Meat-flavored fudge? With a piping hot cup of Dr. Pepper?
Maybe served after a fish pie and some Weineroni casserole?
Should these recipes have existed? We're going back to a groovy time we called the 1960s.
Karo [KARE-row] syrup isn't as popular in the kitchen as it was in the 1950 and 60's,
and that's probably a good thing. The goopy corn syrup still has its place in
recipes for old-fashioned sweets and sauces, but the minds behind
its old marketing campaigns thought it belonged in courses, even the main dish.
"Wow, you don't care what the kids eat, huh?"
"Excuse me?"
"That has high fructose corn syrup in it."
"And?"
Thus was born the Weineroni Casserole. The recipe comes straight from the source. Karo
printed it as an advertisement in the February edition of Ladies Home Journal in 1966,
and it is everything you'd expect. There's pasta, and it has a full cup of Karo syrup in the sauce.
You won't have to look hard for the wieners. Rather than chopping them up and mixing them in,
the recipe suggests displaying them in a neat row along the top.
Although, if you're a rebel… you could probably go the chopping route.
To be fair, the recipe also calls for bacon, and bacon makes everything better. Although,
it may not make your Weineroni casserole good enough for the people you actually love.
Lots of folks aspire to be the hostess with the mostest, but does all the mostest need to go
in one dish? Meet the party sandwich loaf, a heaping mound of all good things gone wrong.
Imagine a baked Alaska, but instead of ice cream, there are layers of bread, spread,
and filling. There are, in fact, three fillings, some more respectable than others. One features
mashed avocado and French dressing. Another consists of ham, celery, and mayonnaise, while
the final filling is nothing but hard-boiled eggs mashed with chili powder and even more mayonnaise.
Tomatoes add some color between layers of Italian bread, and with all that moisture, it will be
a miracle if the bread is anything but a soggy mess by the time the host cuts open this beast.
To make everything just a little worse, and harder to eat, the entire mound sports a
thick icing of watered-down cream cheese. Sliced, stuffed olives decorate the top,
glaring at anyone brave enough to try a slice like a collection of eyes. It's
nearly Lovecraftian in the right light. We don't want to know how it would look in the wrong one.
Who's to blame? The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture is at fault for including this recipe
in their 1964 Recipes from America's Dairyland cookbook. Wisconsin's dairy deserves better,
and no party deserves to suffer with this sandwich.
Who doesn't like a nice meringue pie? You might not like this one. This is no tangy lemon treat,
no chocolate delight, and certainly no key lime dream. These monsters were fish meringue pies.
If you were lucky, there are other ingredients in your fish pie potent enough to hide the
ugly truth. Bacon, tomato, and egg work well together, and a newspaper recipe
from Historic-Newspapers.co.uk's collection for fish meringue pie even included cheese.
"Morning."
"Morning!"
"Morning."
Other versions of the recipe call for leftover or canned fish. Fresh fish need not apply.
They have the slightest chance of turning out well, especially considering you're
also adding only cream of mushroom soup, mushrooms, and a little grated cheese.
It also calls for the whipped egg whites to top it all off,
because if you're going to suffer from food poisoning, you might as well make it fancy.
Frankly, if there's fish under fluff, this is the biggest mistake you're making with meringue.
You've heard of mulled wine. This is like that, but worse. There is no alcohol to help you
forget you're drinking something at the wrong temperature, there are no spices to change up
the flavor to something new, and there are still bubbles. Well… some bubbles. Maybe.
The truth about Dr Pepper's blend of 23 flavors is that they're better chilled.
"They won't get mad at me over a lousy bag of ice."
"What?! No Ice!"
"Come on, let's get outta here."
Let's focus on the carbonation for a minute. Slightly flat,
hot Dr Pepper that's lost significant fizz to the atmosphere as it heats has already surrendered an
important element. Would it be better if it was completely flat, though? Carbonation creates a
sensation of motion in your mouth as the bubbles pop. Added to the warmth, it might feel alive,
like an alien fighting for survival. Soda pop never felt so fancy — or so wrong.
"I must've drank me about 15 Dr. Peppers."
Canned salmon and tuna may be a step below fresh seafood, but if you mix it with enough things and
make it look like a fish, who will notice? So it has a funky smell. Doesn't all fish?
"Darling, you didn't use canned salmon, did you?"
"I'm most dreadfully embarrassed."
To make salmon or tuna mousse, you need a little of many good things with no morals whatsoever.
In addition to your canned fish, a recipe of the time called for cream cheese, mayonnaise,
A1 Sauce — so, you can guess who's responsible for this one.
There's also onion, celery, tomato soup, and a little gelatin to hold
it all together. The celery and onion go in raw, by the way, because of course they do!
These fish mousse recipes were so popular there were special molds sold for them.
How would the guests know it's salmon mousse if it isn't pressed into the approximation of
an actual fish? Maybe we should have a moment of silence for the dinner parties of the 1960s.
"Hey…! I didn't even eat the mousse!"
Some foodstuffs are the stuff of legend: They are pure bliss,
and they deserve a place of honor on the holiday cookie tray. Fudge has earned all those honors
and more, but for some reason, someone, somewhere, presumably after a very bad day,
decided nothing goes better with sugar, chocolate, and milk fat than beef.
"Are you trying to say a meat cube? Like, a little cube of meat? Because
that's a good idea, actually."
Flavor aside, this is a question of texture, because we're not talking about beef flavoring
here. Oh, no. We're talking about a fudge recipe that calls for a cup of ground
roast beef. Even if — by some miracle — the sweet and savory are balanced into something bearable,
do you really want to chew a mouthful of hamburger or leftover pot roast with your marshmallow fluff?
Why is this a thing? Does someone hate dessert and deliciousness? Maybe,
and we know exactly who to blame. This offense to the dessert table comes from the 1967 edition of
the Poll-Ette Hostess Cookbook, and credit goes to one Mrs. Florence E. Weist. Thanks, ma'am. Really.
If you like walnuts in your fudge, don't worry! The recipe calls for those, too.
Imagine the joy of biting into a soft piece of fudge,
finding the crunchy nuts you love, and then chewing the beef. It's like a meal in a mouthful.
"gasp! Meat cube."