Just the Cards (Recipe Cards #23)

Hello! Nothing like a good break from the mundane Wednesday like a dabble into the McCall's Great American Recipe Card Collection, 1973. Sure, I have books sticky tabbed and at the ready, but when I want to post about recipe cards, it becomes my front and center and that's what I need to make my post about. I apologize in advance if these are a little crooked. Something about this particular collection just doesn't scan straight and it's a PITA to get just right. I've looked at these every way but the right way, borrowed my daughter's eyes and they probably still aren't 100% perfect. Meh, perfection is overrated. 

I scrounged together over 30 of these cards. They aren't all mouth watering in a bad way, gag reflex triggering, of the stomach-turning-inside-out variety, they still have an eew factor. I'm willing to bet if some of them were remade and photographed, they might not look so bad. Oh who am I kidding? The majority of them are bad. 

Party Ham Casserole. Cream of something soup, sour cream, milk, leftover ham, bread crumbs and baked 'til disgusting. In some wrinkle of time, this might have been someone's specialty dish.

Choucrote Casserole. Now that sounds sophisticated doesn't it? Kind of rolls off the tongue. Speaking of tongue, that's what those slices of meat are. Tongue. About 3 lb worth of smoked beef tongue. And what could said tongue be atop? Sauerkraut and apples with a can of beer dumped over it and glazed with apple jelly. Yes, this is the pinnacle of le yuck.

This must be what happens to the dog shit that lines the streets of Bleecker.

The hearts of celery, sweetheart of the Pacific Coast.Stuffed with bits and pieces like anchovies and olives and then painted with French dressing.

Why not? I'm all about bringing rat lungworm to my family because I want to try to cook snails at home.

The crust is too golden, too fluted, and too vented to have lamb for a filling. Lamb pies are common and probably a savory treat so I apologize if I offended the lamb pie lovers out there.

If nobody says it's marrow sauce, is it still marrow sauce? In some gastronomical world, this is probably the cat's meow or the bee's knees. Savory bits of marrow in a prululent glaze atop half cooked steak.

Looks more like a fungus among us. That's a lot of chopped, raw parsley. It's in a gelatin glaze so there's no such thing as politely wiping it off the parsley. It will end up looking like a diaper exploded and the super absorbent gel is released everywhere.

If I had to choose one meat and one meat only that I totally loathe, it would have to be venison. Cold and dry looking venision is no exception. I've tried to try it and tried to enjoy it, but it wasn't happening. My father did try to get us to eat it when he brought a deer. None of us were excepting his gift from the land. 

Canned macaroni and cheese, hot dogs with the tops removed to give it a Vienna Sausage appearance, and cauliflower. Curly onions that almost have a worm appearance. I needed to throw a worm reference in somewhere.

What could be wrong with a quiescently frozen fruit salad loaf? Wouldn't it be refreshing on a hot summer night? How long will it last on said hot summer night before the gelatin, mayonnaise, cream cheese holding it all together falters, leaving you with a bowl of thick white liquid, marshmallows, chunky fruits. That's what is wrong with a quiescently frozen fruit salad loaf.

Thankfully, I am not Midwest enough to fully appreciate this offering. My little corner of Indiana did not partake in the art of baked lima beans.

"Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my rag time gaaallllll." I feel guilt now. I like that frog.

I looked up this particular recipe using Google and not one of them is saturated with pimiento stuffed olives that are redolent of this era of cooking. Thank goodness!

Decisions, decisions. It only makes what I do for fun more fun. It almost justifies my entertainment I have with how bad retro food photography really is.

There are 11 ingredients in this recipe including chicken broth, white wine, sour cream, onions, carrots. Out of the 11 ingredients, this recipe calls for 2 tbsp paprika. It only takes 2 tablespoons of paprika to give it the namesake.

Time to agree to disagree on what is appetizing.

Add pineapple to anything, including canned pork and beans and spam and it's instantly a Hawaiian idea. No argument needed. Take it for what it is.

Guess what this is missing? Color.

I always want to know what child is going to love this? A kid who is efficient at playing the recorder? A child gifted enough to compose music using the recorder?

What is the purpose for the bun? How does one enjoy a good bun to picnic on a stick ratio with a stick in the way? Pull the food off the stick and then put it on a bun? If that is the case, then why waste a bun? These are the questions that need to be asked. Someone needs to ask.

These don't look like anything chocolate or macaroon-esque.

I really don't know what impresses me more here. The gelatin made with sherry or the most awesome teapot ever.

Eh. Just eh. I don't know if a ton of chicken livers is cheaper than a few chicken breasts, but anything goes in 1973. 

The more I look at this, the more it looks like a face. The more it looks like a face, the more uneasy I become.

Their Italian heritage needs to work on maybe making this cannoli look less like a stacked large intestine full of stool and more like the dessert it is supposed to be in the recipe card.

These eggs look a tad runny. Just a tad though. If they were on the heat any longer, they might actually be cooked.

My home cooking skills are limited to not wanting to remove the membrane and veins from sweetbreads.

Get an apricot drunk, don't be surprised of what it's capable of doing. It's almost embarrassing. I feel bad for the apricot in its inebriated stage.

Sour cream, apples, cabbage, raw egg yolks. There's too much going on here.

After the many atrocities I have depicted in this post, this seems so pure and so normal.

The recipe card quota has been met and exceeded this evening. I think I got it out of my system.