PRESTO! The noisy cooker

This manual/cookbook is from the Presto Cooker my mother used. I believe the old pressure cooker might still be in this house, I'm not sure. I do know the stand alone timer is in the kitchen; I just used it this morning. Other cheap plastic timers have come and gone, but the one made by Presto, oh so long ago, takes a licking and keeps on ticking. This morning it was for cupcakes.

If you've never heard food being cooked in an old pressure cooker it's a bit unnerving. As a child I was sure the thing was going to blow up. My mother would lock the lid on and then walk away. I'd wait for the sound to start. I think back on it and it's sort of a rain jet sprinkler and a "this things going to blow any minute!" rattle.

I have no idea what year this is from, no copyright date inside. I'm guessing the late '40s to mid-50s. Click on any image, except the first and last, to see it larger.

As is the case with almost all cookbooks of this time period, the food photos are dreadful. If I knew a bowl of glop was awaiting me each morning before school I'd have stayed in bed. Even the giraffe wouldn't have helped.

And the meat? Beef with cucumbers? Is that what I'm seeing in the foreground? Really? And I'm not really sure what the peas are in next to what I think is ham. Peaches with peas? I just don't know.

Thinking about it, I believe there is also an old Presto electric frying pan in the house and a air popcorn popper. I hope their products today last as long as the ones from long ago, though not a good way for the company to make money.

The Presto company, National Presto Industries, Inc., is still in business. You can read the companies history here and see their home page here.

I see that they're still located in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Wisconsin...a pressure cooker of a completely different kind.

SWANS DOWN CAKE FLOUR vintage recipes

I don't have a cover for this old cookbook, nor can I find any date on the pages. It has fallen apart and most likely belonged to my maternal grandmother. I can see from the logo on the center spread that it is for Swans Down Cake Flour. Swans Down Cake Flour has been around for over 100 years. It is now owned by the Reily Foods Company.

I do recall my mother using this flour, but eventually she used Softasilk, which is what I now use. I don't even know if Swans is available in my stores. I had forgotten about the brand until I found these pages.

The main reason I'm posting this is because of the lovely illustrations. They aren't photos. The artist appears to be named Giro. They're really nicely done so I do wish I could find something about the artist, but I'm finding nothing (and no, the fellow in Spain who has a couple images on iStockphoto is not this Giro). If anyone has examples of Giro's work let me know of the links.

Click on any image to see it larger.

So did Giro work from photos or did they have to bake all these tasty morsels? Oh my, a full on carb rush while trying to work. Hey, some of the recipes look worth it. Strawberries are just showing up at the market so I might just have to make a cake. Then again, maybe I'll just dream about it instead. Salivating as I type this. And yes, I do look like Pavlov's dog.

UPDATE: I've done another post on Swans Down Cake Flour with more vintage recipes. It can be seen here.
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250 WAY OF SERVING POTATOES

Using the book title as my title means that some poor soul will eventually find this post hoping to find potato recipes. Sorry.

On the flip side, I gathered you all weren't really hankerin' to make any of the fine cream cheese recipes I posted. Okay, then. How about potatoes as aliens?

I give you "250 Ways of Serving Potatoes." Notice the appetizing cover photo? We know what this is supposed to look like, but it somehow misses the mark. Things do get better when you get inside because somebody got the brilliant idea of printing everything in a purplish blue color instead of sticking with good old black and white. Nothing makes me hungrier than purplish blue meat and potatoes.

And, is it me or do many of these photos look like aliens? Purple People Eaters. Doesn't this look like the nursery in Alien's?

Launch pads from which they'll launch their attacks of leftover goo? Is the duck a sentry or an unwilling participant in the potatoes attempt to rule the world? We'll never know.

And honestly, I just don't want to speculate.

Finally, I give you the mother ship.

And if there are only 250 recipes in this book that means there are 115 days you're on your own. They couldn't come up with 365? I guess some of these will have to be leftovers which probably could have been a whole other series:

250 Things to Do With Potatoes That Your Neighbor Shouldn't Know About

and

A Spud by Any Other Name Never Tasted So Sweet or So Bad After Oxidation

All of this from the Culinary Arts Institute, 1941. I kid you not. Just think of the photos that were rejected.

Bon Appétit!