Shish Kabob? SPAM Kabob!

Today's frightening food is again courtesy of the prolific Culinary Arts Institute, this time from The Lunch Box Cookbook, 1955.  These folks have some interesting ideas about what constitutes a good choice for the lunch box.  There are a few recipes that are scary enough to merit their own post in a future frightening food, but then there are ones that just seem like bad ideas, like Swedish Meatballs (yum!) served cold (yuck!). Today's SPAM Week recipe falls into the bad idea category - what might be palatable warm from the grill doesn't sound all that appealing served cold from the lunch pail.

Judging from the cookbooks in my collection, shish kabob seems to be a popular 50's fad, right up there with everything-in-aspic and candles dripping onto empty wine bottles. Here's the intro to the 'Kabobs' section of The Lunch Box Cookbook:

I can't agree on the "equally delicious..." claim. I like cold marinated mushrooms.  I like warm grilled mushrooms.  But warm grilled mushrooms when they get cold? Spongy, slimy and sad. [Hard to believe - a Google search for 'sad mushroom' returned 182,000+ items!]

Kabobs - Base Method

Set out wooden or metal skewers or wooden picks. Cut meat, large vegetables or fruit into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces. Drain cooked or canned food thoroughly. To give extra zip and juiciness to the kabobs, marinate the meats, vegetables and fruits by allowing pieces to stand in a seasoned liquid, such as French Dressing. Liquids such as oil and vinegar or oil and lemon juice blend well with the flavor of meats and vegetables.  Fruits become especially tempting in a sweet marinade sauce such as Honey French Dressing. Herbs, spices, garlic, onion, sugar (brown or granulated), zesty meat sauces or tabasco sauce will pep up the marinade. Carefully thread ingredients for the kabob on to the skewer, alternating foods to be used. Place meat morsels slightly apart on skewer to insure thorough cooking.  To broil, brush with melted butter or margarine or with the marinade.  Place in broiler with tops of kabobs about 3 in. from heat source; broil until particular food being used is done.  Turn kabobs frequently during broiling and brush with marinade.  Cool kabobs, wrap individually, and chill in refrigerator until ready for packing. 

Fruit and Meat  Kabobs

Follow Base Method. Cut into 2x2x1-in. cubes
Canned luncheon meat [aka SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM]
Rinse and pat dry [!]
Apricots, dried (uncooked) or fresh unpeeled, and pitted
Thread meat cubes and apricots onto skewer with
Pineapple chunks
Honey French Dressing is especially good for marinating this kabob.  Drain and pack for lunch, or broil about 5 minutes, or until well heated.  Eat at once or chill and wrap.

Honey French Dressing

3/4 cup salad oil
 1/4 cup lemon juice
1 TBS. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 cup honey
1/4 tsp. grated lemon peel
1/2 tsp. celery seed (optional)

Combine in a screw-top pint jar. Cover tightly and shake vigorously.

Store covered in refrigerator. Shake well before using. About 1 cup dressing



Pierre has a salad bigger than his head,
with delicious Honey French Dressing.
Marie easily resists eating thanks to
her bariatric reduction belt.



Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam!

Last week we went to see Spamalot at Lancaster's Fulton Opera House. Great production, full of laughs - and inspiration for this week's theme of yummy SPAM recipes.  I went looking for a picture to go with this post and found that SPAM is everywhere (that's SPAM, registered trademark of Hormel Foods, as opposed to small-s spam, which is also everywhere)! The most surprising thing to me was on the SPAM homepage hosted by Hormel - talk about brand extension! Those folks have been very busy inventing new variations on the theme. Here's their current selection of tasty canned meat:

 Yes, SPAM Hot Dogs. Ugh.  The folks at Hormel seem to have a sense of humor, or at least have decided to make the 'Spamalot' connection work for them.  They've included this link to the Monty Python Coconuts and Cows game on their homepage:

http://spamalot.spam.com/go/game/

 And if you want a link to anything, and I mean anything, else to do with SPAM, check out the SPAM website put together by Dan Garcia at UC Berkeley:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~ddgarcia/gifs/CreamOfSpam.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~ddgarcia/spam.html&usg=__kWfyUg1Ba1I4BbZioKCEm5ab22c=&h=480&w=640&sz=83&hl=en&start=92&sig2=DFBEi2VB5wDD_9XtO0WlXA&zoom=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GoQ7iyg7Tf5FyM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSpam%26start%3D80%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=rD6iTPLXKMKC8ga-vcyABA

The frightening food of the day comes from Pillsbury's Creative Cooking in Minutes, Especially good and easy meals for all occasions, Pillsbury Publications, 1971. The recipe is introduced with these comments: This recipe is a money saver as well as a time saver. Add color and texture with peas and an orange and carrot salad. I've included their recipe for Carrot Orange Toss after the meat recipe, so you can present your Crunchy Luncheon Loaf properly.

