I just was given a trove of cookbooks from the 60's and 70's by a good friend.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

The National Beef Council cookbook from 1975 for example. So far the weirdest recipe in that one is "Pot Roast with Pears and Chocolate". When I have time, I will transcribe the most interesting ones for your culinary pleasure/comments. Some of them sound pretty good, but there are often some weird ingredients. Another one uses Toddler strained apricots and tapioca in the sauce. I almost am seeing visions of harried housewives on their third martinis just throwing any old stuff from the cupboard in the mix.

[Warpy]

1. Martinis and Miltown were a pretty vicious mix

but yes, women were ghettoized in the burbs without transportation until the weekend when Daddyrabbit didn't take the car to work. There had to be some outlet.

Sometimes they were still sober enough to write down whatever they'd done on Thursday night (typically the most dismal) if it actually worked at all.

But yes, vintage cookbooks reflected drunken mothers with cabinets full of unfriendly ingredients and children demanding to be fed.

[htuttle]

2. Cookbooks from that era scare me

Especially if they have pictures.

[pengillian101]

3. Fun reading!

"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."

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



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I have a whole box of them myself from decades ago.

Above is from a website where James Lileks has had a great time exploring these old cookbooks (advertisement booklets). I enjoyed it so much, I bought his book. But really, everything is at his site that's in the book. And the links at his site gives hours of entertainment browsing within. He's a writer in Minneapolis. :hi:
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[Phentex]

4. I'm jealous!

Lucky you. That sounds like fun reading.

I was 12 when my niece was born. My sister and I actually liked the peach baby food we were supposed to be feeding the baby!

Uh, but I cannot imagine cooking with it, lol.

[grasswire]

5. some of the weirdest things....

.....in those cookbooks are the recipes for ethnic foods way before anyone really knew how to cook them in the general population. Example: tortillas made from Bisquick. Ewwww!