all gross food

I received a package last week from my sister. She had mailed me a cookbook which she snapped up at a yard sale. Price: fifty cents.

"The American Woman's Cook Book " was first published in 1938 when women all across the fruited plains wore aprons all day long. Sometimes I yearn for those days, since I am definitely an apron kind of girl.

I also love, love, love reading old cookbooks. The food they ate back then! The many parts of a cow, sheep, and chicken which we can't imagine had culinary value: liver, tongue, gizzard, neck, tail, and sweet bread!

What is sweet bread? Well goodness, anything SWEET must be good. Maybe not.

Before the recipes even begin however, the author urges the reader to "strike up a warm acquaintance with your oven and its special temperament." -like the oven is an animate creature.

I love that.

"Time and your oven await the occasion and the man." I love that, too. Notice how the two terms are intertwined, as in the occasion IS the man.

Now, don't get all get-up on me. I am at this very moment in time awaiting an occasion and a man, and I don't mind admitting it in the least. Back in 1938, people told it like it was.

No apologies necessary.

Now, THIS. This deserves an apology.
I think it is stewed prunes stuffed with cheese served over a slice of canned pineapple and an electrified leaf of lettuce.

Mmmm.

I could look up the identity of this one under the "Presentation of Vegetables" section. But I would rather let my imagination roam. "Boiled Green Sticks with Cream Sauce Sprinkled with Shredded Yellow Stuff", I call it.

You don't want to know what I called this one when I showed it to the family. But it has something to do with the reason why we don't own a dog.

Dogs sometimes leave presents behind couches, especially when they have eaten something they shouldn't have. That's all I'm trying to say.

I will give you this: they don't usually deposit it in a gelatin mold.

Now, HERE'S an idea you may not have thought of.

The author asserts that these carrots are easy to make and serve.
She DOES NOT claim that they are easy to eat.

When showing the contents of this amazing book to #1 Son, he tossed his lithe body onto the leather couch and proclaimed:

"The next time I get an award and have a party thrown in my honor, I want to serve all gross food. Everything from this cookbook."

That about sums it up, folks.