Breaking Taboos--The Betty Crocker Cookbook
In Successful Husbanding School, in Survival Skills class, they teach us to never give our wives small appliances or anything kitchen-related for birthdays, anniversaries or Christmas. Or they would, if there was a training school for husbands. Which, there should be.
This week I broke that rule and I think I got away with it. Monday was Kathy's birthday and I bought her a cookbook. Fortunately, this is a very special cookbook. A Betty Crocker cookbook.
Kathy and I both grew up with Betty Crocker cookbooks. In the time when our mothers learned to cook, Betty Crocker was the gold standard of cookbooks. We kids grew up eating meals from Betty Crocker recipes. Most of my bread recipes originally came from a Betty Crocker cookbook. Kathy still has her Betty Crocker cookbook, her first cookbook. It is in three-ring binder format and has unfortunately lost many pages over many years and many moves. I've tried the Betty Crocker cookbook app for my phone, but the recipes are too modern and use too many costly ingredients.
This new cookbook is a hardbound reprint of the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker's cookbook published by Rodale and General Mills. Things were a little different in 1950.
There is a section on how to cook game, including pheasant, quail and squirrel. There is a recipe for Welsh Rarebit with Kidney Beans that was a favorite of Joan Crawford and her dinner guests. Some of the soup recipes begin with opening a can of Campbell's condensed soup, such as Mock Turtle Soup Deluxe which calls for two cans of Campbell's Mock Turtle Soup.
The book includes many classic recipes such as Hollandaise sauce, white sauce and brown sauce.
The egg recipes are great and include how to make soft-boiled eggs and coddled eggs. I'm not really sure what coddled eggs are, but you can make them soft-coddled or hard-coddled. By the way, the English say that a soft-boiled egg should be eaten with a bone or ivory spoon. Press yolks and whites of hard-boiled eggs separately through a fine sieve or strainer for use as a garnish. One of my favorite childhood dinners was eggs baked on corned beef hash. That recipe is found on page 256 of the cookbook.
Desserts in this cookbook are amazing: Bavarian Cream, Baked Alaska, Cherry Tree Log, Norwegian Charlotte and Baked Prune Whip. I've never seen half of these names, let alone the recipes.
I love the bread recipes. There are Kolache recipes, Kulich, French Coffee Lace, Jule Kage and Bohemian Rye Bread.
The best part of this cookbook--okay, I could make a list of best parts. The book includes basic instructions like how to store foods, how to reduce or increase recipes, substitutions, how long to age meats to make them more tender and best recipes for various occasions.
I wish I was making money endorsing this book because I can't say enough about it.
Oh, and Kathy loves the cookbook. It's fun to just sit and read, and it has many of our lost childhood recipes. I'm such a rule breaker.
Stephen P.
This week I broke that rule and I think I got away with it. Monday was Kathy's birthday and I bought her a cookbook. Fortunately, this is a very special cookbook. A Betty Crocker cookbook.
Kathy and I both grew up with Betty Crocker cookbooks. In the time when our mothers learned to cook, Betty Crocker was the gold standard of cookbooks. We kids grew up eating meals from Betty Crocker recipes. Most of my bread recipes originally came from a Betty Crocker cookbook. Kathy still has her Betty Crocker cookbook, her first cookbook. It is in three-ring binder format and has unfortunately lost many pages over many years and many moves. I've tried the Betty Crocker cookbook app for my phone, but the recipes are too modern and use too many costly ingredients.
This new cookbook is a hardbound reprint of the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker's cookbook published by Rodale and General Mills. Things were a little different in 1950.
There is a section on how to cook game, including pheasant, quail and squirrel. There is a recipe for Welsh Rarebit with Kidney Beans that was a favorite of Joan Crawford and her dinner guests. Some of the soup recipes begin with opening a can of Campbell's condensed soup, such as Mock Turtle Soup Deluxe which calls for two cans of Campbell's Mock Turtle Soup.
The book includes many classic recipes such as Hollandaise sauce, white sauce and brown sauce.
The egg recipes are great and include how to make soft-boiled eggs and coddled eggs. I'm not really sure what coddled eggs are, but you can make them soft-coddled or hard-coddled. By the way, the English say that a soft-boiled egg should be eaten with a bone or ivory spoon. Press yolks and whites of hard-boiled eggs separately through a fine sieve or strainer for use as a garnish. One of my favorite childhood dinners was eggs baked on corned beef hash. That recipe is found on page 256 of the cookbook.
Desserts in this cookbook are amazing: Bavarian Cream, Baked Alaska, Cherry Tree Log, Norwegian Charlotte and Baked Prune Whip. I've never seen half of these names, let alone the recipes.
I love the bread recipes. There are Kolache recipes, Kulich, French Coffee Lace, Jule Kage and Bohemian Rye Bread.
The best part of this cookbook--okay, I could make a list of best parts. The book includes basic instructions like how to store foods, how to reduce or increase recipes, substitutions, how long to age meats to make them more tender and best recipes for various occasions.
I wish I was making money endorsing this book because I can't say enough about it.
Oh, and Kathy loves the cookbook. It's fun to just sit and read, and it has many of our lost childhood recipes. I'm such a rule breaker.
Stephen P.
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