sweetbread
P and I went on a little road trip yesterday. We were looking for something to take pictures of, but that didn't really work out as we'd hoped. In the middle we went to a book sale at the friends of the library organization in dogpatch Virginia. I got a giant pile of mystery paperbacks for a quarter a piece, some stuff that I'm planning to use for a project, and a few other random things. P got a few things, too. Whenever we go to a used book store, or to a book sale, I'm always amazed at how beautiful books used to be. Why don't we bind things beautifully anymore? I just love the old covers. The books itself is kind of nice, talks a lot about what kinds of flowers you should plant. It has photographs inside, some of which are blurry because a wind must have come up. It is clearly meant for people who have park-like grounds. We have a good-sized yard, but not grounds, so not all of this information will be useful, but still... it's a pretty little book.
I also got this awesome cookbook. Not so much for the cookbook part of it-- it's a book entirely about how to cook all kinds of meat, and as a vegetarian it's, you know, not so applicable. (though I may be able to use some of it for tofu) But the graphics!!
They are just spectacularly of their time.
The initial pages give suggestions for menus to go with various kinds of meat. I mean, good golly, did people actually prepare menus like this? With this many courses? For anything other than a dinner party, once a year, for your husband's boss? I mean.... I strive to include a protein, starch, and vegetable when I make dinner, and that often means we're having hummus with bread and crudite. A starch and a bread? An accompaniment? An appetizer? Really?
And what is going on here? When I looked at it the first thing that popped into my head was "Beef!... Why can't I quit you??"
These children were topping a section entitled, appropriately, "Weiners." Was sausage jump rope a big thing in 1961?
There is an entire section dedicated to "Variety Meats," a euphemism with which I was not previously acquainted. In Cambodia, these are called "inside ingredients," which I always thought of as almost poetically apt.
This section is full of recipes for preparing tongue and liver and kidneys and all manner of things that I don't think I've seen in a grocery store since I was a child. I assume you can still get them at a butcher shop... though I see so few butcher shops, I wonder if there are any left, really. It had a recipe for "sweetbread" preparation that didn't list either an ingredient list, nor a definition of sweetbread. Apparently, it was common enough that everyone knew, in the early 60s, what that meant. I had to look it up. (It is apparently the thymus glands of lamb, cow, or pigs) The set is illustrated with little drawings, apparently wholly without irony, that seem kind of cheeky to me. I mean, dancing hearts above the braised beef heart? However, I'd say that the book is almost completely without irony. And thus, they have deployed one of my favorite forms of weird illustration: The image of an animal happily preparing itself or its brethren to be consumed:
