The Good, The Bad, And...?

Priced To Fit by Dorothy Kirk, the food editor of Woman's Home Companion (January 1948 issue), is another article detailing how to create enticing and wholesome menus on a restrictive budget. The 'Know Your' (Meats, Fish, Fruits, etc.) headings are probably just as useful today as they were sixty years ago. It should come as no surprise that I'm posting this article on the merit of its fashion plate pictures, of course! Here is truly a commendable job by the food stylist, a most underappreciated sort of artist.

Oh no! Part of the second page has been censored! It was well-known that the Woman's Home Companion had red sympathies, so it seems that the menus for Monday and ___day are lost forever. However, Curly Wurly has access to a top-secret dossier that has further information on this particular page of the magazine. The true contents of these menus might shed some light on many contemporary controversies, including (but not limited to) the Kennedy assassinations, Marilyn Monroe's mysterious death, and who really shot J.R. The world has a right to know!

So, I'm sure you're dying to know the real contents of Monday's menu? All we can tell from the censored magazine image is that something is broiled. Curly Wurly can exclusively reveal that this menu consists of broiled doorknobs wrapped in bacon accompanied by canned spaghetti and green beans and a special cold dessert/weapon with the code name of 'Orange Banana Curl,' which looks like a quartet of albino caterpillars converging atop a mountain of orange slices (possibly with the aim to plan a coup d'etat). For bread, serve with crackers.

It's the menu on the right, however, that is more worrisome. In fact, the menu is so radical, so upsetting to our moral society, that we have not even been allowed to know for which day this ultimate blasphemy was intended. It was Thursday, by the way. And what a Thursday it would have been had this been made public knowledge. As you can see from the picture, when the chef discovered the true nature of the menu he had been hired to prepare, he threw down his toque in disgust and protestation. That rumple of white linen is a symbol for an all-American integrity not present in this menu. The only thing we were allowed to know is that some variety of 'gelatine' was for dessert. The unnamed casserole is in a fairly innocuous (though exceptionally encrusted) dish. By all that is holy, the Truth of the Casserole is just too much for the soul. Many men have learned what is in that particular casserole... only to be found soon after... Well, it's just all too morbid for a blog that should be taken with a lighter heart! Let us ignore the casserole. The Casserole of the Damned is accompanied by tempting confectionery to appease the gut and distract the conscience from the casserole: glazed donuts and the aforementioned gelatine. Unfortunately, the Truth of the Gelatine is as awful as the Truth of the Casserole! Do not let your mind dwell on what bobs around in the red slime! Please, just eat the rolls and back away from the table! Or let your eye pass through the forbidden tear to the next article. Let your mind wander to the overworked mother who deprived herself of a permanent wave. There..

Friday and Saturday were much less controversial, and the FBI didn't see fit to ban this information from readers. I especially admire Saturday's fare: Franks-in-blankets, a marshland of creamed onions and peas, and a sweet potato pudding so pretty you could place it on your dresser next to the matching doily.

And, there you have it: Dorothy Kirk's plan for a week of nourishment!