’ll (most likely) never be forced to eat.
Yeah buddy....
My dad did engine dinners sometime. Beef, potatoes, onions & carrots in many wraps of foil, tucked on top of the engine, when we did the hours-long drives up north (e-way was still being built, so two-lane state roads to get there).
We’d start smelling it after a couple hours.
You may not get up from the table until you eat that last (damn) lima bean!!
[[[[I remember when cheese fondue was the in thing.]]]]
They were all taken up by the “Yubabangi Relief” movement back then.
A lot of people sent them their fondue sets. They didn’t want the sterno though.
I was served Fonduloha, fruits, cottage cheese and shredded Mozzarella only. It isn’t half bad for a lite meal. There are lots of fruits you can use in it. No need for chicken salad or tuna.
https://www.liveabout.com/gross-old-fashioned-recipes-4153470
I like to visualize whirled peas as they are going down the disposal.
[[[Also, she’s such a good cook that the only reason we ever go out to eat is to give her a break.]]]
LOL, I’ll bet you she deconstructs and critiques the dinner too.
What you listed was more typical of our household growing up - not this fancy stuff in the article! Once in a while during the summer I’ll get two small steaks for my wife and I to grill up.
Every time I think back to growing up, where mom would get one(?) chunk of beef and the kids and her would get 3 slices of it (6”x 1” x 1/3” or so), and the old man would get 4 or 5 slices.
But then filled up on potatoes and vegetables. We never went hungry.
Welcome to my childhood LOL
I still can’t abide lima beans.
I have the 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook inherited from my mother; my favorite page is the one where it discusses the "new" addition to American cuisine, the pizza pie...
It has to be better than Poi.
We had all you listed. Plus, what seemed like lots of fried smelt (cheap protein, I expect). Liver & onions.
I was actually jealous of the kids who brought bologna sandwiches to school for lunch; we usually just had a slice of cheese with some mayo and mustard on the bread. I thought the kids with MEAT on their sandwiches were from the “rich” families.
When we were poor in those days fried spam sandwich wasn’t too bad:-)
We started having meat, like you describe, after my mom married my stepfather. He insisted we have more meat. It would often be a fairly thin steak (lots of surface area), cooked under the broiler, and divided up as you described.
“Smelts, they are cheaper than squid” ;)
I still liked fried spam but it aint cheap anymore.
Braunschweiger on white with mayo. Every now and then, gotta have it. Spouse says, “Eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww.”
Sounds really good. I am copying and pasting to my wife who is the cook in the family! :-)
I remember the Ham and Lima C rations.
A tiny chunk of ham fat and four of the largest
lima beans ever grown.
Some people liked them, I always shied away and tried
to get the pork steak or ham loaf.
Imagine, limas bigger than your thumb!!!
Put some onions on mine ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.