A Vintage Find

This week, while at an antique store, I picked up a 1956 edition of Better Crocker’s Picture Cook Book. I have a thing for vintage anything, but it was the yellowed pages and taped bindings that made me unable to put it down and leave. I knew, for fifty years, this book has been loved and used; it didn’t hurt that at ten dollars it was a good deal. I was especially intrigued by the claim on the inside cover page: “It’s A Cook Book With A Heart.” Modern cookbooks are mostly filled with recipes accompanied by spectacular pictures. This book is vastly different. The graphics are either stylized illustrations or grainy photos no bigger than a post card. The font is tiny; the words are magnificent. From a section on vegetables: “…Vegetables are like people. By treating them with sympathy and understanding, they give us their best in color, nutrients, and flavor” (421). I couldn’t help but read aloud the witticisms present on each page. Explanations of culinary terms made me laugh: canapés = “midget open faced sandwiches" (304). Despite the simplistic language, I quickly found this book held a weighty collection of meaningful recipes.

Because of the season, I flipped straight to the soup section. I was rewarded with a passage about pot au feu, a French beef stew: “All the flavors are extracted and blended during the long cooking while the kettle smiles and chuckles, but never laughs outright in a full rollicking boil” (409). Inspired, I flipped through to find directions for our dinner. Only a 1956 Betty Crocker cookbook would publish such culinary wisdom and then omit a recipe. I perused the soup recipes and found a recipe for turkey soup.

1956 Turkey Soup
Serves 6-8

Turkey soup is the quintessential end of the holidays. As the book states, it is the “curtain call of the holiday bird” (413). You can use a chicken, goose, turkey, or duck. The recipe in the book is pretty bare bones (pun intended), so I decided to add a few of my own additions.

1 bird carcass with plenty of meat
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, diced
6 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage
8 ounces wide egg noodles
salt
pepper


Place carcass and peppercorns in a large soup pot. Cover with water. Simmer for 2 hours. Remove meat from carcass and set aside (discard bones). Strain stock. Add meat to stock in pot. Add celery, carrot, onion, bay, thyme and sage. Bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes until vegetables are tender. Bring back to boil and add egg noodles. Cook for 15 minutes until noodles are cooked. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

On a final note, who wouldn’t want to take culinary advice from a book that claims butter "promotes growth" and "builds resistance to disease”(45)? I'm all for the nutritional advice.


Cited: Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book: Revised and Enlarged. 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956.

Roast, Pot Style

Pot roast has always been high on my list of top comfort foods, but before last night I had never actually prepared it myself. I didn't even know what cut of meat to use; that's how carnivorously uninformed I am. I grew up in a chicken family, and married a pork man. Luckily, the people at the meat farm did the work for me and plastered a large sticker proclaiming "POT ROAST" across the 2.5 pound hunk of boneless chuck. I love it when that happens.

I researched countless methods and recipes, from slow cookers to oven roasting to braising on the stove. When in doubt, braise. It is the best cooking method for tough cuts of meat. Plus, you can add all sorts of delicious things to the braising liquid, from red wine to fresh herbs to garlic and beyond. I prefer a combination of wine and broth, with lots of fresh thyme and garlic.
Before braising, it's best to lightly sear the meat to seal in juices and provide a little golden brown color. Parsnips, along with the carrots, provide a lightly sweet flavor to counteract the meatiness of the roast. For the mashed potatoes, use your favorite recipe. I mashed six or seven boiled fingerling potatoes with a fork, moistened them with a little butter and sour cream, and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

Pot Roast

Serves 8-10
2 tablespoons oil, divided
2-3 pound boneless chuck roast
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup red wine
3 cups beef broth
4 sprigs of thyme, or assorted herbs such as rosemary or sage
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes with juice
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste
4 carrots, peeled and cut into inch-long pieces
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into inch-long pieces
Chopped parsley for garnish
Mashed potatoes to accompany

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the beef and brown on all sides and set aside. Heat the remaining oil in the same pan. Add the onions and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes.Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about a minute. Add the red wine and deglaze the pan (scraping all the browned bits and reducing slightly). Add the beef broth, thyme, tomatoes, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Add the roast, cover and cook in a preheated 325F oven until fork tender, about 3 hours. Add the carrots and parsnips during the last 20 minutes of cooking. Shred or slice meat and serve on top of mashed potatoes with the carrots and parsnips alongside.