Ever Have A Who'd-Eat-It Dinner?

The Characters ... Four young couples hellbent on partying within budget
The Scene ... One of their houses -- a demure white cottage located on top of an Indian burial ground
The Plot ... Who concocted this murderous meal and WHY?
Who dished it out and washed his or her hands of the ordeal?
Most important: Who paid for it later?

Who nixed the salad?
Where did the fruit come from?
Most important: Who ate the shrunken demon heads (designed by HR Giger) and are they still larval.. I mean, living?

[Featured menu from Woman's Home Companion, May 1947]

Pinchpenny Parade

One of the most important lessons in older cookbooks and magazines is that you needn't go hungry just because you're on a budget. Turn to the perennial frugal gourmet, Dorothy Kirk, who gives us Pinchpenny Banquets in the March 1948 Woman's Home Companion.


Comfort food enthusiasts, take note: Savory Tuna-Vegetable Croquettes -- very special with parsley sauce! I'm sure lima beans are the perfect accompaniment.


The onions sell out with this Onion Bean-Bake with Sausage Stuffing. Hey, it still looks better than Roger Daltrey in a tub of Heinz baked beans!


This weekend's special: Tomato Soup with Horseradish Cream; Vegetable Stew with Meat Puffins; and Two-Tone Tapioca Cream is a very Specials dessert


Are you a post-modern casserole cook? Here's a promising one with rice, cheese and asparagus!

Recipes For Good Eating on Flickr

I don't usually skip Curly Wurly and post cookbook scans straight to Flickr, but Recipes For Good Eating was too beautiful a cookbook to skewer here*. It's a Crisco-sponsored cookbook from 1944. The pictures are so lovely that I had to scan every one, yet they really need no comment. So, if you're interested, why don't you head on over to my Flickr account (I post a lot more frequently there, so feel free to add me as a contact or check there often). Here is a direct link to the set of pictures. Finally, I try to remember to tweet when I post new stuff (or find other interesting things online). Feel free to watch or add me as a friend on Twitter (or Tumblr, for that matter).

* As a side note, I'm planning on posting another cookbook straight to Flickr in a few days (57 Unusual Ways To Serve Spaghetti from c. 1933).

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!

Bananas - How To Serve Them, part 3

If you haven't gone bananas from all the bananas yet, here's the final installation of the great 1941 booklet, Bananas...how to serve them.

'He put my banana in Jell-O again?' Did you know?: 'Nature seals bananas in a germ-proof package'!


Banana Milk Shake - This is the cutest page of the entire book. The recipe yields a shake large enough to share, but if you have an appropriately sized stool, straws that resemble stilts, and some time to kill, why would you want to?


Serve your hairy grubs and other creepy crawlies with Hawaiian-style Pineapple Sauce! If you want your sauce to ooze with tropicality, drip in a little green food coloring 'to tint the sauce a delicate green.' Add toothpick parasols, and you've got yourself an Insta-Luau (whole roasted pig optional)!


Finger sandwiches make great snacktime in Geometry class. Or, use them for elementary school-age word problems: 'If Jack's sandwich has five banana slices and Sylvia's has four, how tall is Rodolfo?'


Don't Skip These 'How-To-Do-It's'! Includes the enlightening 'How to slice bananas section,' as well as fluting methods. 'How to keep bananas from turning dark,' also looks like a school project: one of those national science projects everyone has to do! You can just imagine the poster board covered in pie charts detailing the effect of the fruit juices on banana coloring!

Once again, if you're interested in viewing more of the illustrations from the booklet, have a look at my Flickr set devoted to these sprightly bananamen!

Bananas - How To Serve Them, part 2

Today we'll continue with the second installment of the Bananas...how to serve them booklet, introduced in this post.

Now, here's a luncheon plan you can take to the bank! Say you've got some bananas and some slices of ham. Why not wrap the ham around the banana and smother it in cheese sauce! Adorable, sign-wielding bananamen agree, 'Cheese Sauce improves your Ham Banana Rolls tenfold!'



As far as banana recipes go, nothing is more standard than a nice loaf of banana bread. What could be more commonplace? While that is true, this is the Volvo of banana breads and deserves to have all eyes travel down its precise angles, beholding its perfect boxiness. In fact, this bread might contain more molded wood pulp than tree fruit.


