RetroLife

Chicken Salad Pie -- 1954

From Pillsbury's 5th Grand National Bake-Off--1954

So a question that often goes through one's mind when perusing bizarre concoctions in strange old recipe books is: "Did anyone actually eat this stuff?" In my research, the answer seems to be "maybe." A lot of cookbooks were made as promotions for various food companies and a lot of the recipes came from "test kitchens." For all we know, they may have been made once in the test kitchen and never again. Maybe people made them and they were as much of a flop then as now. Which is why I'm so fascinated with the Pillsbury Bake-off cookbooks: this is food originated by home cooks. People not only made it, but it was tasted by multiple judges and deemed better than the food of other contestants. This is prize-winning food of it's time!

This is not to say that there aren't still a few oddities in there...which is why I decided to try out the "Chicken Salad Pie" from Junior winner Marlyce Ann Snay of Haven, Kansas. A pie of pineapple, American Cheese and chicken salad topped with mayo whipped cream (See full recipe).

I'll admit, my alarm bells were going off at the mention of American Cheese. I'm a firm believer that American Cheese is great on breakfast sandwiches, burgers and pretty much nothing else. Still, I decided to put my faith in the bake-off judges of 1954. The recipe was fairly easy to execute, although I cheated and used a frozen pie crust (Pillsbury, natch!). I tried it and thought it was so-so. Not unsurprisingly, I thought the American Cheese was the worst part. Then I started trying to get my boyfriend to taste it for the second opinion. It took me about a day to wear him down, during which time I heard him complaining to his mom on the phone that I was trying to make him eat some "weird pie." When he finally agreed to taste a piece, he took a bite, said "wow! This is better than I thought it would be...can I throw it away now?"

So my conclusion was that this dish would probably not be winning any prizes here in the glorious future. It could probably be made a little more palatable, though, by replacing the American Cheese with a sharp cheddar and losing the whipped topping.

Perfection Salad

I ran across this strange gelatine salad (gelatine mixed with vinegar, sugar and lemon juice suspending a melange of cabbage, celery, green pepper and pimento...see full recipe) in several different cookbooks, many heralding it as a classic that had lasted generations. A little research revealed that this dish won first prize in a cooking contest in 1905 and lasted until the sixties before it died off and became a relic of culinary history. This dish became the metaphorical jumping off point for the culinary history book Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century by Laura Shapiro. (Laura Shapiro also authored the fascinating Something from the Oven: Reinventing dinner in 1950's America).

I go the recipe from "Mary Mead's Modern Homemaker Cookbook" from 1966. I made the perfection salad in one of my vintage jell-o molds and it was fairly easy and turned out looking fine.

I served it at a party and got several people to eat it. Everyone seemed to agree it was "interesting" but there were no raves. The thing about this salad is that it only makes sense once you're eating it, and then you get it: it's a salad suspended in a gelatine form of vinegarette dressing. Vinegar...lemon...sugar...ah-ha! The main problem is that the flavor is a little overpowering. The first bite has you thinking "hmm!" but you're sick of it after you've eaten about half a cup. My assessment: Perfection Salad is worth making as a historical exploration, but not likely to ever make a comeback.

Avocado Pie -- 1962

From the cookbook "Joys of Jello" 1962

This pie (see full recipe) is described in the cookbook as "A pie with flair--deliciously combining avocado, pineapple and cheese." While one acquaintence of mine said "that's sounds like one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard," I thought it was so crazy it just might work. Although this cookbook contained much odder fare like "ring around the tuna" and "chicken mousse," The avocado pie was the one I had to try.

The pie was fairly easy to make although I made the mistake of trying to use a not-quite-ripe avocado, so the avocado mashing was more strenuous than it should have been. The pie came out well nonetheless and looked like a retro delight. As for the taste, I thought it was actually pretty good. The flavor was dominated by the lime jello and pineapple, so the avocado and cream cheese mostly just added texture. For some reason, though, I COULD NOT GET ANY OTHER PERSON TO TASTE IT! Maybe they were twice shy after the Tuna Delight Salad Mold incident, but every person who came to my house for the next three days was enthusiastically offered avocado pie and everyone turned it down. So even though this pie was actually fairly interesting and enjoyable, I'll probably never make it again because I'll be eating it alone.

Tuna Delight Salad Mold

From the cookbook "Sunday Night Suppers" from 1956:

The Tuna Delight Salad Mold (see the full recipe) is a two-layer gelatine-loaf consisting of a salty tuna layer (with egg, peppers, worchestershire sauce, mayo, etc) and a sweet jello layer (with pineapple and cucumber). This was one of those recipes so strange, it is not only readily aparrent why it never made it beyond the 50's, but my curiosity would not rest until I had actually made and tried it.

Now the first thing most people say when they look a the list of ingredients is: "What the hell was wrong with people in the 50's?" This is something I've been puzzling over: did the notion of mixing tuna and jello not raise any eyebrows back then? Were they so caught up in the thrill of modern living that they saw this recipe and said "Golly! I can't wait until Gladys and Bill come over for bridge and get a load of this humdinger!" I mean, look how happy that little 50's illustration woman looks as she prepares to inflict this modern marvel on her family and friends! It's even described in the book as "Food for the gods on a summer Sunday night!" Unfortunately, however, most of my friends are mortals.

I invited my cousin Blake and friends Micki and Jee over for dinner to try the recipe out on them. Knowing that this dish would be a hard sell, I tried to sneak it in as a side with an otherwise normal dinner. The recipe called for a lot of ingredients and was fairly time-consuming to execute, but I managed to make it without much complication. The reactions to the dish, however, were interesting. As soon as I unmolded it and started sawing through the jiggling mass with a knife, Blake ran out of the room in horror, looking like he was going to vomit. Micki consented to try "just a taste." He put a forkful of the tuna half into his mouth, started waving his arms around frantically, ran to spit it in the garbage and shouted "OH MY GOD THAT'S DISGUSTING!" Everyone else politely declined to sample.

Being the bold researcher that I am, I ate a big chunk of it and this is what I thought: It's really not THAT bad. I mean, it's probably not something I would ever make again, but it was interesting. The juxtaposition of sweet and salty was not particularly gross and kind of interesting, sort of like when you mix cranberry sauce and mayo on a turkey sandwich. Texturally, the bottom half was kind of like a gelatinous, tuna-y meringue and that's probably what grossed out Micki so much. It doesn't taste particularly awful, but it doesn't taste particularly great, either. I did like, however, how the fresh veggies kind of tied the whole thing together. I was surprised by how good cucumbers in Lime Jello actually is. I ate all of the top part, but ended up throwing half of the bottom part away.

I suppose if I had to try to adapt this recipe into something actually servable to contemporary diners, I would nix the whole tuna part and just do a jello mold with pineapple and cucumber.