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  The management had decided they were too outdated to sell, and offered them to staff.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.