Reader beware! - Brief Article

What you're about to read may shock you. Prepare yourself for a graphic, no-holds-barred, true-life account of what it was like to cook in the 1960s. Now's the time to throw out the stereotype of apron-clad housewives serving up dishes such as macaroni and cheese and meatloaf with mashed potatoes. As it turns out, the hausfrau of yesteryear was not the meek and gentle sort; she was a cleaver-wielding, iron-stomached kitchen maenad. She makes the chefs of today look like preschoolers pretending to cook on plastic stoves. So a word of caution: If you're enjoying your lunch while reading this, I suggest that, like swimming, you should wait a few hours after eating before finishing the article.

The source of this astonishing information is a cookbook that belonged to my grandmother. It's a hardcover, a sort of soft aqua blue that today is oh-so-retro, and it has over 800 pages of pure recipes. When I first received it, I didn't think I'd ever use it. After all, food trends have certainly changed over the years and I was sure there wouldn't be a single reference to pesto or goat cheese or Chilean sea bass (although surely it would have a dozen ways of making beef stew and Jell-O salad with marshmallows). I kept the book, though, figuring it would make for an interesting social commentary of the time. I clearly had no idea what I was in for. Yes, there were those recipes that I expected: lemonade for 100 (that would necessitate a mighty large punch bowl, I would assume); aspic (thankfully, now an extinct food); tuna and potato chip loaf (no comment) and eight versions of chiffon pie. But nothing--I mean nothing--could have prepared me for what I found in the meat section.

I should have gotten my first clue while reading the chapter on hors d'oeuvres. There, a recipe for steak tartare was also referred to as "Cannibal Mound." Hmmm.

So what could be so shocking in a mainstream cookbook, one that certainly most women at the time had? Well, for beginners, there's the section simply titled, "About Brains." I'm no food prude; I realize that people all over the world eat all sorts of things. But never before has it been spelled out this graphically ... and I quote,

"To prepare [brains], give them a preliminary soaking of about three hours in cold water.... After skinning, [skinning?!] soak them in lukewarm water to free them from all traces of blood. Then, as they are rather mushy in texture, firm them again by blanching in acidulated water...."

This is then followed by recipes for Sauteed Brains, Baked Brains, Baked Brains and Eggs and Broiled Brains.

Oh, but this is just the beginning, for who doesn't love calf's head? Again, I quote,

"It is always so easy to say, `Let the butcher prepare, etc.' In this case, it is assumed that the head is skinned and the eyes removed. The head is split the long way, so the brains can be removed. We prefer to cook the brains and tongue separately."

This is followed by instructions for everyone's favorite, Head Cheese. (And the description says "A well-liked old-fashioned dish.") "Clean teeth with a stiff brush, remove ears, brains, eyes, snout and most of the fat." Now that's prep work!

Of course, not everyone has access to a well-stocked butcher's shop, so perhaps a menu of game is more to your liking. Here's what the book has to say:

"Gray squirrels are the preferred ones; red squirrels are small and quite gamey in flavor. There are, proverbially, many ways to skin a squirrel, but some hunters claim the following one is the quickest and cleanest."

This is followed by a rather crude illustration of a man's boot stepping on the tail and peeling back the skin. Delicious.

I can't help but think about how things have changed. Today, we can buy chicken breasts, ground meat and Italian sausage without having to think of where they came from. Would we enjoy turkey burgers as much if we had to go out into the yard and "pluck, singe and truss" the bird rather than pick up a styrofoam tray of pre-formed patties? Yet the strange thing is that, it seems that there are more vegetarians today than there ever were back then. One has to wonder, how come?

In any case, I've found a new respect for cuisine of the past. I'll think twice before assuming that today's chefs, with their vertical food and haute cuisine and multi-culti Asian-Italian-South American fusion are much more advanced than the Betty Crockers of way back when.

So on that note, I will conclude with my favorite recipe, for those evenings when only the best will do: Opossum. "If possible, trap `possum and feed it on milk and cereals for 10 days before killing." I will spare you the rest of the details.

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