Recipe for Disaster: Anchovy Steak

Is a giant steak not good enough for you? Why not sweeten the deal with a crapload of anchovies and green olives with pimentos? And serve it with cold, soggy, congealed KFC fries? And maimed tomatoes? Isn't that better?

This disagreeable platter was barfed up by the 1972 Family Circle MEAT Cookbook, which also includes sections on "Meal-Time Easy Franks" and "Ever-Popular Ground Beef." Sadly, there are no sections on "Problematic Poultry" or "Disliked Luncheon Meats."

The Family Circle gang calls this a "colorful" meal, but I'm leaning more in the direction of "disturbing" and "stop staring at me, steak." But what the hell, right? At least you can get a good game of tic-tac-toe in before your stomach starts screaming so loudly that you have to take it out back and put it out of its misery.

Anchovy Steak
1 blade-bone chuck beefsteak (2.5 lbs)
instant meat tenderizer
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
vegetable oil
1 can anchovy fillets, drained
sliced pimento-stuffed olives

1. Trim excess fat from steak. Moisten meat and sprinkle with meat tenderizer. Place on rack in a broiler pan.
2. Sprinkle top of steak with 1 tbsp flour, and brush with oil. Broil 3-4 inches from the heat 3-4 minutes for rare, 5-6 minutes for medium. Turn and sprinkle remaining flour over top. Brush with oil.
3. Continue broiling 2-3 minutes for rare, or 3-4 minutes for medium. Remove from broiler and arrange anchovies and olives on top of the steak as pictured. Brush all with oil and broil for an additional 2-3 minutes or until steak is done as you like it. Place on a platter and serve with fries and "tomato roses" (a.k.a. tomatoes cut into 8 wedges to within 1/4 inch of the bottom, with the skin peeled back from the points at the top).

Serves 4, sadly

Recipe for Disaster: Ham Mousse

There are few food items that turn my stomach as intensely as meat jello. I'm not sure why it became chic in the mid-twentieth century to combine meat and gelatin, but vintage cookbooks tend to include recipes for an alarming number of chicken- beef- and ham-based jello molds. Aside from the fact that these abominations are textural nightmares, their unnatural shapes and glossy sheens tend to invoke images of a future without hope -- a post-apocalyptic wasteland where all food comes processed, reconstituted, and pre-formed. A world where "Vegetables," "Fresh," and "Organic" have been erased from the vocabulary, newspeak-style.

I don't know about you, but I refuse to allow the Ministry of Love to force ham mousse down my throat. In rebellious solidarity, make this recipe and then burn the horrific results. We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

Ham Mousse

1 tbsp gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1.5 cups chicken stock
3 cups ham, chopped
1/4 cup celery, chopped
1 tbsp onion, grated
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sweet-sour pickles, chopped
3 tbsp dill
1/2 tsp white pepper

1. Place gelatin in 1/4 cup water. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil.
2. Chill mixture. When it is almost set, add the rest of the ingredients.
3. Moisten a mold with cold water and add mixture. Chill until firm.

serves 10

Recipe for Disaster: Ham-and-Egg Towers

This beauty comes from the Soup and Sandwiches Cookbook put out by Family Circle magazine in 1972. Whoever first came up with the idea to make a sandwich look like a cake is an effing evil genius. Can you imagine your surprise as you bite into a slice of angel-food, only to find that it tastes like mayonnaisey ham and egg salad? The Family Circle caption to the above photo reads, "Reward the first person who realizes that Ham-and-Egg Towers is not angel food cake, but a delicious combination of ham and egg between white bread slices." I think that this "reward" would be met with a punch in the face.

I like that the recipe includes instructions on how to make "dill-pickle wheels." In the '70s, garnish was everything - no matter how vile the dish, the inclusion of a radish rose meant it was the height of culinary fashion. I think the aim here is to enhance the sandwich's cake disguise, along with the cream cheese-parsley "icing." This is the Fletch of sandwiches.

When Dave and I went to Sweden last year we learned that this horror is fairly commonplace in Scandinavia. In fact, we spotted the elusive beast on a buffet table near Goteborg, but neither of us were brave enough to try it. Here's the recipe, so you can avoid trying it too.

