The Gallery of Regrettable Food

[sl8]

https://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/

What were they thinking? How did they eat this bilge? Good questions, but you won't find them answered here. This is a simple introduction to poorly photographed foodstuffs and horrid recipes. It's a wonder anyone in the 40s, 50s and 60s gained any weight; it's a miracle that people didn't put down their issue of Life magazine with a slight queasy list to their gut, and decide to sup on a nice bowl of shredded wheat and nothing else. It wasn't that the food was inedible; it was merely dull. Everything was geared for a timid palate fearful of spice. It wasn't non- nutritious - no, between the limp boiled vegetables, fat-choked meat cylinders and pink-whipped-jello dessert, you were bound to find a few calories that would drag you into the next day. It's that the pictures are so hideously unappealing.

Where have all these images slumbered, lo these many decades? In small faded books, shoved in the back of some Mom's pantry. They're collector's items now - but of course, eventually, everything is a collector item. I find them in antique stores, stacked carelessly, forgotten and overpriced, or carefully stowed in plastic envelopes, pristine, awaiting the collector's discerning eye. There's a market for these books.

But why? It's possible that many of the people who buy these books regard them as prime sourcebooks, texts from the Golden Age of Butter. Maybe some appreciate the camp value, but whatever snickering amusement you get from the pictures and text passes quickly. I can't see anyone pulling out their collection on a winter's night and amusing themselves with 50 year old cookie recipes.

Perhaps the main reason people buy these books is the Mom factor. At least that's my excuse. They're everyday relics of another time, my parents' time, and this gives them a poignancy they do not deserve, and do nothing to earn. But I love them anyway.

They're not really recipe books. They're ads for food companies, with every recipe using the company's products, often in unexpected ways. (Hot day? Kids love a frosty Bacon Milkshake!) There's not a single edible dish in the entire collection. The pictures in the books are ghastly - the Italian dishes look like a surgeon got a sneezing fit during an operation, and the queasy casseroles look like something on which the janitor dumps sawdust. But you have to enjoy the spirit behind the books - cheerful postwar perfect housewifery is taught in every book. Sure, you'll fall short of the ideal. But what's an ideal for if not to show up your shortcomings?

Enjoy.
--J. Lileks 2022

[2naSalit]

1. Yikes!

Don't quite know what she's talking about. I have several older cookbooks that I cherish because the recipes that I use in them are really good. Granted they are early 1940s and in the pictures butter is pink but I have never had complaints about recipes I've used in them. Some of the recipes I would never attempt but some are very good.

[sl8]

6. Are any of your old cookbooks in her gallery?

She's not critiquing all old cookbooks, I don't think, just the ones that she thinks are bad.

[2naSalit]

12. Didn't check...

I didn't explore her site, just read the article. Now I'll go look.

[MLAA]

2. I checked out a few, and saved the rest for later.

The author has a great wit in his/her descriptions.

[Keepthesoulalive]

4. Not Really

I own many cookbooks, some of them from the 1920's and they are nothing like the author describes.

[sl8]

5. She's not referring to old cookbooks in general.

This is the introduction to the specific cookbooks in her gallery, like "Son of Cooking with 7-UP".

[ms liberty]

7. Like tuna in jello using a fish mold! I totally remember these

They show up sometimes in weird Facebook posts. So disgusting! And so funny!

[lapfog_1]

8. most of the snark aimed at 1950s cookbooks missed it and just seemed to be "ok boomer" shit

but this one made me laugh...

I did not know that Mostaccioli was Italian for "polished dog penis segments."

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Funny, 60% of the population in the 40s and 50s weren't obese like today's population.

[sl8]

11. I imagine that kidney bean jello *is* pretty low in calories. nt

[Pobeka]

10. When your only fresh vegetable in the winter is iceberg lettuce, ingredients become very limiting.

I grew up in the midwest, and yeah, that was the deal. Canned veggies was all we had otherwise. Sometime around 1970 I think I remember some frozen veggies hitting groceries, which helped a little.

Cream of mushroom soup (basically a MSG delivery vehicle), was popular for a reason.

Bring on the ice-cream!

[love_katz]

13. Bwhahahaha!

I have been to that gallery before, and spent way too much time there. Too funny, and some very disgusting looking food.