In honor of Friday, in honor of it being the 15th of May [update: except it's the 14th. Don't mind me. I have absolutely no concept of time anymore], and in honor of this vintage ad Dan posted to my Facebook Wall yesterday:
(Tomato jam? Delicious. Tomato Jell-o? Bluh. Discuss.)
May I present to you another offering from Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts.
Previous posts on this topic:
Because yes, this book is much, much more than codified heteronormativity and drink recipes. It’s a full-service hosting manual, starting with a chapter on canapés and including tips on preparing soups, sauces, stews, fish, steak, dessert, etc. It also includes a section called “Continental Cooking: Foreign Flavors to Win Guests’ Favors” and a chapter on “Midnight Snacks: Cures for Booze in the Night.”
Mind you, this is a book with a single-page chapter devoted to caviar that starts thus:
Not that this has any direct bearing on the quality of recipes within, but I can’t help shake the feeling that it kinda sorta does.
At any rate, as I browsed through the sampling of canapé recipes, I found a few that looked moderately interesting in a vintage “how quaint, what passed for entertainment!” way, and others that made me wrinkle my nose in distaste. Like bacon-wrapped olives. In the 40s, no one worried about sodium.
But this recipe for tomato canapés is too cringeworthy not to share:
Cut 3 large tomatoes in half. Cut 6 rounds of bread and toast. Spread upper side with thin layer of anchovy paste mixed with creamed butter, then with thin layer of mayonnaise. Place tomato halves (or slices) on each. Dust with salt and pepper and cover tomatoes with thick layer of whipped cream to which 2 tablespoons of well-drained horse-radish and a little grated onion have been added. Dust with paprika and grated carrots.
Leaving aside the formatting, since all the recipes are like this, with ingredients listed as they are needed rather than upfront, I love that most of the quantifiers are so vague. “Dust.” “Thick layer.” It reminds me of the way my grandmother and mother would explain their methods for cooking favorite dishes — after a while, you just intuitively know how much of something to add in. The only specific measurement is the 2 tablespoons of horseradish — because god forbid you use too much of THAT in this recipe. And first you are to halve the tomatoes, but later you could slice them if you want, whatevs. And it took me a couple reads to realize that you weren’t supposed to cut both bread and toast, but cut the bread and then toast it.
And that’s nothing to say of how truly gross this sounds.
Fortunately I don’t see this recipe making a comeback.
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