Ham-and-Egg Towers

6 hard-cooked eggs, shelled and chopped
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup ground cooked ham
2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
6 tbsp light cream
12 slices round white bread
1/2 cup chopped parsley

1. Mix chopped eggs, celery, mayo, mustard, and salt in a bowl.
2. Blend ground ham, half of one package of cream cheese, and 1 tablespoon of the cream until smooth in a small bowl. Place remaining cream cheese and cream in a separate bowl; set aside for step 4.
3. Spread egg-salad mixture on 6 slices of the bread, and ham on 4 slices. Stack slices, alternating egg with ham, in 2 piles of 5 each; top with remaining bread slices.
4. Blend cream cheese and cream in bowl until smooth. Spread mixture over each sandwich stack to frost completely. Pat parsley on tops and sides to cover. Chill several hours.
5. When ready to serve, cut each stack into quarters with a very sharp knife. garnish with dill-pickle wheels and serve with radish roses. To make dill-pickle wheels, shave thin strips from medium sized dill pickles with a vegetable parer. Roll strips, then bunch 3 together; wrap another strip around all to hold them in place.

Serves 8 sad cowpokes

Canned Love

A few weeks ago, I came across this beauty in the Niagara Falls Value Village. At first glance, it seemed much less interesting than the stack of New Kids on the Block videotapes a few shelves over. Then the white gelatin mold in the lower right corner caught my eye - "Are those cucumbers on top?" I thought. "And what the hell is with the shiny meat curls on the side?"

Flipping to the recipe in question, I find that this monstrosity is called "Cottage Cheese-Cucumber Salad" and is composed of lemon-flavoured gelatin, grated onion, cottage cheese, and chopped cucumber. That does it. I have to buy this book.

One dollar and a strange look from the cashier later, I have some new reading material for our trip back to Toronto. It quickly becomes apparent that "fast" was a synonym for "canned" in 1974, as nearly every recipe calls for a can of this or that. Case in point:


"Shrimp-Macaroni Casserole." This "pantry-shelf special" contains Kraft Dinner, 2 cans of shrimp, one can of condensed cream of chicken soup, and a handful of demolished Chex cereal. Delish!

If you have ever wondered what a meatball volcano would look like, your prayers have been answered:


Titled simply "Confetti Meatball Supper," this dish is another canned wonder, containing cans of meatballs, cheddar cheese soup, mixed vegetables, and chopped pimento. The sub-head for this recipe warns "Keep canned meatballs on hand for this dish" - in case of what, exactly? Unexpected guests that you secretly hate?

When I showed the following picture to Dave, he summed it up nicely with "Oh, God."

While the recipe itself is rather innocuous - basic tuna salad with some curry powder, stuffed into tomatoes - the final product bears an uncanny resemblance to the egg pods in Alien. Perhaps H.R Giger was inspired by his After Work Cookbook. After all, these tomato cups' structural perfection is matched only by their hostility.

I love the "Frank-Kraut Dinner"

Who knew hot dogs (er, "franks," as they were called in the '70s) could look so appetizing laying on a delicious bed of saurkraut and condensed cheddar cheese soup (both canned, of course)? There are no less than 8 "time-saving" recipes in this cookbook that have hot dogs as the main ingredient. Oscar Mayer - Helping sisters do it for themselves since 1883.

By far, the most stomach-turning photo in this book is for this "Entertaining Special"

I'm not sure what the photographer was going for with the "futuristic" setting, but the S.S. Discovery vibe does nothing to disguise the vomit-coloured abomination that is the "Sweet-Sour Chicken Mold." Containing powdered sour cream sauce, lemon gelatin, dill, green pepper, cucumber, carrot, and canned chicken, I cannot even begin to imagine what this thing tastes like. The book describes it as having "distinctive flavours," which I'd wager is a polite way of saying that it tastes like ass.

I told Dave that I should exclusively make recipes from the After Work Cookbook next time that we have guests over for dinner. So, who's free next weekend?