I love this series from Good Housekeeping magazine, and have many in the series.  I do believe that one of the cookbooks in this series is partly responsible for my vintage cookbook addiction.

Here we have a long and somewhat clumsy title, Egg and Cheese, Spaghetti and Rice Dishes done in a fun, upbeat font.  This is a fun cookbook, you can just tell.  Shall we guess at what the cover photo is?

As is the case with most or all of the cookbooks in this series, this one is filled with wild and wacky illustrations by Jerry Warshaw. It is also filled with some okay looking food photography of some of the wacky recipes.  [On a side note, if anyone has a definitive resource for Jerry Warshaw and his great art, please let me know.]

Looking for a recipe for Bunwhiches? You’ll find it here!  Or those Hi-Yi sandwiches your mom made for you when you were a kid? Yup, it is here also. Or maybe you’ve always pondered “Can I put spaghetti in my omelet?”  Yes, you can find the answer to that question and many more in Egg and Cheese, Spaghetti and Rice Dishes!

Obviously this baby is another fun filled vintage cookbook which I am very please to have in my collection, and to share with the World of vintage cookbook fans, addicts, and zealots!

Drat! I don’t think I have enough cheese, eggs or spaghetti in the house to make any of these recipes for dinner tonight.  Ya know… some of these recipes actually look vaguely appealing!

Allow me to begin with WOW, What a find this was! Fantastic font and goofy little illustrations, but what is with the color scheme? While it definite stands out from the other cookbooks in my bookshelf, it is rather dark and ominous. Maybe it should be Cocktail Companions of Satan!

Okay, and the other bizarre (yet very funny) thing about this cookbook is the illustration you see on the cover.  Let’s take a better look at this…

Here we have a happy group cocktail companions chumming around. A happy mini-hamburger, a Mexican hot pepper, a cheery slice of Swiss cheese, and OH! Mr. Shrimp has just been speared through the heart by a sadistic Toothpick killer! Oops, Mr. Cheese has also been stabbed in the head with a toothpick… but he seems happy about it. Mr. Toothpick, in his top hat and tails just may be Jack the, um, Cocktail Killer!

Truly a freaky cookbook here, and it is not even meant for Halloween!

Let us now move on from this overt horror and get to the recipes, which are their own sort of horror.

Apparently snacks for all occasions are generally made with cream cheese and mayo. Or at least a good deal of these are, and this cookbook is not put out by a dairy… shocking! This creepy little cookbook contains many interesting (or horrific) recipes for Dips, Hot Snacks, Nibbles and Cold Ones, Spreads, and of course, snacks you can stab with a toothpick.

I love that most of the hot snacks go something like this: spread some mayo or cream cheese on a Ritz cracker, add sardine, paprika, whatever, broil and serve.

Despite the horror overtones, this is a fantastic vintage cookbook. Well, the recipes verge on the “horrific” as opposed to the “fantastic”, but the design and odd little illustrations are very cool. Definitely a must have for any collector of the seriously wacky vintage cookbook genre.

What better way to cook with the seasons then this vintage cookbook? Savor the Seasons with Beef!  And not to catch you off guard, but this little gem even has some vegetable recipes in it!  Well, one or two.

You can even find “ethnic” recipes in this lil’ goodie.  Acapulco Pot-Roast with Frijoles, Beef Kabobs Waikiki…

Seek it out, even if there is something disturbing about the meat thingies on the cover.

Inside you will find information on food items that fuel the body, foods for growth and strength, and foods that protect and balance the body.  They cover many of the vitamins our bodies require, such as vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and G.  Vitamin G?  Hmm… my bottle of multi-vitamins says nothing about vitamin G.  Huh.  Well, they have a list of animal and plant products that contain vitamins, including vitamin G, so there you go.  Don’t miss out on your vitamin G or you could get pellagra, and that looks pretty creepy. (I dunno, the web says that is a niacin deficiency, which is B3… not a word about this mysterious Vitamin G.)

You will also find tips on what to eat, buying and using food, how to spend your food budget, and some helpful tips for stocking your food pantry. There are also meal suggestions, kind of.  For example, here is the Dinner meal suggestion:

Meat, fish, or eggs; Potatoes; Another vegetable; Bread and butter; Dessert.  

