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. 

 

Oh Frank. You are Such a Ham.

Here are a variety of pig pictures from Cutco Meat and Poultry Cookery. Clearly Frank, the illustrator, thinks that swine are just thrilled to pieces to offer themselves up for our feasting pleasure.

Just look at them frolicking in various settings.

1. Juggling:2. Drunk:3. Crowned king of all swine:

4. Getting high?5. Starring in minor theatrics:

6. Tanning:7. Acting as chief pillow and butt rest:

You'll find some of these illustrations in recipes to come. Others will simply stand on their own merits.

Pork out.

New Cookbook Day! Cutco Meat and Poultry Cookery

It's time for a new cookbook!

DiDi found this little beauty for my birthday, and I can't begin to tell you how much joy it gave me.

Best $1.50 she ever spent.

It's a promotional piece produced for the cutlery division of Wear-Ever Aluminum, Inc. in 1961.

Here's what it looks like on the inside front cover:

All the meat you could ever hope for in one place!

The best thing about this book is the illustrations. Oh, the illustrations!

The drawings are done by one Frank Marcello. Unfortunately, I can't find much about him.

He's got quite a sense of humor. I'm surprised that Wear-Ever let him get away with half the stuff he put in. Here are a few classic examples:

You'll be hearing more about the illustrations in coming posts, so for now I'll just comment on this last one.

What the heck is going on in this kitchen? Look at the position of mom's feet. Is she pigeon toed, or is there more to the story? They both seem to be happy about it, though the girl's smile looks just the tiniest bit more genuine to me.

Hmmm.... Let me know what YOU think.

Stay tuned for more meat and illustrated hilarity, 1960s style!

The New American Cook Book: Greatest of All References on the Art of Proper Feeding

Time for a new cook book! Yay!

This one is a real beauty. It is The New American Cook Book, published in 1942 by the American Publisher's Alliance.

Check out a closeup of the pretty, happy little homemaker on the front cover.

Also the tempting photo inside the front cover:

The lobster photo opposite the title page is somewhat less appetizing. Not to mention sideways.

The Introduction to the book reads (in part):

Good meals, attractively served, go a long way toward keeping the family together. Those with a tendency to stray will spend more time in homes where every meal is an event to look forward to. Fine family dinners, where exquisite aroma and savor bring a general feeling of content and good humor, provide exactly the right background for the younger members of the family who are at the age when they are seeking partners with whom to make new homes. And, when those homes are made, the new homemakers will naturally emulate, as far as possible, the finest things in the homes they left. It is unquestionably true that the manner of living of many persons today has been directly influenced by the well-prepared and properly served meals in the homes of ancestors, long forgotten. And, traveling with time in the other direction, it is highly probably that the lives of children, whose grandparents may be yet unborn, will be influenced by the meals being served in many homes today.

Thus the modern cook must learn about or take guidance upon The Art of Modern Feeding and Cooking; must know how to prepare food more than ever inviting, palatable, and beyond question conducive to health and efficiency.

...

There is pleasure and profit in the achievement of good cooking and right feeding. The pleasure comes in the form of the good-fellowship at table in the enjoyment of tasty food; the profit in the exuberance and energy manifested through normal or robust health; the escape from illness, with its cost of medical treatment; the enthusiasm of living, that results from proper feeding.

The cost of all this potential success and satisfaction in pursuance of one of the most important duties of life, need not exceed the employment of a few minutes a day in exploration of the contents of this greatest of all Cook Books.

I'm thinking about employing this technique myself some day. To heck with hubris. I'll call my first children's book "The Greatest of All Picture Books".

The cook book is modeled after a catechism, with each recipe numbered, and the sections divided by indented tabs:

I love the black line drawings that open each section, such as this one:

and this:

And particularly the three that follow.

This one looks more like a drawing from the 1920s or 1930s to me:

And this one is just plain funny. If only my cheese monger looked like these guys:

If only I HAD a cheese monger.

Stay tuned for recipes which can help you too master the Art of Proper Feeding.

Betty Crocker's Cooking Calendar

I went through this cookbook today and pulled out a bunch of recipes for your delectation. It was the perfect thing to do on a gray and rainy afternoon.


It was published in 1962 by Golden Press. Can't remember where it came from but I think it was purchased at a thrift store. I love the illustrations!

In case you are wondering about the pasted in newspaper-clipped recipe, it is for Royal Hibernian brown loaf, an Irish soda bread served at the Royal Hibernian Hotel in Dublin.

The book isn't annotated, but there were two other recipes tucked into the cover, and a few pages are stained by mysterious ingredients blobbed on in years past.

I'll be posting recipes and other tidbits from it over the next few days.

Enjoy!