CRUNCHY LUNCHEON LOAF

4 serving recipe Pillsbury Hungry Jack Mashed Potatoes
1/2 cup creamed cottage cheese
2 cups (3-oz. can) French fried onions, crushed
1 can (12-oz.) luncheon meat

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 4 serving recipe of mashed potatoes as directed on package. Blend in cottage cheese and 3/4 can crushed onion. Stand luncheon meat in shallow baking dish.  Make 4 to 5 cuts down into loaf, about 3/4 way through. Place spoonful of potatoes between each meat slice. Spoon remaining potatoes around meat. Sprinkle with remaining onions. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. 3 to 4 servings. Tip: If desired, place pineapple slices in cuts of meat.  Spoon all potatoes in mounds around meat. Or, omit the onion rings and place thin slices of orange, cut in half, in the cuts along with some whole cloves. Bake as directed.

CARROT ORANGE TOSS

2 cups (4 med.) grated carrots
1 cup (2 med.) orange sections
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup dairy or immitation sour cream

In medium bowl, combine all ingredients; mix well.  Chill until ready to serve. If desired, serve on lettuce leaves. 4 servings.

TIP: canned or fresh oranges can be used. For flavor variations, grapefruit or mandarin orange sections can be used for the orange sections.

'Dat Silly Ol' Cannibal

One of my favorite features in vintage cookbooks is the illustration.  Much of it is rather witty, putting a comedic spin on the recipe's origins, its name or when/where/how it is typically eaten.    Here's a cute example from The Cheese Cookbook (Culinary Arts Institute, 1956):

The illustration is with a recipe for Welsh Rabbit (also called 'Rarebit'), which was ostensibly the poor man's substitute for the real thing - thus the rabbits' willingness to serve it. I particularly like the lady rabbit in her pearls and mascara, bringing up the rear. 

But it's not all wit and whimsy.  The illustrations sometimes reflect the thoughtless racial and ethnic stereotyping of the era. Today's frightening food recipe recipe is a case in point - although the bedazzled expression on the face of this sandwich-eating cannibal makes it just plain silly!

Two thoughts come to mind after re-reading this recipe:

1) Can you say "E. coli?"

2) Nice with....chowchow? Methinks Mennonite missionaries have been to this cannibal's abode!

Frightening Food Photo #1 Is......

tuna chowder!  Another recipe that doesn't sound quite as bad as it looks, if you like a fishy soup.

TUNA CHOWDER

2 cans solid-pack tuna, in oil
4 medium onions, sliced
5 medium potatoes, sliced and pared
3 1/2 tsp. salt (I don't think I've ever seen this much salt before in a family-size recipe. I'd put in < 1 tsp.)
1/8 tsp. pepper
3 cups water
1 qt. milk
1 pkg. frozen corn, thawed
2 Tbs. butter or margarine
Dill sprigs

Drain oil from tuna into Dutch oven or large kettle.  Saute onions in oil until golden, stirring often.  Add potatoes, salt, pepper, water; cover; cook 15 min., or until tender.  Add milk, corn, and tuna broken in large pieces. Heat. Float butter, dill, on top.

Good Housekeeping's Fish and Shellfish Book, Good Housekeeping Magazine, 1958

Frightening Food Photo Fridays

Vintage cookbooks present such a wealth of scary pictures. The color photos are usually frightening because all the food seems to have a fluorescent glow. The dishes look like the result of a nefarious plot by a rogue USDA lab to test the effects of radiation on unsuspecting American families.  The black-and-white ones seem to show food that is just plain ugly.  So, to share the wealth, I've decided to make Friday 'frightening photo day'. Just to keep it interesting, I'm not going to label the pictures - take your best guess, and check in on Monday to see if you were right. Although your first challenge isn't black-and-white, it definitely falls into the 'plain ugly' category: 



Yummy, yummy, what have we here? I'll tell you on Monday!

