sour cream carrot cake
The Classic Carrot Cookbook is a 1982 production of the Arizona Federation of Garden Clubs. It’s plastic-comb bound (orange comb and cover, of course) and set in Courier type that may have been printed from a word processor, but may have been produced on the small-type ball of an IBM Selectric. The [...]
Posts under ‘Recipes of the Damned’
The Classic Carrot Cookbook: Cake Wrecks Edition
The Kellogg’s Cookbook: Cheez-It Souffle
Cheez-It souffle
Yes, you read that right. Tonight’s cookbooks is The Kellogg’s Cookbook, and that means recipes with things like Cheez-Its, Rice Krispies and Special K. When I wrote this up for Recipes of the Damned, I made fun of a recipe that involved sauteed shrimp and Corn Pops. To be fair, the recipe sounded very [...]
Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices: Nobody Knows How to Do Anything These Days
how to make Canadian type whiskey
I’m at a loss how to classify Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices. Grizzled loner? Disgruntled former employee? The book, by George Leonard Herter and Berthe E. Herter, was published by the Herters in Waseca, Minnesota, in the 1960s and features recipes, photos and opinions galore. There are [...]
A Man, a Can, a Plan: A Laugh
chunky kernel spread
I picked up A Man, a Can, a Plan from the discount tables at the Strand Bookstore a couple of years ago. It has so much to make fun of: thick cardboard pages of the kind usually found in babies’ picture books; “recipes” that involve mixing together the contents of cans and passing [...]
The Twinkies Cookbook: Twinkiehenge
Twinkiehenge
Twinkies are the epitome of processed food: spongy, resilient, wrapped in plastic, with only slightly more flavor than the wrapping, they are globally recognizable and endlessly the same. They couldn’t not be Recipes of the Damned. So when I saw The Twinkies Cookbook in the discount section at Barnes & Noble a couple of years [...]
The New Joys of Jell-O: Joy Is Not the Word I Would Use
ring around the fruit mold
I have never been a fan of Jell-O. I find the texture off-putting, the taste chemical-y and harsh, and the very principle simply wrong. This is probably one reason that I own three Jell-O cookbooks; in fact, it was a Jell-O cookbook that started me down the path to Recipes of [...]
A Lion in the Kitchen, Meats Edition: Pork-A-Plenty
pork chop-noodle skillet
A Lion in the Kitchen is a 1965 Lions club recipe compilation. I don’t know if there were other volumes, but this one focuses on meat, and boy, are there a lot of meat dishes included. Wild game, beef roasts, sandwiches, stews, grill preparations, and even a few silly recipes (such as “How [...]
Best Recipes From the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars: If This Is “Best,” What Didn’t Make the Cut?
tangy chicken
It’s time for another Recipes of the Damned offering, this one a cookbook extolling the virtues of processed food. More specifically, this book is a compilation of recipes found on product labels. The premises of the book seem to be that a) People use a lot of processed foods, b) People who use a [...]
So Quick With New Bisquick: Some Effort, Minimal Reward
hamburger pancake roll-ups
It’s time for another Recipes of the Damned treat! Well, “treat” may not be the correct word. So Quick With New Bisquick is a 1967 compendium of recipes using the boxed buttermilk baking mix. Offerings range from the obvious basics (pancakes, waffles, biscuits) to the predictable variations (coffee cakes, batters for deep-frying) to [...]
The New Hostess of To-Day: In Which I Rediscover the Joy of Custard Sauce
apple snow, with boiled custard (soft)
The New Hostess of To-Day dates from 1916, so it’s not quite as impenetrable as Miss Leslie’s work but is still chock full of vague directives and alarming ingredients. Pigeon Galantine, for example, though I may just be biased by living in New York and therefore seeing any pigeon recipe [...]
