Mamie's Million Dollar Fudge

This entry was written when Dwight D. Eisenhower was President. Come back tomorrow to see what Tricky Dick's wife was up to while Mamie made fudge.

Mrs. Eisenhower has never made any pretense at being a cook. But like most people with no flair for food, she has impractical specialties. Hers are fudge and mayonnaise. Fudge is still one of her favorites and this family recipe is popular at the White House.

Million Dollar Fudge

Boil six minutes:

4 1/2 cups of sugar

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons butter

1 tall can evaporated milk

Put in large bowl:

12 ounces semi sweet chocolate (chocolate bits)

12 ounces German sweet chocolate

1 pint marshmallow cream (2 jars)

2 cups nutmeats

Pour boiling syrup over ingredients in bowl: beat until chocolate isa ll melted, and pour in pan. Let stand a few hours before cutting. Store in tin box.

Cheesy Tuna to Tame that Man-Child Brute

Here's the last entry I'll be posting from Who Says We Can't Cook!, this one filled with savvy advice for today's modern miss and would-be fascinator.

"It is wisdom as old as the hills that the way to get along with a man-child is to feed the brute," Mary Haworth advises readers of our WNPC cook book. "Lots of famous fascinators can't cook but I am convinced that nothing gives a woman greater self-confidence as a woman than the ability to cook well."

Analyzing females and foods, she believes "The womanly woman has a congenital urge to cook well. She cooks to please her man almost as instinctively as the vamp powders her nose."

And, as a final warning, Mary points out, "The lovable woman is a nurturing woman and men don't leave them because 'you can't hardly get them kind no more'."

Her preferred Lenten dish, good any Friday, and heavy enough to please the most masculine appetite is:

Tuna and Mushrooms with Cheese Sauce

Wash and slice 1 3/4 pounds fresh mushrooms and saute in butter or margarine 5 minutes. (Or use canned button mushrooms instead--4 or 5 small cans well drained.) Get approximately 3 pounds white canned tuna, drain off oil and break or cut into fairly large bite-size pieces.

To make the sauce, melt 1/4 pound butter or margarine, blend in 10 tablespoons flour and cook two minutes, stirring constantly. Add to 5 cups heated milk, tablespoon Ac'cent, 1/4 teaspoon saffron, and 2/3 pound very sharp cheese cut into small pieces. If you like, substitute 2/3 cup of sherry for 2/3 cup mil. Cook, stirring constantly, until cheese has melted and the sauce begins to bubble.

Add tuna and mushrooms to sauce. Now season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Serve in chafing dish or casserole. This serves 13, so reduce ingredients proportionately for smaller number. Incidentally, the saffron makes the dish.

One more reason to make a muffin

A friend from my writing group brought homemade chocolate chip cookies to our meeting last night, saying they were a coping mechanism for managing the stress of egg prices, airplane crashes, and global unrest. In truth, we all looked a bit puffier than we did a few months ago. Food is so often a source of solace.

I'm not much of a baker, but there's something deeply satisfying about mixing up a dough or a batter, popping it in the oven, smelling the smells, and then biting into the warm rewards of those efforts. Our home is currently low-carb for health reasons, so defaulting to an afternoon of baking is more challenging now. 

As an alternative, I went on a hunt for vintage political cookbooks, but the results were disappointing. I did however stumble down a rabbit hole which I'll now invite you to enter: an explanation for why baking is such a comfort.

There are a ton of these little guys wafting around the internet. Most follow this model; a vintage kitchen with a female in period garb looking varyingly happy or deranged. Here are a few more examples.

But a few took a different spin, featuring gadgets, hedgehogs, sloths, and an unsurprising clutter of cats.

I didn't find the cookbooks I was looking for today, but I did discover these treasures, proving the paraphrased wisdom of the prophet McJagger:

One can't always get what one wants (like eating the rich), but one often finds that one does receive what one needs.

Ta-ta for now, I'm off to buy some flour.

Cookbook of the week for April 2, 2021: Quick and Easy Meals for Two (1952)

The cookbook of the week for April 2, 2021 was this little cutie, Quick and Easy Meals for Two, published in 1952! Here's our kickoff video for it:

The title page offers a preview of the adorable illustrations. Animals are always happy to be consumed in old cookbooks.