Nasty Names

The way food is described has a lot to do with how appealing it is.  What was an "All-beef burger with cheese on kaiser" at the diner becomes "100% corn-fed Angus beef, aged to perfection then individually grilled to order, capped with rich, creamy cheese on a fresh-baked roll" at the pricey place uptown - and it just sounds like it would taste better, doesn't it?  The editors of  the Culinary Arts Institute's 200 Dishes for Children (1975) should have leaned a bit more towards that uptown prose to make their recipes more appealing.  They're already laboring uphill, with an allegedly child-oriented cookbook that includes Liver and Tomato Pie, Lima Bean Chowder and Cabbage Cooked in Milk.  A little creative embellishment might make some of these obviously-good-for-you dishes more appealing.  But no, they not only fail to embellish, they've chosen some names that make recipes that might otherwise be appealing sound just as repulsive as their Liver Soup.  For example:

Crunchy Wax Beans - Crisp wax beans? Possibly, though I prefer mine soft.  But Crunchy? No, thanks.
Crusty Franks - Sounds like it's missing 'Old' between the 'Crusty' and the 'Franks'.  It's actually a recipe for corn dogs that doesn't sound half-bad.
Rolled Oat Rocks - In case you thought these cookies would be soft and moist - now you know better! It's actually a recipe for a fairly ordinary oatmeal raisin cookie.

Crunch-Nut Balls  - The cookie that makes men want to cross their legs! It's just a popcorn ball, guys. 

Since the past few posts have included recipes for some really frightening food, I think it's about time to feature a recipe that only sounds scary. It's actually alot like "Cracker Jack" [a registerd trademark of the Frito-Lay Co.] 



"Love me some Cracker Jack.
And those Crunch-Nut Balls, too"



CRUNCH-NUT BALLS

1-1/2 cups light molasses

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp. cider vinegar

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla extract

5 TBS. vegetable shortening

1 cup peanuts

3 cups popped corn

Combine first 5 ingredients in a heavy saucepan; cook slowly, stirring constantly, to 270 degrees F. (or when a small quantity dropped into cold water forms a hard ball). Remove from heat; add extract, shortening and peanuts, stirring only to mix. Pour over corn, stirring constantly.  Grease hands; shape quickly into balls.  Cool. Makes about 28 balls. [Serves 14 men]

Brains on the Brain

I was inspired to choose today's frightening food recipe because it brought to mind a childhood experience. The grandfather of one of my friends lived with her family, and every once in a while he would decide to butcher something.  "Why is there a sheep in your backyard?" "It's Grandpa's." "Okey dokey, then." As you might imagine, both farm animals and butchery were pretty rare in our suburban neighborhood. My grandfather kept a sheep in his yard one spring but I'm pretty sure that its life came to an end in some other, less residential, abbatoir.  (Yes, it took me years to connect that sheep to our Easter dinner).  My friend's grandfather was more of a hands-on guy.  Maybe he was a butcher back in the old country, and it reminded him of his days as a skilled worker.  Maybe he just wanted fresh meat.  I found his accent incomprehensible, so for all I know, he explained this in one of those 'conversations' where I just smiled and nodded and pretended I knew what he said but remained none the wiser.

Anyhow, here was the problem: every once in a while, I would be invited to dinner at my friend's house.  Back in the day, you didn't just say, "No thanks"; it was pretty unusual to be invited, and unless you had a good reason not to stay, politeness required that you accept.  And my friend knew perfectly well that I didn't have anywhere to go. So I would be staying for dinner, knowing that when Grandpa butchered something, they ate ALL of it. And knowing that to be polite, I would be eating whatever was served. Between "Thank you, I would love to stay for dinner" and "Dinner's ready!", my mind had just one train of thought - "Please don't let it be liver. Please don't let it be heart. And please, please don't let it be tongue or BRAINS! Please don't let it be liver...."

Well, my friend's grandfather may have been from the old country, but her parents weren't. They knew better than to invite a kid to dinner when they were serving strange organ meats.  Of course, I had no appreciation of adult intelligence at the time, so at every invitation I lived in fear until I saw what was on the table. And it was always something ordinary like spaghetti and meatballs, which I ate with GREAT appreciation, having been spared from BRAINS once again.

So, today's recipe is offered with great thanks that I have never had to eat brains, and with the hope that I never, ever will. This one is for you, Grandpa B!

