In my small collection of weird and old cookbooks is this delightful tome of “Brownbagger’s Recipes” from Pensacola, FL, published in 1956 by the CPO Wive’s club. The best part of it, besides recipes like “Frozen Salad,” are the maps of the world that begin each chapter. Let us journey through the world of this culinary paradise.
Right off the bat, “Chili Wind” sounds like farts. Get it together, ladies.
Addalyn Mooncatcher’s heart fluttered as she sailed down the Lime River toward the Tomato Red Sea. She had never left Punch Bowl in all her fifteen years. The sights of the Olive Oil Fields of the coast and the treacherous waters of the Thousand Islands her bedtime stories. But now that her father was missing, it was her duty to protect her family’s honor. She must find him, no matter where her journey takes her.
“Tartar-sau Ce” is far too much of a stretch to actually count as a pun. If you have to explain your pun in parentheses it is clearly not doing its job. At least go with “Tartar-SEA-ce.”
What’s something that every home cook should have in their kitchen and add to all their baked goods?
Yellow food coloring?
Yes, nailed it.
That one island looks like a dick, sorry.
“National Wildlife and Fruit Preserve” FINALLY A REASONABLE PUN.
For meat substitutes we actually have a treasure map, presumably because the three recipes in this section (Deviled eggs, punch and “Sandwich Deluxe”) are so disappointing they need to be preceded by an actual adventure so you don’t feel totally cheated. FYI the sandwich includes ham so what even is the meat substitute here?
Death awaits all those who enter the Diet Section.
Thank you for coming on this journey with me. Here is a recipe for “Preserved Children” included in this book that was definitely written by normal housewives and not demons.
I’m dieting right now. Tell me more about the Cookie Isles.
Well much like Hawaii the Cookie Islands are formed from a hot spot in the mantle. This produces a constant stream of new cookie which cools once it reach the surface.
Nearest the hot spot you have cookies with large still cooling chunks like Chocolate or Butterscotch chips often mixed with smaller cooled breccia like coconut, oatmeal and pecans.
As you get further away everything has cooled uniformly but leaves the tell tale rough cracked appearance of once molten dough, here is where ginger snaps and other particularly crispy cookies are found.
The oldest have been worn smooth by weathering. We find sugar cookies and the like. The cookies to windward have begun to grow dense frosting coats while leeward dryer islands tend towards thin cinnamon sugar layers left over from the weathering process such as biscochito island and the snickerdoodle archipelago.
Minor vents around the primary hot spot have caused a build up of lace cookie reefs surrounding the Cookie Isles.
OH GOD, I’m on a liquid cleanse diet and still none of these sound delicious (they are unintentionally hilarious though, OMG). I would absolutely totally eat children when prepared that way. Also what is the word before -CHINA in the Meat Fish Poultry section?
(also, screaming that it labels the stratosphere)
I bet it’s “Good.”
Ugh, what kind of map doesn’t label the stratosphere? Not any kind of map I want.
Back in the 70s, my mom and a couple friends made a cook book that is adorably held together with twine and contains delightful cartoons provided by my uncle of a purple cow, muscular tomatoes, and so forth. In theory, I think they were made to be sold, but I don’t know how successful they were at that endeavor. Either way, it’s amazing, and also highlights my mother’s terrifyingly perfect handwriting, as she hand wrote every page of the book.
All of that is to say, I am delighted by your book and want a copy. Also, I want to go to the Pickle Mountains
Can I live in the punch bowl?
You sure can
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchbowl,_New_Sout…
it’s really bugging me that the cookie isles are shaped like a heart, a club, a spade, and….a letter C? a curvier Pac-Man? WHERE IS THE DIAMOND. WHAT KIND OF CARDS ARE YOU PLAYING WITH.
And that the latitudes/longitudes are perfectly horizontal/vertical but the compass is at an angle, what kind of map projection is this?!
I’ve been looking at the C-shaped island trying to figure out what bisquit is. A biscuit made of Bisquick? A biscuit you just give up on?
I assume they were reaching for a Bay of Biscay pun, but couldn’t quite get there.