According to the distressing illustration, recipe 21 should read like a newspaper headline. These aren't drop cookies that contain banana! No, they're cookies that a clumsy banana dropped from high on a ladder! If you fancy a look at vaudevillian bananas, this dazzling stage features not only Banana Juggling Marvels but also an amazing strongman who can lift his weight in banana cookies! And, how's this for a novel idea: 'Enjoy your favorite cereal with sweet, ripe bananas'!


Straight out of Scotland, this irritable scoundrel in kilt and tam-o'-shanter introduces us to the authentic Banana Butterscotch Pie. I love the ring of banana that looks like carved ivory. That's a level of artistry one doesn't normally see in a simple cream pie!


Food of the Gods: Banana Ambrosia


And, finally, here is a page with some exceptional illustrations. Featured on this page is a disturbing depiction of Banana Apple Betty and a bit of rousing artwork for the Banana Tap-Tap-Tap-Tapioca Cream (I could really go for the Shredded Lettuce, Beet and Hard Cooked Egg Salad, too!).

I'll be posting the conclusion to the Bananas...how to serve them series in a few days, and don't forget to check out my Flickr set, especially if you want a close-up view of the glorious illustrations!

Bananas - How To Serve Them, part 1

Last year, I posted two booklets from the Fruit Dispatch Company of New York, a subsidiary of United Fruit (now Chiquita). At the time, I wasn't aware that the company had published so many guides devoted to the world's third most popular fruit. Bananas...how to serve them (1941) is another basic handbook for banana lovers. Stomach churning recipes like Banana Meat Loaf are only the tip of the iceberg; the real draw to these books are the anthropomorphic illustrations. I would love to know the identity of the illustrator because his or her work moves me deeply. For a look at yet another Fruit Dispatch booklet, head over to Dinosaur Casserole and be amazed at the Salad Seer!

Note: This cookbook is so packed with good bits (and 28% of your daily required Vitamin B6), that I'm going to split the book up into three posts. A large amount of bonus (and enlarged) scans of the illustrations will be available in my Flickr set devoted to these banana books. New scans will be added there over the next three posts, as well.

Front cover - Various sweet items.. and Banana Scallops with Ham


Professor Peel says, 'For eating as a fresh fruit...Bananas are best when fully ripe.' And, if you don't want a warning from Sheriff Plantain, you'd better not store your next bunch in the refrigerator!


Baked Bananas can be 'served hot as a vegetable or as a dessert with cream or a hot fruit sauce'!


Mixed Banana Grill


French Fried Bananas In A New Style - Banana Scallops


Rock, Scotch Egg, or Banana Fritter?

Stay tuned for the next two installments of Bananas...how to serve them, and don't forget to check out my Flickr set for a greater array of illustrations and enlargements!

Curly Wurly Interactive #1

When you've looked through cookbooks as long as I have, you're bound to encounter massive amounts of Culinary Arts Institute volumes. I can't vouch for the superiority of the recipes, but, for me, the major drawback of this series 'devoted to the science of Better Cookery' is that all the pictures are in black and white. While that definitely detracts from the allure of these delicious creations, some of these pictures are too good not to be seen.

So, get your crayons ready for the interactive portion of today's post. Here for your coloring pleasure are a few select pages from 1940's 500 Delicious Salads. It's the easiest sort of rainy day activity: just print them out and select the most garish colors you can find! The kids will forget Mickey Mouse (or whatever it is kids like) in no time!

It's a magical moment when the book's own captions speak for themselves. From this point on, I promise you that all commentary is solely from the book itself!

Spring Flower Salads - 'These flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la, are the loveliest luncheon salads'


Grape and Pear Salad - 'Cries of delight will greet this frosty bunch of grapes when the layers below are explored'


Cranberry Ring Salad - 'The brilliant color of cranberry ring filled with shrimp and garnished with pineapple slices and cream cheese makes a real picture'


Top: 'Molded jellied salads in perky shapes for individual service instead of using large molds. When arranged on a bed of chicory with mayonnaise piled in the center, they'll keep the family coming back for more.' Bottom: 'A mirror tray is an ideal background to enhance the transparent delicacy of individual molded salads. A garnish of fresh green leaves and ripe whole berries adds the final touch of beauty.'