Even though a life insurance company produced this booklet, they must have had an interest in the dairy industry.  Comments like “milk is valuable for any normal diet” or “butter is rich in vitamin A and should be used freely, if possible”.  Of course they mention other fats, but downplay them as not being as good as butter.  They also say you shouldn’t spend more on meat than on milk, and that you should have a quart of milk a day as well as up to 7/8 of a pound of butter per week. And remember, if you are using lard, make sure to keep it cool otherwise it will become rancid… and maybe that will give you something worse than pellagra.

All-in-all this is a quaint little book with great illustrations and probably questionable nutritional information. Well, questionable for this day and age. Then again the over-all idea of trying to buy food in a more thoughtful way for one’s budget still holds true today.

[This article was originally written for Gertrude's Garret... see what great perks the supporters & advertisers of Retro Cookbook get! ]

Knudsen Recipes for greater food value, published in 1954 by Knudsen Dairy Products… The Very Best. It seems like they probably produced an all new cookbook each year, to help consumers figure out new and exciting things to do with dairy products, Knudsen Dairy Products that is.

The Very Best, and Recipes for Greater Food Value, their tag lines claim. Hmm… I’m not sure that loads of dairy in every recipe equals Greater Food Value, maybe greater clogged arteries, or at least greater clogged sinuses.  Cripes, I’m getting phlegmy just reading this cookbook!

As with most advertising cookbooks like this one, the recipes are all about using the products produced by the company who published the cookbook.  As you can see from the back cover of this cookbook, Knudsen’s had a fine line of dairy products… Sold At Food Stores even!  Unlike the other dairies who probably sold at plumbing supply stores.  (Oh, I guess way back in the mid-fifties dairies probably mainly did home delivery, so perhaps Knudsen Dairy was ground-breaking by selling through food stores.)

So look at that fine product line!  It seems they tried to use as many of their products in each recipe as possible.  Like the Dairy-Meat Casserole which has butter, cream cheese, sour cream, and cottage cheese.  Personally I would’ve added a little milk and some whipping cream to that as well, just to make it a little bit richer.

Yes, Knudsen Dairy cookbooks are filled with a wealth of interesting recipes for you and your family.  (Although, I don’t suggest serving these recipes to friends since there is a very good chance they’d never come to dinner at your house again!)

I’d really love to know who dreamed up some of these recipes.  Aside from the Dairy-Meat Casserole, there are such wonders as: Macaroni-Shrimp Loaf; Bacon-Cheese-Spaghetti; and my favorite, Sauerkraut La Knudsen.  Sauerkraut La Knudsen is a fine blend of sauerkraut, sour cream, cottage cheese and link sausage.  Whew, I’m not feeling so good….

This cookbook also has menu ideas (imagine a menu where everything is filled with dairy!) And it even contains “Miracles…. with leftovers”, and other ideas on what to serve.  Feel like all this dairy is causing a bit of “spread” around the ol’ midsection? Well, be sure to read the “Sensible Weight Control” and Count your Calories” sections!

This 1954 edition has some simple yet cool illustrations as you can see here with the Baked Deviled Eggs illustration.  The full color illustrations like you see on the cover are actually reminiscent of the food photography in some of the other editions I have.

All in all the Knudsen Recipe booklets are a must have for the collector, and a must have for any one who likes “gloppy” dairy laden recipes to clog their sinuses or arteries!  Just ask Gerty, I bet she can get a copy for you!

On that note… I’m off to make some Mac & Cheese!  (I am going to partly follow their recipe, but not use sour cream and cottage cheese. Although all this talk of cottage cheese does have me craving some!)

While this is a vintage cookbook, it wouldn’t have been a normal choice for my collection. Why? I generally chose cookbooks with a retro grooviness to them, and often with stomach churning recipes.  Not so with this one! The cover is vaguely cool, and the few illustrations inside are well done and informational.  And the recipes are actually very good!

My previous girly-friend owned this, and turned me on to it, especially the Sweet and Sour Pork Cubes recipe.  Wow, it is super tasty! (You may notice it is rare that I’ll called a vintage recipe super tasty, but there are exceptions.)

So yeah, she owned a copy and I was kind enough to buy my own copy for my ever growing collection of cookbooks. That one recipe makes this cookbook a must-have in my house. I’m not even sure if I’ve made anything other than the Sweet & Sour Pork from this cookbook, but I have to assume the other recipes are just as good. Stay tuned for some tasty recipes!

Look at that cover art, fantastic illustration style!  The expressions are interesting—only the “Chinese” fellow seems happy and joyous and everyone else seems a bit uptight.