CALF'S BRAIN FRITTERS

1 set calf's brains
1-1/2 cups sifted flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. paprika
1 egg
1-1/4 cups milk
Bacon drippings or other fat

Precook brains [see instructions, below, if you have no brain-cooking experience], dry and break into small pieces.  Sift dry ingredients together; combine egg and milk; add to dry ingedients and mix well.  Add brains.  Drop by tablespoons into hot skillet greased with drippings and saute, or drop into hot deep fat (360 degrees F) and fry until brown.  Serves 4

TO PRECOOK BRAINS
Place brains in cold water for 30 minutes, then remove membranes.  Simmer for 15 minutes in water to which 1 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. lemon juice or vinegar has been added for each quart of water.  Drain and drop into cold water.  Use as desired. [!] Save cooking water to use as stock.

Recipe courtesy of 250 Ways to Prepare Meat, Culinary Arts Insitute, 1940.

Playing 'Possum

Mini-Quiz:
You see a dead oppossum at the side of the road.  You:
a) don't give it a moment's thought
b) think, "Oh, poor little thing!"
c) think, "What a waste of good meat!"

If you said 'c.', today's frightening food recipe is for you! (If you said 'b.', you may want to stop reading now).

This is another recipe from my friends at the Culinary Arts Institute, from 250 Ways to Prepare MEAT, 1940.  The first sentence in this recipe was enough for me.  If I ever have to "live off the land", I'm pretty sure I'll be doomed to die from lack of protein.  I have copied all the text exactly as in the recipe. (Really. Except for the [comments].) I suspect editor Ruth Berolzheimer is a closet 'b.' who actually wants to discourage 'possum eating.


ROAST OPPOSSUM

The oppossum is a very fat animal with a peculiarly flavored meat. [See what I mean about Ruth?] It is dressed much as one would dress a suckling pig, removing the entrails and, if desired, the head and tail. [who among us would not desire to remove the head and tail?] After it has been dressed, wash thoroughly inside and out with hot water.  Cover with cold water to which has been added one cup of salt. In the morning, drain off the salted water and rinse well with clear, boiling water. [Makes you wonder what they are trying to kill with this type of preparation, doesn't it?]  Stuff oppossum with Oppossum Stuffing [bonus recipe, below!]; sew opening or fasten with skewers. Place in roaster, add 2 tablespoons water and roast in a moderate oven (350 degree F) until tender and richly browned, about 1 1/2 hours.  Baste every 15 minutes with drippings. Remove skewers or stitches, and place oppossum on heated platter.  Skim fat from gravy remaining in pan.  Serves 10 [starving souls.]

 

Bonus Recipe! OPPOSSUM STUFFING      

1 large onion, chopped fine
1 tablespoon fat
Oppossum liver (optional)
1 cup bread crumbs
Chopped red pepper
Dash Worcestershire sauce
1 hard-cooked egg, chopped fine
Salt

Brown onion in fat.  Add finely chopped oppossum liver and cook until liver is tender. ["You test it!" "No, you test it!"] Add crumbs, a little red pepper, Worcestershire sauce, egg, salt and water to moisten.

Looks Like a Strawberry, But Tastes Like...Liver?

My personal abhorance of liver first drew my eye to this recipe as a potential frightening food feature, but reading through the instructions really sold me.  You might wonder what use you would have for food coloring when making tasty Liver Sausage Hors D'Oeuvres.  Prepare to tantalize the tastebuds of your guests with liver adorably disguised as strawberries and kumquats!

LIVER SAUSAGE HORS D'OEUVRES

3/4 c. liver sausage
1 tsp. minced pickle
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. mayonnaise
Food coloring
1 c. very fine bread crumbs

Mix together first four ingredients.  Color half the crumbs red, and half orange.  Roll part of the sausage mixture into the shape of strawberries and roll in the red crumbs; place a small piece of parsley in the top for the stem.  Shape remaining mixture into "kumquats" and roll in orange crumbs.  Makes 8 "strawberries" and 8 small "kumquats".

Another recipe from 500 Tasty Snacks; Ideas for Entertaining, Culinary Arts Institute, 1949.

Aliens Among Us?

The luridly fluorescent colors of the olives and cheese cubes are bad, but the red cabbage that appears to be coated in slime is what really makes this a contender for a frightening food.  I noticed something else about this cover, too.  Turn it upside down.....

 and look a little closer....

...let me just highlight a few things, and .....

AAAAAAAAAAHH

IT'S ALIVE!!!!! 