Drum Major Salad - 'Every one will 'fall in line' with the drum major salad'


Turkey Salad - 'Turkey gobbler, sea lion or pussy cat will be the result of your skill and imagination' (CW: I guess this can be shaped as one of these creatures only)

Easy and Plain

The first of the last two cookbooks in the Mary Lee Taylor saga is Easy Ways To make meals more tempting, also known as Mary Lee Taylor: The Black & White Years. There are a few strange things about this October edition of the newsletter. The black and white photographs and illustrated cover are only slightly disorienting. It's the lack of that expected supplemental '2 or 4 or 6' that contributes to the foreigness of this particular publication! The highlight of the book: If you like a good anthropomorphic character, you'll want to see this adorable bulb with some bright ideas!

Front cover - Mother passes round the tempting Cheese Scallops. Just look at the excitement on her family's faces!


If there's one thing I've learned from cookbooks, it's that men won't eat just anything! You absolutely need to tailor your menu to ensure "'Man' Appeal." Luckily for frazzled cooks, men like Creole Steak (especially when it has a 'heavenly sauce') with Crisp Celery!


Oh dear, that Pumpkin Pie that was previously featured in lush full-color has now been drained of life! The halo of whipped topping can't really make up for our temporary monochromatism.


Now, this is different! Here we have a promising set of Stuffed Hamburgers with sophisticated Radish Roses.


Creamed Peas are lacklustre in black and white. The pasty dome to the right of the peas seems to be the aforementioned Cheese Scallops ('with all the flavor-appeal of a creamy cheese rarebit').


Back cover - Advertisement for Mary Lee Taylor's show and Saturday Night Serenade (with Jessica Dragonette).


Front cover of our final Mary Lee Taylor cookbook, Plain and Party Food for 2 or 4 or 6, a festive and elegant ending to the year. The cover displays the Easy Fruit Cake. Who wouldn't want a slice of that?


The very orderly Meat Balls with Noodles. The sauce is condensed vegetable soup!


Ending our Mary Lee Taylor series on a sweet note.. here are some cookies. Interestingly, there is a 'Creamy Cheese Rarebit' on the menu shown here. I wonder if that's the same as the Cheese Scallops from the last cookbook!


Finally, Fruit Candy. I like the ones that look like little porcupines!

Thank you for looking through my Mary Lee Taylor cookbooks with me! I just wanted to add that I've been working on uploading photos to my Flickr account. I have a lot to add yet, but I have a small amount of advertisements and cookbook graphics there already. Feel free to add me as a contact! Also, I've added some different subscription options to the sidebar on the right. If you happen to try one out and there are any problems, let me know!

Through The Seasons with Mary Lee Taylor

After her fascination with 'better' meals, Mary Lee Taylor concentrated on 'tasty' meals. 'They might not be better, but at least they're edible,' she famously wrote in the forward to her Tasty Meals for 2 or 4 or 6. While there's no telling if such recipes as Pet Succotash (including one wild card ingredient, depending on what sort of pet you owned) and Tasty Pork Loaf are meant to be that, they are indeed in this edition of her newsletter dated October - November 1951 (first issue with a year!).

Front cover of Tasty Meals for 2 or 4 or 6 - What's tastier than Easy Mix Cake, Stuffed Baked Potatoes, and unnamed meat product?


The merriest of Party Peach Pies, and it's extra-easy! The secret your guests will never guess? It's a no-bake pie!


This Corn Bread Ring with Chili is one of the more peculiar (or vile) ringed foods I've seen. While it's supposedly 'So Welcome On Chilly Days,' it doesn't say by whom!


And, another page from the pie scrapbook, the 'good eating' Pumpkin Pie on a seasonable pine green background.


Back cover - An exciting full-color advertisement for three programs, NBC's Saturday night tv show, The All-Star Revue (with Jimmy Durante, Danny Thomas, and Ed Wynn), The PET Milk Radio Program starring Fibber McGee and Molly (and all the Wistful Vista Gang), and Mary Lee Taylor's own Recipes and Stories of the Week. I sure wish I could enjoy those three shows this week!


Front cover of October - November's PET Recipes and Money-Saving Meal Plans for 2 or 4 or 6 - The earlier Pumpkin Pie now graces the cover on a new dish.


These Potato Meat Patties are quite lovely! They go well with 'Big Bowl of Green Salad'!


Like the Raisin Chiffon Pie that looked like Tuna Casserole, this Tamale Casserole looks like a cheesecake. It definitely looks like some kind of dessert.


Royal Custards fit for a king! Would the Royals be concerned with 'low-cost dinners,' though?