There are complete dinner menus featuring recipes from: Java, Greece, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Siam, China, India, and Lebanon.  But it doesn’t stop there!  Inside this fantastic cookbook you will find recipes from all over the world, including: Germany, Italy, Holland, Sweden, France, Armenia and more!

The photos and illustrations are sparse with one photo per section, and an illustration icon next to each recipe to identify where the recipe comes from. Curiously each icon has a beverage illustration along with a food illustration. For instance: Indian has what looks like a tea pot (or chai) and flat bread; Italy has a bottle of Chianti and a plate of food; France has a bottle of wine, a baguette, and a cassoulet. Fast and easy icons are fun!

All in all the recipes look pretty decent, which I would expect from Sunset.  Most don’t appear too bizarre like some of these vintage cookbook.  Well, you have the English Stuffed Monkeys… again we better check with The Bewildered Brit.  Oh! Before you animal lovers freak out, no actual monkeys, living, dead, or imagined, are used in this dish. No meat at all, actually, so not even mock monkey…

And right now I’m checking out the Gnocchi alla Piedmontese which looks quite tasty indeed! As usual, recipes to follow!

The “Dinner in a dish” is about making one-dish dinners, since they are the perfect party fare. They are “easy to assemble at your leisure, well in advance of the dinner hour, it streamlines preparation and simplifies service—and this is the secret of relaxed and gracious entertaining. What’s more, it solves the harried hostess’s problem of timing.”

Well, this seems like an obvious choice if you are planning a glamorous sit-down dinner, an-formal buffet party, or a crowd-size club or church gathering—wouldn’t you agree?

And for the recipes, well, who can argue with Betty Crocker?  I mean, you could argue with Betty Crocker, but really, what is the point?  She’ll outsmart you, and out-cook you every time!

In this classic cookbook you will find one-dish recipes for Mai Kai Chicken, Lobster Elegante, Majestic Stuffed Chops, Parsley Rice-Ham Squares, Beef Bourguignonne, Sombrero Pie, Homespun Meat Pie, English Steak and Kidney Pie and many other international delights.

Wait, did I just say English Steak and Kidney Pie?  Yes, indeed I did!  Hmm… we may want to check in with The Bewildered Brit to see if that is a real English dish since he did inform us that no one in the UK knows of the London Broil. So maybe the English Steak and Kidney Pie is yet another example of wacky American humor, poking fun at our allies over in the UK?  Well… I kind of fear it is a real English dish… the recipe does say it is the most popular item on the menu at the famous London chophouse, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Wait, that sounds like a joke too! Hang on… it is real.

But I digress… Betty Crocker’s Dinner in a Dish is fantastic vintage cookbook… if you can get your hands on a copy, I recommend it!  Now I’m off to see if I make a recipe out of this cookbook.  Hmm… no cans of creamed soup in my cupboards, or canned mushrooms.  Well, we’ll see what I can come up with.

This cool little cookbook was produced to not only introduce Mexican Cookery to American homemakers, but to also promote their product line. Not only did they make chili powder, but they made canned foods such as: Chili con carne, Tamales with chili gravy, Chili beans spiced Mexican style, Barbeque sauce, and Deviled sandwich spread.  Yum, canned food!

You’ll find a wide range of recipes in this cookbook, some look good, some… well, lets call them “interesting”.  Overall, the food photos are reasonably well done, and there are some nice “retro” spot illustrations of a happy 1950′s housewife.  I do think they over did it with their Eagle logo though… it is a little too “American”… and maybe a little too reminiscent of the Nazi S.S. logo.

Whether you like vintage Mexican recipes, or are a collector of vintage cookbooks, this is definitely one to find and add to your collection!  Especially if it is as near mint as my copy!

Ah, this is a beauty! (And my copy is in very good shape… close to new!)  The cover makes you think it is an ultra cool leather embossed book, but alas, it is just a cleaver advertising ploy to tug on your heartstrings. Alas, it is a paperback, and a fantastic one at that!

While Flako said it “Continues its leadership of quality assuring success” I have yet to find that they are still in business.  (do email me if you know otherwise.)

This vintage cookbook is fab! Tons of recipes that can be made with baking mixes, and most importantly Flako products. Obviously with the baking slant, the cookbook is mostly baked goods, many looking mighty tasty, but it has main dishes as well! Chicken Turn-overs, Fried Fish Dips, Meat Pies, Special Salmon Loaf and many other fine recipes.

This is a mighty sweet vintage cookbook… especially because of this photo. Classic!  First of all, that oven is amazing!  As is the kitchen… and the “housewife”, wowza, huh?!