Each section opens with an illustration like this one, in which the woman apparently has an actual menu board in her home and yet tries to convince us menu planning is easy.

The whole book is structured around the idea of menus, which is actually kind of handy. And several sections are organized by season, featuring what's fresh during that time of year. Here we are, thinking about summer, for example:

The idea of crunchy devilled eggs confused me slightly. Here's the recipe, which was significantly less bad than it could have been.

So, what are we having for dinner?

Let's start with salad. This one seems like a LOT of work.

Maybe just an easy tossed salad instead. With a special home-enhanced dressing.

Or if you prefer, we can go straight to dessert. For once you can eat with your fingers. Sort of.

I'm always leery of recipes including baby food, but what do I know?

This actually sounds straight-up delicious.

The book offers helpful tips for those who are just starting out in the kitchen.

Like this tip for feeding men wieners.

Can't speak for good old boys, but I'd eat this!

Is this one man-friendly? Cabbagey chili with plops of mashed potatoes?

There's a section for what I call "desperation dinners."

Luckily, I rarely get THIS desperate:

Happy hubby seems to like what he sees in this opener to the appetizer section:

Here's one reason why:

Wondering if these dishes end up being a mood killer though:

If all else fails, put on a pretty apron, and let your pressure cooker sing you a happy tune.

Quick and Easy Meals for Two is a lovely, fun little book, and a great addition to any cookbook collection. 

 

Magical Tricks with Flavor!

I just discovered a goldmine! The Minute Rice website offers a collection of vintage recipes, including this one, which I thought was appropriate given the holiday season:

Recipes on the ads include such beauties as Thrifty Drumstick Surprise (made with hamburger), Minute Rice and Tuna Treat, and Hot Diggity Stew.

Yes. I said it. Hot Diggity Stew. 

That's where the magic happens.

Spry! Best Wedding Gift Ever!

Spry Pure Vegetable Shortening did an amazing job with marketing during the mid 1930s through the mid 1950s. They created a character named Aunt Jenny who appeared in print advertisements and hosted a radio show/soap opera.

(In this case, I guess it would be called a shortening opera.)

DiDi found for me a trippy old recipe booklet called Aunt Jenny's Favorite Recipes which of course all demand Spry.

Check out the front cover:

That handsome fella with his arm around Jenny is the ever dashing DH Calvin. For some reason, he's not referred to as "Uncle", which makes me question the nature of their relationship.

The back cover is equally fun.

The book is filled with techniques and tips for the aspiring homemaker. The back cover tips you off that Jenny likes to help newlyweds.

Who wouldn't want a paper advertocookbooklet and an economy sized can of shortening as a wedding present!

Ain't Spry grand?

Hot Gazpacho à la Alice B. Toklas

I've been reading The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book which I bought a few months ago at an estate sale. I thought the title sounded familiar, but had no idea what I was actually buying.

The book is a fascinating memoir about Alice's life as friend, lover, and aide-de-camp to Gertrude Stein. Each chapter centers around a set of their adventures, transporting medical supplies during war time, wrangling persnickety vehicles named Aunt Pauline and Godiva, and traveling here and there around the Continent and elsewhere. All the stories conclude with a description of a meal they ate on these travels, along with a recipe or two.

There are many interesting things about the book. Alice always refers to her companion as "Gertrude Stein", never as merely Gertrude. Use of punctuation is spotty. Questions are often ended with periods rather than question marks. Recipes are introduced in the middle of sentences. Names like Picasso are dropped in the midst of stories about friends and acquaintances.

I'm not sure how many of the recipes I'll include in this blog. It tends not to be my style of cooking. Most of it is very French, both literally and by my own use of the term, meaning: multi-stepped and fussy. But I did want to include this passage on gazpacho. It concludes a chapter on variations of this cold soup, and was added as a sort of epilogue. She writes:

Senora Marta Brunet, a distinguished Chilean writer, is of Spanish or rather Catalan descent and she describes gazpacho as a meal of the Spanish muleteers. And meal it seems, in this version, rather than soup. These muleteers, she says, carry with them on their journeyings a flat earthenware dish--and garlic, olive, oil, tomatoes and cucumbers, also dry bread which they crumble. Between two stones by the wayside they grind the garlic with a little salt and then add the oil. This mixture is rubbed all round the inside of the earthenware vessel. Then they slice the tomatoes and cucumbers and put alternating layers of each in the dish, interspersing the layers with layers of breadcrumbs and topping off the four tiers with more breadcrubms and more oil. This done and prepared, they take a wet cloth, wrap it round the dish and leave it in a sunny place. The evaporation cooks the contents and when the cloth is dry the meal is ready. Too simple, my dear Watson.

