Good Tidings (Holiday Compilation #1)

That's right. Good tidings. Not Merry Christmas. Not Happy Holidays. Good tidings sounds good. 'Tis the season of the upcoming December 25th. With all of the cookbooks and recipe cards I have collected in the past 7 months, it would be foolish of me to NOT do a Christmas/Tidings/Holidays compilation. That's where it started for me. Family gatherings. Growing up in the 1970's, I remember the food and I remember the baking, the cigarette smoke haze, the laughter, seeing relatives I haven't seen all year, the freezing Indiana winters. It was fun. I haven't experienced Christmas/Tidings/Holiday gatherings in decades with extended family, but it happens to all of us. I joined the military, moved around a lot, and now it's just my husband, children, and I. Hopefully my kids can remember their Christmas/Tidings/Holiday as fondly as I did mine. 

I will say going through some of these old books has me needing to go through the ones used in my infantile stage blog entries. I'm a lot more comfortable with my writing than I was and I skipped a lot of pictures. 

Here are the books from which I gathered some of the information: 

Foodarama Party Book, 1959

Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Cookbook, 1959

 Plus the usual recipe cards. I searched long and hard and when I came upon this one, I knew I HAD to do a holiday blog post:

How could I not do a holiday themed blog post? It combines two bad things about holiday cooking: Fruitcake and ring molds.

Half fruitcakes with marzipan fruits, fruitcakes with flowers, fruitcake cookies, fruitcakes with green mold, fruitcake, fruitcake everywhere. Like it or hate it. I tried it once and that was enough. It's the pun of all jokes about Christmas food.

Do neighbors still do this kind of thing for each other? I vaguely remember mine doing things like this while I was growing up. Now we are just the creepy renters no matter what neighborhood we move to and no matter what state. The neighbors are curious about us at first, but usually ignore us the entire time we live in their precious mortgaged neighborhoods.

Mustard salad molds. Keeping the colors of red green and blah yellow consistent. This reminds me of Flarp or something my kids would play in and smear everywhere.

When it's cold and you've traveled from family to family on your one horse open sleigh (lame) and it's -15, hopefully somebody has hot creamed diced ham, oysters, and mushrooms waiting for you! Maybe everybody you visit has it waiting in the chafing dish.

Calories and fat don't count this time of year. Besides, there are prunes in this to wash away the fat before it becomes fatty stools and stomach cramps.

I don't drink. But if I did, I would want to swig on some Glögg this time of year. If just for the sake of saying I was drinking Glögg from those kinky brass knuckle handled glasses.

This decorated and prepared to the point that I need to know if the fruit is sliced with the ham and eaten with the ham or if it is just discarded and ignored? This is a Ham's Ham.

Usually when I am making a pudding, the first ingredient I would add after sour cream is pasta. It just makes sense.

Looks like a steamed pile of something..

I'm all for homemade gifts. However if it looks like a cup of purple nit water, I don't think anybody's going to want it. Did anybody else scratch their head without realizing it?

And what a Merrie roast of beef it is! Fat five inches thick and a tree monster with no mouth to stare at you while you eat.

My mother used to make these every year. I don't remember liking them. My sister swore by them and wanted the recipe card sent to her. I sent her a copy and her reply was "save it for your blog" or something like that. I'm not fond of dates. They look like big cockroaches without legs.

If you do not celebrate Christmas for whatever reason, there are plenty of former U.S. Presidents whom you can bake a cake for. I snagged this from a 1947 Better Homes and Gardens red cookbook. At that time there were only 48 states.

 Here's to a safe and happy and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Good Tidings to all!  To be continued...