The Gallery of Regrettable Food
- ISBN-10
- 0609607820
- ISBN-13
- 9780609607824
- Category
- Humor / General
- Pages
- 192
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2001
- Publisher
- Crown Publishers
- Author
- James Lileks
Description
WARNING:
This is not a cookbook. You'll find no tongue-tempting treats within -- unless, of course, you consider Boiled Cow Elbow with Plaid Sauce to be your idea of a tasty meal. No, The Gallery of Regrettable Food is a public service. Learn to identify these dishes. Learn to regard shivering liver molds with suspicion. Learn why curries are a Communist plot to undermine decent, honest American spices. Learn to heed the advice of stern, fictional nutritionists. If you see any of these dishes, please alert the authorities.
Now, the good news: laboratory tests prove that The Gallery of Regrettable Food AMUSES as well as informs. Four out of five doctors recommend this book for its GENEROUS PORTIONS OF HILARITY and ghastly pictures from RETRO COOKBOOKS. You too will look at these products of post-war cuisine and ask: "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?" It's an affectionate look at the days when starch ruled, pepper was a dangerous spice, and Stuffed Meat with Meat Sauce was considered health food.
Bon appetit!
The Gallery of Regrettable Food is a simple introduction to poorly photographed foodstuffs and horrid recipes from the Golden Age of Salt and Starch. It's a wonder anyone in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s gained any weight. It isn't that the food was inedible; it was merely dull. Everything was geared toward a timid palate fearful of spice. It wasn't nonnutritious -- no, between the limp boiled vegetables, fat-choked meat cylinders, and pink whipped Jell-O desserts, you were bound to find a few calories that would drag you into the next day. It's just that the pictures are so hideously unappealing.
Author James Lileks has made it his life's work to unearth the worst recipes and food photography from that bygone era and assemble them with hilarious, acerbic commentary: "This is not meat. This is something they scraped out of the air filter from the engines of the Exxon Valdez." It all started when he went home to Fargo and found an ancient recipe book in his mom's cupboard: Specialties of the House, from the North Dakota State Wheat Commission. He never looked back. Now, they're not really recipe books. They're ads for food companies, with every recipe using the company's products, often in unexpected and horrifying ways. There's not a single appetizing dish in the entire collection.
The pictures in the book are ghastly -- the Italian dishes look like a surgeon had a sneezing fit during an operation, and the queasy casseroles look like something on which the janitor dumps sawdust. But you have to enjoy the spirit behind the books -- cheerful postwar perfect housewifery, and folks with the guts to undertake such culinary experiments as stuffing cabbage with hamburger, creating the perfect tongue mousse when you have the fellas over for a pregame nosh, or, best of all, baking peppers with a creamy marshmallow sauce. Alas, too many of these dishes bring back scary childhood memories.
Get the book
Similar books
-
American Tongue and Cheek: A Populist Guide to Our Language
By Jim QuinnI admit that we have a little trouble - at least I have a little trouble with the Rabbi Louis Paris Hall of Heroes Gold Medallion . At first reading , I thought there was a rabbi named Louis Paris Hall , and an organization called ...
-
Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict
By Paul Lewis“Perceived Personality Associations”; on the importance of shared humor in first encounters, see Barbara Fraley and Arthur Aron, “The Effect of a Shared Humorous Experience on Closeness in Initial Encounters,” Personal Relationships 11, ...
-
如果這樣，會怎樣？: 胡思亂想的搞怪趣問 正經認真的科學妙答
By 蘭德爾．門羅 Randall Munroe廣受歡迎的xkcd網站作者蘭德爾．門羅，隆重推出《如果這樣，會怎樣？》為大家解答匪夷所思的重要問題。 每星期都有幾百萬人瀏覽xkcd ...
-
幽默开心豆
By 李文本书分名人幽默、校园幽默、恋爱幽默、家庭幽默四编，收录各类笑话500多篇。
-
让全世界孩子都乐不可支的笑话书
By 华业本末倒置哈豆那个班的学生正在学习英国历史,有一天老师对他们说:“喂,孩子们,星期五我们要坐公共汽车到康维去。那里有一座叫康维的美丽的城堡,我们要去参观。”孩子们听到这话非常高兴。“现在,有谁有问题吗?”老师问道。“那座城堡有多少年历史了,先生?
-
幽默与笑话
By 温蕾蕾两天以后,我再沿着他的路去卖另一种洗洁精,专门洗去用了他的粉而留在手上的蓝颜色。”赚钱有术两个朋友偶遇。一位说:“你现在这么富,从哪儿搞到的钱?”另一位说:“简单之极,我和一个有钱人结成了合作伙伴:他有钱,我有赚钱的经验。” “那么后来呢?
-
Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out for
By Alison Bechdel24 XYLOPHONE BING DONG DINK DINK hey У THE HAVE A NICE WAIT . NO ... I WAS ALL READY TO , BUT THEN THE VATICAN MADE THEIR HTTLE PRONOUNCEMENT ABOUT HOW SAME SEX COUPLES SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO ADOPT OR USE ALTERNATIVE INSEMWATION .
-
The Comedy of Democracy
By Dan D. Nimmo, James E. Combsthrough Election Day , Rogers caricatured the farcical humors of grave campaign politics . ... Oscar G. Brockett , The Theatre : An Introduction ( New York : Holt , Rinehart and Winston , 1964 ) , p . 111 . 2.
-
Green Lantern-Green Arrow: More hard-traveling heroes
By Dennis O'Neil, Dick GiordanoGreen Lantern-Green Arrow: More hard-traveling heroes
-
Goth-Icky: A Macabre Menagerie of Morbid Monstrosities
By Michael J. Nelson, Charles S. Anderson Design CompanyFrom Jekyll and Hyde to B horror movie icons to the Addams family and beyond, macabre misfits have thrived in the fertile soil of modern-age media and pop culture. What...