I feel like there’s a “squirmish” joke to be made here.
THIS. You do not get to half-ass a card suit theme! Either do all four or pick a three-part theme!!
Maybe the club is supposed to be a shamrock, and the C is this here?
One of those islands is clearly a wang.
They could be local maps with the compass adjusted for declination, but that seems pretty unlikely, and if it’s the case then they really ought to make a note of the number of degrees of declination on the map so you can adjust your compass or calculations yourself. People could get lost and hurt in that fruit preserve!
The yellow dye in the baked goods section makes perfect sense! For the first half of the 20th century, it was illegal in most states for margarine to be yellow on store shelves. It had to be sold either in its natural off-white lardy color or, in some states and periods, dyed pink.
These laws were pushed through by the dairy lobby, who were terrified that the cheaper margarine would hurt butter sales. And so you’d buy a tub of horrible lard-white margarine along with a specialized little packet of yellow dye that you’d mix in yourself at home.
Most states had started to repeal these laws in the post-war years, but anyone reading this book in 1956 would see a very strong and logical connection between baked goods and yellow dye. Yellow margarine was still illegal in several dairy-heavy states until the mid ’60s.
History is weird!
Ahhhh history is great
My grandma was just talking about this exact thing the other day! She credited it as the reason she still refuses to buy margarine, so I guess the dairy lobby did its job?
There was one horrifying morning in my 80s childhood when we had pink margarine. I still have no idea where my mom got it, because yellow margarine was everywhere by then, but until I learned this history about a year ago, I had convinced myself I’d dreamed it.
Ohhhh, I’d wondered if there was a real reason! This is pretty fascinating.
My Dad likes to tell the story (frequently, because he is a Dad) about how he and his sister used to fight over who would get to knead the coloring into the margarine, and who had got to do it last time, and so on.
He also tells a longer version which includes all of this data, so well done @Jedoc. Dad would be pleased.
My mom tells more or less the same story – but with her brother and sister
Yes, the butter came in a plastic bag (like milk does today) but there was this little pimple of orange dye, that you had to pop and then squish the margarine around until the orange spread out and became yellow.
When I went off to university and lived in a commune (1967) one of our unanimous decisions was that we would buy butter and not margarine. And that bacon was a spice.
Milk comes in plastic bags?! Is that like the little Japanese mayo blob?
In many Canadian provinces we buy our milk in one litre bags which are further bagged so we get three litres at a time. Then we use a special milk jug.
The smaller bags keep the milk fresh and can be frozen if necessary.
Maybe this picture will work. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lXgxJsKFud4/SWQLgnCQ0CI…
Well of course, bacon is the king of spices. Everyone know that.
Oh, I’d never heard of the pink dye option before! That sounds horrifying.
No thanks; I’m having butter.
So I stared at the first illustration for far too long trying to figure out they were being clever and calling it “Mappetizers” before I realized that if they were doing that, there would be an “a” as the second later.
Also, those spice islands must be filthy rich off trading exports.
The forbidding, death-laden Diet Section is my SOUL. Thank you, housewives of Pensacola. *posts while eating a chocolate cupcake*
So -you’re- the one bidding against me on Ebay for raggedy copies of Recipe Jubilee and Gulf Coast Junior League Cookin? *shakes fist*
The Southern Foodways Alliance made a community cookbook that I use all the time to settle arguments in my house, no foolin. Red jambalaya! Brown Jambalaya! Avery Island Jambalaya! STOP IT YOU’RE ALL RIGHT.
Does the Great Bacon Desert have ALL the bacon or NO bacon?
It is completely turkey bacon and ersatz bacon-bits.
“Hm, how do we make ‘bread’ sound Near Eastern and exotic? Maybe some kind of pun about pita, or…”
“WE SHALL CALL IT PORT BRËAD”
“Wait, how did you manage to pronounce the diaeresis on that ë?”
“I used to date the drummer from Spın̈al Tap.”
THE HOG(UE)
Point: the Great Sandy Desert a whole lot of sand.
