• 12 slices bologna
• 1 3 oz. package cream cheese
• 1 tsp. grated onion
• 1 Tbl. mayonnaise

Mix cream cheese, grated onion and mayonnaise together. Remove casing from bologna, place one slice on a plate, spread with cream cheese mixture, add a second slice, spread this with more cream cheese mixture, etc., until six slices are used, leaving the top slice without cheese. Chill well and cut into pie-shaped wedges to be served on a toothpick. Do the same with the remaining six slices of bologna and cheese mixture. Quantity production, inexpensive.

(Hmm… what does “quantity production, inexpensive” mean?  Strange little sentence or phrase!)

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.

A leg of lamb or mutton should be spitted more or less parallel to the bone. A rolled boneless should may either be spitted on the diagonal or straight through the meat. Both roasts take about the same length of time to cook: medium rare (145° to 150°) in an hour or a little over, well done up to 2 1/2 hours.

Wipe leg of lamb with damp cloth. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a little flour. Rub into meat. Slash and insert cut pieces of garlic. Place on spit and baste frequently.

Basting Sauce:

• 3 tablespoons Worcestershire
• 3 tablespoons meat sauce
• 1/2 cup tomato catsup
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 3 tablespoons shortening
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 2 teaspoons liquid smoke
• 1 medium sized onion, grated
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Few drops Tabasco

Combine ingredients in a small sauce pan and heat to boiling.

And there you have it, leg of lamb, simple as that! This recipe seems to be lacking in detail, don’t you think? The only other detail they had in a chart was that you’d cook this over medium heat which they say is 250° to 300°.

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.

Here we have Camp Menu No. 2 – Fisherman’s Delight, and I bet it tastes darned good when you are out camping.

This recipe is for individual quantities, so adjust accordingly.

Menu

• Trout
• Steamed Potatoes
• Buttered Onions
• Bread, Apple Butter
• Coffee, Cookies
• Canned Peaches

Amount

• 2 Slices Bacon
• 3/4 to 1 lb. Fish
• 1 Med. to Lge. Potato
• 2 Small Onions
• 4 to 5 Cookies
• 1 Jar Apple Butter
• 1 Small Can Peaches

Directions: Clean and wash fish and vegetables. Take out about 26 inches of Reynolds Wrap. Place 1/2 slice bacon on the wrap. Place fish on top. Slice potatoes in 1/4 inch slices and place on top of fish. Slice onions in same manner and place around sides of and on top of potatoes. Put another slice of bacon on top of potatoes and onions. Carefully fold foil and crease over to seal. now fold in the ends to seal in all moisture. Caution—do not make a hole in the wrap.

Place dinner on hot coals for 10 minutes. Now take a blunt stick and turn it over and leave for 10 minutes more. The length of time it is left in the fire is determined by the size of fish. The larger the fish, the more time. Only experience can teach this.

Open up your fish dinner and enjoy its sealed-in flavor.

Reynolds Wrap cooking brings the pressure cooking idea to outdoor campfire cooking for the first time.

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.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/retrocookbook

(I’ll also be adding them to the online shop on this site, as time allows.)