Cher and I wasted a good half hour in the office peeing ourselves over the photos and their descriptions. (None of the staff who wandered in and out during that time thought the book was as funny as we did... which is why Cher and I got along so well.)
The author has much of this Regrettable Food on a web site (along with a lot of other crazy stuff from the 1950s) and I like to visit it annually for a little laugh. Here are a few samples, along with Lileks' commentary.
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FROM: "Meat Meat Meat!"
It's steak a la Ugarte! When decorating your meal, make sure to arrange the onions in the shape of Peter Lorre's face.
Garnish with small, inedible onions. WARNING! The carrots here are not to be eaten. Your manly meat-a-rifficness will diminish if you eat the carrots. Vegetables are for commies.
Moving too slow to be measured by the eye of man, the Great Meat Glacier pushed inexorably south.
There are many meals in the Gallery I've described in terms of inadvertant stomach evacuations, but this is perhaps the most vomitous dish I have ever seen. Just Rupe 'n' Heat!
What were they thinking? Didn't anyone remark how much this looks like a skillet full of spew? I'd suggest that this entire book was made by vegetarians, a sly piece of propaganda, but even the beans look awful.
That concludes the Better Homes Guide to Meat, and I think I speak for us all: Thank God.
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FROM : 10 PM Cookery
To remind them they're men, make sure to embed a batch of wriggling, erect weiners in a sea of beans.
According to the illustration above, it was not unusual in the 50s for a party to include a friend who lacked a body. No one seems to notice, of course; why, it's Ten PM.
If you think it's an artful presentation, just remember, it's ten PM, and you've had a few.
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From: "Jello Confronts the Depression"
As much as I dislike molds, particularly green ones, this example is exquisitely rendered, and one of the few pieces of actual art found anywhere in the Gallery. This is what happens in a Depression: men or women who might otherwise have had good careers in fine arts are reduced to turning out Jell-O illustrations, adding artistic flourishes where they can.
It has an almost Gauginesque quality.
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From: "The Unbearable Sadness of Vegetables"
It wasn’t until much later, when they caught the First Lutheran Church standing over the body of another housewife over in Cass County, that they realized that the spire had been stalking and murdering women for years. This explained why so many women got that creepy feeling that someone was watching them - and when they turned around, they just saw a church. Later, they’d think: wait a minute. There’s no church in our side yard.
