https://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html [gina] [ban2] [w]hat were they thinking? How did they eat this bilge? Good [latest] questions, but you won't find them answered here. This is a simple introduction to poorly photographed foodstuffs and [ding] Cookie Magic horrid recipes. It's a wonder anyone in the 40s, 50s and 60s gained any weight; it's a miracle that people didn't put down [ding] Cookies Galore their issue of Life magazine with a slight queasy list to their gut, and decide to sup on a nice bowl of shredded wheat and [ding] Young Adult Parties nothing else. It wasn't that the food was inedible; it was merely dull. Everything was geared for a timid palate fearful [ding] International Horrors of spice. It wasn't non- nutritious - no, between the limp boiled vegetables, fat-choked meat cylinders and [ding] Kraft One-Dish pink-whipped-jello dessert, you were bound to find a few calories that would drag you into the next day. It's that the [ding] LaChoy, American Swinging pictures are so hideously unappealing. [ding] Salad Matters, BHG-wise [menucards] [w]here have all these images slumbered, lo these many decades? In small faded books, shoved in the back of some Mom's pantry. [ding] Every Mom had them. No one's Mom used them. They're collector's items now - but of course, eventually, (Updates in 2024.) everything is a collector item. I find them in antique stores, stacked carelessly, forgotten and overpriced, or carefully stowed in plastic envelopes, pristine, awaiting the collector's discerning eye. There's a market for these books. [collection] But why? It's possible that many of the people who buy these [ding] Eww La La: French Cuisine books regard them as prime sourcebooks, texts from the Golden Age of Butter. Maybe some appreciate the camp value, but [ding] Meat! Meat! Meat! Also, Meat! whatever snickering amusement you get from the pictures and text passes quickly. I can't see anyone pulling out their [ding] B-B-Tricks. Siz and other marvels. collection on a winter's night and amusing themselves with 50 year old cookie recipes. [ding] Son of Cooking with 7-Up. Perhaps the main reason people buy these books is the Mom [ding] Bran-plus for Minus People. Urgh factor. At least that's my excuse. They're everyday relics of another time, my parents' time, and this gives them a poignancy [ding] 10 PM Cookery - you nite-owl, you they do not deserve, and do nothing to earn. But I love them anyway. [ding] Gel-Cookery - as Seen on TV! They're not really recipe books. They're ads for food [ding] The Unbearable Sadness of Vegetables companies, with every recipe using the company's products, often in unexpected ways. (Hot day? Kids love a frosty Bacon [ding] Pour on the Glorified Outdoors! Milkshake!) There's not a single edible dish in the entire collection. The pictures in the books are ghastly - the Italian [ding] Cross-dressing Veggies dishes look like a surgeon got a sneezing fit during an operation, and the queasy casseroles look like something on [ding] Meat Fisting At Home which the janitor dumps sawdust. But you have to enjoy the spirit behind the books - cheerful postwar perfect housewifery [ding] 12 Wonderful Starch-plates is taught in every book. Sure, you'll fall short of the ideal. But what's an ideal for, if not to show up your shortcomings? [ding] Aunt Jenny's Real-Life Stories [ding] Fridges - Civilization Enjoy. [ding] BBQ: Myth vs Reality --J. Lileks 2024 [ding] Knudsen's Best PS Aside from the Menu cards, there will be scant updates in [ding] Jell-O Art of the 20s and 30s 2024. We'll be back in 2025 with more, of course. [ding] Clown Pickles [ding] Chuckwagon Kids [ding] Lunches & Brunches [ding] Bananas Bananas [ding] The Other Other White Meat [ding] Party Cake Party Cake Baker's Shame [ding] Frozen Food Gal [ding] The Wesson FIles (04 20) [ding] Meals from the Id (09 20) [covers] [ding] The Latest Addition [ding] Start from the beginning [ads] [ding] The Latest Addition [ding] Start from the beginning [bottom1] [bottom3]