Scary Pairs

Some food words are just too mismatched to live together peacefully in one sentence.  For example, I personally believe that 'tasty' and 'liver' should never appear together,  unless perhaps you are writing satire. Still perusing the 1949 Culinary Arts Institute book, 500 Tasty Snacks, Ideas for Entertaining, I've noticed a few recipe names that sound like the word in column A was not correctly matched with the word in column B.  Here are a few recipe names that I definitely wouldn't describe as two great tastes that go great together:

Name:                      What comes to mind:

Chicken Shortcake   Hot chicken slathered in cold whipped cream on a
                                          sponge cake

Balls on Picks           Eeeew!Sounds like something they'd do in Gladiator

Shrimp Wriggle         It needs more cooking if it's still moving

Tongue Mousse        What magic can turn a slab of cow tongue into an airy
                                          confection?

Jellied Tuna               Bill Cosby peering with alarm at the contents of his
                                           bowl. Waatch it jiggle....

Hunter Salad             Hunting season not too successful, eh?

Sardine Rarebit         The poor man's Surf and Turf

Chicken Sweetbread Salad   I thought chickens had pea-sized brains? They must be small servings.

Twice as Nice

Today's recipe brings together two favorites.  No, not spaghetti and meatballs.  Not peanut butter and chocolate.  Not cake and ice cream.  Give up?  It's liver and anchovies!  This elegant cuisine won't appeal to everyone, but to a select group, it's quite a treat.  Allow me to illustrate:

And not only is this recipe two tasty treats in one, with its 4 egg yolks, it will nicely pump up that cholesterol!

CHICKEN LIVER-ANCHOVY TOAST

5 cooked chicken livers
3 T. anchovy paste
3 T. butter
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt
4 egg yolks
8 slices hot toast
1-1/3 c. cream or evaporated milk

Make a paste of livers and anchovy paste, add butter, pepper, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 egg yolk.  Spread on toast and place under preheated broiler for one minute.  Make a sauce by cooking remaining 3 egg yolks, salt and cream in a double boiler.  Serves 8 [people without taste buds, or 96 with taste buds]

Another delightful recipe from 500 Tasty Snacks, Ideas for Entertaining, Culinary Arts Institute, 1949 

Jellied Everything

Leafing through my vintage cookbook collection, I'm struck by how many recipes there are for food presented in aspic, particularly in the 40's. I'm one of those people who makes a lot of dining decisions based on "mouth feel" as much as by flavor.  Love the taste of bananas, hate the slimyness.  The slippery sensation of oysters and the gummy texture of clams give me shivers. All my meat is mercilessly trimmed of fat before it passes my lips.  So, I find the notion of eating any meat, fish or vegetable presented inside a quivering mass of jellied buillion appalling, with some selections (tongue, for example) going right on to nauseating.  And judging by the way aspic has disappeared from current cookbooks and restaurant menus, I don't think I'm alone in finding it repulsive. Here's a sample of some yummy aspic recipes I have in just one book in my collection, 500 Tasty Snacks, Ideas for Entertaining (possibly they meant 'Ideas for Entertaining People You Hope to Discourage from Cadging Meals from You in the Future'). The choices include:

Hard-Cooked Eggs in Jellied Buillion
Chicken Mousse
Jellied Salmon
Ham Mold, New Orleans Style
Jellied Melange (chicken and ham)
Jellied Beet Pickle Salad
Pate de Foie Gras in Aspic
Jellied Tuna
Tongue Mousse
Jellied Calf's Liver
Ham and Cider Jelly Loaf
Liver Sausage in Aspic

and my favorite - not just for the yucky factor, but for the wonderful presentation of hot dogs standing at attention .....

Jellied Buillion with Frankfurters

 Bet you never thought of hot dogs as a glamorous choice! And it's so simple to make:

JELLIED BUILLION WITH FRANKFURTERS

1 T. unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1 1/2 cups hot beef broth
Frankfurter
Hard-boiled eggs, sliced
Diced celery

Soften gelatin in cold water.  Dissolve in hot stock. Sprinkle celery in desired mold.  Arrange sliced eggs around the edge. When stock begins to thicken, pour into mold and insert frankfurters in an upright position then chill until firm.  Unmold and garnish with vegetable curls or cups, radish roses, endive or parsley. 
 Photo and recipe from 500 Tasty Snacks, Ideas for Entertaining, Culinary Arts Institute, 1940

Attack of the Cupcakes

Raisin Funny-face Cakes?  Or Mad Monster-face Cakes?  With their orange frosting, I think they are supposed to resemble jack-o'-lanterns, but  this looks like an army of angry Mr. Bills to me.