Now I don't claim to be a scientist of any kind. Brain or otherwise. But my understanding of the evaporation process is that it cools, rather than heats. A quick googling confirmed that, and led me to an interesting link about a self-cooling Spanish clay water vessel called a Botijo.

So that leaves me wondering if the word "cooks" in the passage was a typo inflicted during the publishing process, or if Alice simply got the story wrong.

Interesting, no?

This little book is a priceless window into a particular era, social milieu, and personality. Definitely worth the read.

Broiled Fish with Bacon-Grease-Slathered Bananas

Continuing with the bacon thing, here's a recipe sure to please seafood lovers, bacon lovers, and lovers of all things sunny and fruity. It comes from a 1958 Cookindex recipe card, published by Tested Recipe Institute, Inc.

Shad Tropicana

Select a shad weighing about 4 pounds. Have the fish dealer split and bone it. Wash fish thoroughly and pat dry with paper towels. Place the split, boned shad on a well-greased broiler pan. Brush the fish with melted butter or margarine and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Broil fish, 3 to 5 inches from the heat, without turning, 8 to 10minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Halve 3 slices of bacon. Fry bacon strips in a skillet until crisp. Drain bacon well on paper towel; keep warm. Peel and slice 2 medium-size bananas; dip slices in bacon fat. About 2 minutes before removing shad from broiler, arrange banana slices in a row on top of fish. Finish broiling fish. Remove fish carefully with a broad spatula or pancake turner to a hot platter. Garnish with bacon, lemon wedges and parsley. Makes 4 servings.

Brazilian Colonel Cake

This recipe makes me very, very happy.

Just look at its Brazil-nutty goodness!

I love Brazil nuts. Before moving to New England I would buy them pre-shelled in the bulk section of a nearby Wegmans über grocery store (go Wegmans!). The stores in my new little town don't carry them.

But now, thanks to THIS recipe, I can stock up while the nuts are plentiful at Christmas time, and shell them in a big batch!

Can you say WOOT?!?

And while I'm nattering on about nuts, I've got a complaint to make.

When I Google Brazil nut recipes, it comes up with a measly 271,000 results. Contrast that with pecan recipes which get 13,800,000. Walnut recipes come in at 14,400,000.

Why, oh why?

Yes, they are a bit hard to shell. But I'm sure it's more an issue of cost and availability. Brazil nuts are grown in rain forests, of which the U.S. has few. They also apparently require special bee-attracting orchids for pollination.

Sigh...

Guess it's time to build a bio-dome in the back yard. Can't put it off forever.

And while I'm waiting for it to be finished, and for the trees to reach maturity, and for the orchids to thrive, I'll read this little booklet and plan what to make from the fruits of all this labor:

Colonel Nut, I salute you!

Angel Pie with a Bite

Cranberry that is!

I'm beginning to think the term "Angel Pie" is used for a wide variety of pie types.

This recipe has several of my favorite flavors; orange, cranberry, and walnuts.

Here's a blown up version of the recipe:

When I make this, I think I'll substitute orange juice for the boiling water and added some orange zest to boost the orangeyness. And I'm not sure I'd want to disrupt the filling with the texture of walnuts.

Soaking in Jell-o does weird things to nuts.

I think I'd just work the nuts into the crumb crust instead.

But that's the way I roll; if a recipe ain't broke, mess with it.

Creamy Green Beany Oniony Goodness

One word:

Green bean casserole!

Just a few simple ingredients plus pepper and you are good to go!

Three great tastes that go great together.

Make some for your next holiday gathering. Throw in some chopped water chestnuts or canned mushrooms if you feel the need to switch it up.

But do it. You won't be sorry.