PENGUIN Redux

Needing a break from blogging for a short time to sort some things out. So I leave you with a "not-so-classic post" to enjoy or not enjoy.

It's about a penguin. I'll say no more.

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!

Recipes for People with TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Be creative with pears! Isn't this what you were hoping I'd post?

Click on image to see it larger. Seriously, that's the only way you'll get the recipe.

Seriously who spent the time thinking of putting food coloring on the side of a pear to "simulate fresh fruit"? Okay, if this booklet was from World War II I'd understand the need to make-do, but there's no indication these are war time recipes. Nope, there were some very strange women somewhere rubbing red food coloring on canned fruit. A little too kinky for my taste.

You know, bigger is better so go ahead and click on the image. You know you want to.

And aren't we glad these recipes haven't survived? Imagine going to a smart dinner party and being served a pear covered in cream cheese with almond slivers sticking out like a porcupine. I know, I shouldn't say anything bad. Let people have their hobbies. I don't understand this anymore than I understand table-scaping.

Oh oh...new hobbie. Table-scaping AND doing weird things with cream cheese! Imagine the book!

Bless you home economic ladies at Kraft. Now where's that Cheez Whiz cookbook?

Headquarters of FINE CHEESE COOKERY!

I never knew that Kraft Foods was the "headquarters of fine cheese cookery." When I think of cheese and Kraft I think of those plastic slices individually wrapped in plastic or I think of Cheez Whiz, which is useful for caulking windows and bathtubs. But "fine cheese cookery?" Sorry, no. Not even close. But here we have Kraft themselves proclaiming this honor. I give you "44 Wonderful Ways to Use Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese."

We will go from the somewhat appetizing to the ludicrous to the "surely they must be kidding?!"

The cover starts off safe enough. The pie looks edible. The color photography and reproduction isn't horrific. I have no idea when this booklet was published. No date is given, but looking at some of the recipes and how truly truly weird they are you can bet it's 1950s to '60s. I'm imagining a lot of these recipes were served at women's club meetings and smart dinner parties. I do know the tomato aspic looks familiar from a luncheon I was dragged to. Alas, you will not be subjected to the photo of the tomato aspic. It is far too pedestrian.

Do remember, you can see any of these delightful recipes larger by clicking on them.

Here, on the back cover, is where Kraft toots their own cheese horn.

Okay, now we start to get a little women's club luncheon with the tomato rose salad. The thought of putting this together makes my eyes roll into the back of my head, the thought of eating it? Well, considering some of the other recipes this one I might be able to force down, part of it.

And now we get to the "could recipes be any dumber?" When food is presented as cute or clever I want to vomit.

And now we come to the truly bizarre. I give you THE BURNING BUSH!

Imagine a bunch of drunks spotting this on the buffet table at a party or polite women at the women's club:

"Oh Marge, this is fabulous. What DO you call it?"

"The Burning Bush."

At that point every woman in the women's club was heard choking on their chipped beef cheese ball.

Ever heard of SOS? No? Served in the military on metal trays. Well, the nice way of saying it is chipped beef on toast. The other way is SOS. I'll let you find out for yourself what it means if you don't already know.

Kraft has taken SOS to a new level. Chipped beef cheese balls. Melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Oh my, and a grapefruit too. Whenever I think of grapefruit I immediately crave chipped beef and cream cheese.

THIS is the reason why I never wanted to take home economics in high school. There were women who actually got giddy over these recipes.

Playing on WOMEN'S FEARS AND CONFIDENCE

Women have always been an easy target for advertisers. They exploit a woman's confidence, convincing her she's not as good as she can be. Their product is the answer. They'll make you physically beautiful as long as you go by their limited standards of beauty. It will always be this way. We just have to teach kids not to believe any of it. To not be such happy little consumers being molded by corporations. Probably going to be hard to do when corporations control so much of our lives and are now legally considered a "person" by the Supreme Court.

The worst aspect of advertising has always played off of a woman's self-image. We're never good enough.

Look at what plastic surgery has done to some once beautiful women. They were somehow convinced that what they saw staring back in the mirror wasn't what society said was beautiful. And so they trotted off to a plastic surgeon or one of the Botox centers and became freakish images of themselves. Their faces molded by someone else. All you have to do is look at someone like Pricilla Presley who has gone from beautiful to unsightly. What she did to her face is a tragedy, no matter if the doctor she chose was a quack. She still bought into the lies.

Here are two ads from the April 1949 Photoplay magazine. Both stunningly scary.

At first glance the ads look funny, but think about the women who looked through Photoplay each month, admiring the stars who seemingly lived wonderful lives, then to come to the back pages and see ads like this. What did they see when they looked in the mirror? The Betty Grable on the cover or the drawing of the woman in the ad?

I can't help but think of the movie Sayonarra with Miyoshi Umeki playing a Japanese woman who wanted to turn her Asian eyes into Western eyes because that was perceived as more beautiful. Of course it was all lies, but that's what advertising is based on. Half-truths and blatant lies. Always has been, always will be. Create a want or a need where there is none.