200 Dishes for Children, Culinary Arts Institute, 1964

RAISIN FUNNY-FACE CAKES

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. grated orange rind
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup dark or golden raisins
2 cups sifted flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk
Confectioners' sugar frosting
Orange food coloring
Dark raisins for eyes

Cream shortening, sugar and grated rind together; add eggs and beat until fluffy.  Blend in raisins.  Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.  Add alternately with milk to the creamed mixture, beating until blended after each addition.  Turn batter into greased cupcake pans.  Bake at 425 degrees 15 to 20 minutes.  When cupcakes are cooled, frost with confectioners' sugar frosting, tinted orange.  Make faces on cakes, using dark raisins.  Makes about 15 cupcakes.

What Do We Have Here?

I started this blog by featuring the 200 Dishes for Children cookbook, because it's just full of scary (and funny) recipes and photos.  For instance, can you tell what tasty dish is pictured here? I think it looks a little like Punxsatwny Phil and his clones peeking out of his burrow, but this, my dear, is Bunny Salad!  As the accompanying quote in the cookbook says, "You need not wait until Easter to transform pear halves into impish bunnies for the children's delight." 

The same page also features recipes for Pointsetta Salad, Clown Salad, Jack-O'-Lantern Salad and another of my favorites, Duck Salad.  No picture, but I think you can probably conjure your own image of a peach-half body with a marshmallow head, currant eyes and almond beak, floating on a sea of shredded lettuce. My own impish children would have eaten the marshmallow.  Can't wait for Easter to make your own little bunnies? Here's the recipe - the first and only one I've seen that calls for shredding - yes, shredding - Jello. And please don't let anyone eat the cloves!

BUNNY SALAD

1 package lime gelatin
2 cups hot water
6 pear halves
1/4 cup cottage cheese
Mayonnaise
1 T. blanched almonds
Lettuce
24 almonds, blanched, chopped
Whole cloves
Soft pimiento cheese
Parsley

Dissolve gelatin in hot water.  Pour into an 8x8x2-in. pan; chill until firm. For each salad, fill pear half with cottage cheese mixed with mayonnaise and nuts.  Invert on lettuce leaves on a bed of shredded gelatin by forcing firm lime gelatin through a sieve.  Make bunny's ears, nose and tail out of almonds. Make eyes, using whole cloves.  Shape small carrots from cheese, use parsley for top and place one or two by each bunny.  Serve with mayonnaise.  Makes 6.

200 Dishes for Children, Culinary Arts Institute, 1964

Frightening Food - The Beginning

Many moons ago, my sister worked at an upscale market while she was in high school.  One day, she came home with a handful of little cookbooks published by the Culinary Arts Institute.  The management had decided they were too outdated to sell, and offered them to staff.  My sister took some for her older, soon-to-be-married sister - and those little cookbooks are the base of what is now a vintage cookbook collection.  Every once in a while, I would pick up another one that I found in a thrift shop or antique shop, but I seriously began to look for them when I noticed them showing up at library book sales (another love of mine!).  As I looked through them, I'd share the more outrageous recipes with the family around our kitchen table.  And there were some appalling ones (Frankfurters in Aspic, anyone?). One night all four of us were sitting around and I was reading through a new acquisition, "200 Dishes for Children", when I saw the recipe for Liver Soup.  For kids.  As a serious lunch selection.  We howled - and decided it was too good not to share.  Thus the Frightening Foods blog began.

Here is the recipe, in case you have any hungry kids looking for a nourishing soup on a cool fall day.  Or if you have any bad, bad children around who should be punished.

LIVER SOUP
1/2 pound beef liver
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 tsp. minced parsley
3 T. fat
1 tsp. salt
4 cups brown stock or bouillon
1T. flour
1 cup cream or evaporated milk

Cut liver into small pieces. Saute liver, mushrooms and parsley in 2 tablespoons of fat 5 minutes. Add salt and brown stock and simmer, covered, 1/2 hour or until liver is tender.  Combine remaining fat with flour and brown, add liver mixture gradually and cook 5 minutes.  Add cream.  Serves 6

200 Dishes for Children, the Culinary Arts Institute, 1964.