In 1974, Weight Watchers prepared a series of recipe cards, illustrated documents that embody the ne plus ultra of Seventies suckitude. Do not go to this site to see them. I repeat: do not. It will not end well for you. You may never eat again.
You must know that the only thing that can possibly restore your appetite after viewing these recipe cards is to hear Reihan Salam's as yet unwritten ballad, "The Wreck of the Pink Pu-Pu Platter."
For a nibble of the unspeakable horror that awaits the unwary, peek past the jump. You have been warned.
If you go to the actual site, you get color commentary too, which is gut-bustingly funny. The rest is just gut-busting.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Rich,
My mother generally didn't prepare them either, unless my father specifically asked for them. So it was usually something we had when we ate out. (BTW, have you been to the restaurant in Snook, outside College Station, that serves chicken-fried bacon strips?).
Another thing my father used to make occasionally was pork brains. We used to be able to find them in the grocery store; I haven't seen them in years, alas. After soaking them overnight in salt water, picking out the bits of bone and gristle, and *thoroughly* boiling them, we would either scramble them with eggs, or else break them into pieces and then bread and fry them (so that they came out with about the consistency of fried clam strips). My mother would just stay out of the kitchen while we were doing this, as she didn't want to have anything to do with it. She did try a few bites, though, and she admitted that if she hadn't known what she was eating, she would have thought it wasn't bad.
I guess a lot of food that I associate with the 70s, because that's when I was young, was really food of the 50s and 60s, when my mother was first married and learning to cook and keep house. She just kept cooking the same way, because my father's tastes were pretty simple. Lots of opening cans, defrosting, cooking from packaged mixes, or simple things like meatloaf or fried liver. My mother told me once that, when she and my father were first married (1958), she tried to be more adventurous in the kitchen and make interesting, involved things; but after awhile my father told her that, although he appreciated the thought, she might as well not bother because he was a meatloaf-and-mashed-potatoes kind of guy. So, after that, she never really knocked herself out in the kitchen except on holidays.
In the 70s no one ate that stuff except for loons who had no friends because no one could stand their breath. We ate like we do now. Steak, ribs, chicken, burgers, pizza.
Perhaps nobody here remembers that, all the way through the 1970's, WW required you to eat liver once a week (for the iron). And you didn't get much in the way of butter or oil to cook it in, so recipes were VITAL to figure out how to choke down the weekly required serving.
Things have improved, almost too much. Now anyone eating liver or worse, feeding it to your children, look like trailer trash.
Things have improved, almost too much. Now anyone eating liver or worse, feeding it to your children, look like trailer trash.
For crying out loud, what's wrong with liver?!? I admit I hated it as kid, but I actually like it now, esp. with onions and bacon. (As a kid I usually smothered it in mashed potatoes.)
My father has been a blood donor for years, and whenever my father had given blood that day, my mother always made liver for dinner. (As you pointed out, for the iron.)
Sorry, that last "Your Name" was me.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.