Point: The Great Water Desert sounds like either a paradox or a poetic description of the ocean.
Conclusion: The Great Bacon Desert has all the bacon.
Old cookbooks are the greatest things.
I have a reprint of an old Betty Crocker that includes instructions for housewives- my favorite is the idea that ladies, with all the hard work that goes into your home, you are totally entitled to take a quick afternoon nap ON THE FLOOR (so as not to mess up your tidily made beds, natch), complete with an illustration to show you how.
Oh god just when I needed a reminder about how all aspects of patriarchy are utterly horrifying D:
Jill Connor Browne sent up that absolutely true fact about the old BC cookbook in her signature hilarious fashion in one of the sweet potato queens books.
My stepmom and I have laughed for years at a photo in a 1950s cookbook, where there’s a plate of cookies with a handwritten card: “TO SON, FROM MOTHER”.
I don’t know why exactly I find it so funny (the peculiar formality? The fact that she’s evidently forgotten her son’s name?)
Would watch the shit out of this book made into a reality cooking show.
Would read the story of Addalyn Mooncatcher.
Also, a lot of the names remind me of The 10th Kingdom which I should probably watch again some time?
Everyone should rewatch The 10th Kingdom all the time. Just for the reminder about the dangers of invisibility, if for no other reason!
Is pea soup a meat substitute or a beverage? I’m not too enthused about either.
Is it a floor wax? Is it a dessert topping? IT’S BOTH!
“Smallpox the disease?”
“No, Josh, the dessert topping.”
This has been your daily West Wing moment.
Oh, CJ. <3
Did that last bit remind anyone else of that part in The Silver Chair (from the Narnia Series) where the kids are chilling in the giants’ castle and then, while poking around the kitchen, discover some horrifyingly creepy recipes for Man and Marshwiggle and realize they are intended to be eaten? (Although idk, maybe Jill would have gotten off since she’s in fact female.) Yeah, that scene stuck with me. I mean, at least code your recipes so your literate victims won’t inevitably rebel. You really have that coming.
Or the short story / Twilight Zone episode How to Serve Man?
If laughing like an immature 12 year old at “Go down” on the “Meat substitute” page is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
The Pensacola Ladies Recipe club was quite tipsy on the day that they drew up the punny front sections of each chapter of their recipe book, and spent the whole time laughing hilariously. Ethel and Dottie surreptitiously held hands under the table. Christian Lil was in such a good mood she didn’t say anything this time.
I love the Cookies and Cakes page, and particularly the caption. Mostly because my thoughts were “Heart, spade – oh they’re doing playing cards! There’s the club. Wait, a ‘C’? And a dick. Ok, technically I’ve seen a deck of cards with dicks on them, so where does the ‘C’ fit in?”
The yellow food coloring must’ve been A Thing across many cookbooks, because the challah recipe my mother’s used for many decades calls for it. Not that we ever actually use it. So odd.
old cookbooks are the best. I have one from when my grandmother was young, I think it’s Fanny Farmer? And it has awesome directions for how to dress rabbits and squirrels and whatever other random woodland creatures your kids can shoot with pellet guns. Good times 🙂
“Addalyn Mooncatcher’s heart fluttered as she sailed down the Lime River toward the Tomato Red Sea. She had never left Punch Bowl in all her fifteen years. The sights of the Olive Oil Fields of the coast and the treacherous waters of the Thousand Islands her bedtime stories. But now that her father was missing, it was her duty to protect her family’s honor. She must find him, no matter where her journey takes her.”
I want to write this book…
I believe you mean, "what fits in the 'C'", the answer being a particular neighbouring island….
I feel like there's a "squirmish" joke to be made here.
No thanks; I'm having butter.
"Smallpox the disease?"
"No, Josh, the dessert topping."
This has been your daily West Wing moment.
The makeup thing? It's actually one of the best pieces of Advice I've heard for avoiding depression while unemployed, 1950s version. A favorite blogger of mine said something like "Always get up and get yourself dressed and ready to go out like on a normal day so you feel like you can go do something if it comes up and not feel like you wasted the day feeling Schlubby."