A Classic Cookbook Returns, Canned Soup and All.

[elleng]

Fifty years after the original publication of “The I Hate to Cook Book,” it has been updated, revised and re-released this summer, its publisher hoping to find a new generation of homemakers who appreciate the processed-cheese, canned-soup and alcohol-laden recipes that made it beloved among several million rebellious housewives in the 1960s and 1970s. . .

In one typically breezy aside, as Ms. Bracken argued in favor of using simple cake mixes instead of baking from scratch, she wrote, “We don’t get our creative kicks from adding an egg, we get them from painting pictures or bathrooms, or potting geraniums or babies, or writing stories or amendments, or, possibly, engaging in some interesting type of psycho-neurochemical research like seeing if, perhaps, we can replace colloids with sulphates. And we simply love ready-mixes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/books/19cookbook.html?hpw

[Warpy]

1. The add an egg cake mixes always annoyed the hell out of me

because scratch cakes take so many eggs carefully beaten in. It was obviously a marketing ploy to make Suzy Housewife feel a little less useless for not being able to come up with a reasonable scratch cake, something that's difficult for a lot of people to do. They would have done everybody a bigger favor had they just made the damn mix complete, just add water. I agree with Bracken on that one.

I also went through a canned soup sauce phase, didn't we all? Then I learned how easy it is to make a bechamel or veloute and how easy it is to modify them into almost anything else.

Cooking is a journey and we all have to start somewhere, especially if our mothers were non cooks and we've had to learn by guess and by gosh and/or out of books. Bracken's book is a great place to start for a lot of people. Practice and confidence will eventually wean a lot of them away from the salty canned soups and chemical cakes.

[hippywife]

2. NPR did a series years back

that talked about the evolution of convenience foods. The first cake mixes were created just to add water and nothing else. Housewives didn't like it because they didn't have to mix anything into it and didn't feel like they were providing something "homemade" for their families and took no pride in the offering. Cake mixes were then changed to the current style of cake mix that needs oil and eggs add and sales took off.

[Retrograde]

3. The first cookbook I ever bought

I still bring it out to read: the advice is good, especially considering it was written at a time when more women were starting to work outside the home but were still expected to provide dinner every night. Samples:

"We must face facts. If a recipe calls for eleven different chopped ingredients and a cream sauce and a cheese-topped meringue, you can't call it quick if you hate to cook. On the other hand, that tomato soup on a veal chop will taste remarkably like tomato soup on a veal chop and you can't call it Scalopini".

"Incidentally, a word here about herbs and seasonings...if your family says 'What makes it taste so funny, Mommie?' whenever you use any herbs at all you can leave omit them (although if you omit chili from chili, or curry from curry, you don't have much left and you'd really do better to skip the whole thing)".

"However, if you hate to cook, you'll do better to skip the gambit and simply slice those nice red tomatoes into thick chunks and spread them simply on some nice green parsley or watercress and sprinkle them with salt and pepper and chopped olives and serve them forth".

"Cookbooks will tell you what to do with your leftover cheese. Cheese isn't a leftover; it's a staple".

Can't say much about the recipes, though; one has the word 'yeechh' written in the margins. But it's fun to read, and so is The Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book - were there really such things as canned tortillas?

[Warpy]

4. Canned tortillas were the only kind you'd ever see outside the southwest

back in the 50s and early 60s. They were put out by Old El Paso and they weren't seriously awful if you fried them in oil and used them as tostadas.

They weren't very good if you tried to use them for things like enchiladas, though, they needed the combination of oil and Maillard reaction or they tended to taste like the can.

I do agree about the cheese. There is no such thing as leftover cheese.

[pengillian101]

5. Speaking of that era...this is a fun read :-)

http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/