When I was twelve years old, we moved from a semi-suburban, overwhelmingly Mormon neighborhood to a neighborhood full of hippies. My Jell-O consumption, already shaken by the disappearance of my beloved Jell-O 1-2-3, took a nosedive. Gone were the block parties and playdates with their lime Jell-O jigglers and [...]]]> Jell-O and the Kewpies. New York: American Lithographic Co., 1915.

When I was twelve years old, we moved from a semi-suburban, overwhelmingly Mormon neighborhood to a neighborhood full of hippies. My Jell-O consumption, already shaken by the disappearance of my beloved Jell-O 1-2-3, took a nosedive. Gone were the block parties and playdates with their lime Jell-O jigglers and pistachio puddings; my mother started buying fruit leather and hummus from the local food co-op instead. Over the last few years, in my own mildly reactionary way, I have found my way back to Jell-O. I now own at least three Jell-O cookbooks and a variety of molds. I even had myself convinced at one point that Bavarian Creams (Jell-O style, of course) were just the thing for summer entertaining.

Jell-O did not worm its way into my heart by accident. Orator Frank Woodward, who bought the rights to Jell-O in 1897, was determined to dominate the American gelatin industry. He proved adept at marketing. In 1902, his company, the Genesee Pure Food Co., advertised Jell-O as “America’s Most Famous Dessert,” long before most Americans had ever heard of it. Catchy slogans were only one part of their plan. They also wrote, and cleverly gave away, colorful pamphlets with recipes for Jell-O. These pamphlets created a demand for Jell-O, as Woodward had hoped. Beginning in 1904, these pamphlets included pictures of the “Jell-O Girl.” Her face was displayed prominently on Jell-O boxes and advertisements, and was meant to differentiate Jell-O from its competitors. In 1908, the Kewpies made their first appearance. They were also used in advertisements, pamphlets, and packaging.

This pamphlet, published in 1915, begins with an earnest introduction of the Kewpies. They are “cheery little imps, who are always doing something to lighten tasks and brighten the dull spots in life, to make the easy Jell-O way still plainer and easier” (emphasis added). Jell-O was selling a lifestyle, not just a dessert. They were also, just to be safe, attacking other desserts: “Twenty years ago everybody ate pie and nearly everybody had dyspepsia…. Now there is scarcely a housewife in America who does not make and serve Jell-O desserts, and stomach-ache is not so common as it used to be.” Jell-O was easily molded *and* cured stomach ailments–a wonder dessert!

And, I admit, the desserts do look pretty wonderful. Marion Harland’s Pineapple Bavarian Cream (ingredients: lemon Jell-O, canned pineapple) and the Delmonico Dessert look great. Even the unadorned Raspberry Jell-O in the lower right looks beautiful. They had nicer molds in 1915.

Jell-O, as it happens, is more than just a pretty dessert. It is also, according to the Kewpies, “good for little folks, sick or well.” And though he goes unnamed, “one of the greatest physicians in America says that he found that by combining nuts and fruits with Jell-O he produced a diet which is both sustainable and delightfully palatable.” I might find an all Jell-O diet “delightfully palatable” for about a day, but I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to go much longer than that.

 The pamphlet comes with a little bonus: a section about Jell-O Ice Cream Powder. The box claims that the powder can be used to make “puddings, ice creams, sherbets, and ices.” Jell-O eventually abandoned the ice cream powder idea, and focused their attentions on pudding. These ice creams, though–tutti frutti, walnut, Neapolitan–look rather exciting.

The pamphlet ends with the Kewpies, this time in strange (military, housewife) costumes, guarding the Jell-O, and a reminder that “the famous Jell-O desserts can not be made of anything sold in any other kind of package.”

Jell-O has published countless pamphlets and recipe books. I recommend Carolyn Wyman’s excellent Jell-O: A Biography for those interested in learning more.

My affection for Joan and Walter “Fritz” Mondale developed long after the Carter administration and the 1984 presidential election. The Beeman family was solidly and unapologetically pro-Reagan. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but I could swear my baby [...]]]> Mondale, Joan. The Mondale Family Cookbook. Washington, DC: Mondale for President Committee, 1984.

My affection for Joan and Walter “Fritz” Mondale developed long after the Carter administration and the 1984 presidential election. The Beeman family was solidly and unapologetically pro-Reagan. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but I could swear my baby sister wore Reagan buttons on her onesies through much of 1984. I was in first grade, and not in much of a position to protest.

More recently, after many years on the east coast and a subsequent shift in my political leanings, I discovered The Mondale Family Cookbook. Published by the Mondale for President Committee in 1984, the book was purportedly written by Joan Mondale. From the woman who filled the vice president’s house with 20th-century American art (Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Edward Hopper) and who told Maureen Dowd that she would not talk about recipes or clothes during the campaign, the cookbook was clearly an attempt at a balancing act. Fritz wanted Geraldine Ferraro to be his vice president, and ran on a pro-Equal Rights Amendment, anti-nuclear platform. Joan, meanwhile, insisted that she was “a traditional wife and mother and supporter” and seemed at pains to counter the media’s portrayal of her husband’s campaign as radical. The cookbook allowed her to cast herself as a loving housewife from Minneapolis.

This was Fritz’s campaign, though, so the cookbook begins with him. “Crazy Legs” Mondale, captain of his high school football team, looks as eager to please and all-American as can be. The accompanying recipe, for “Fettucine à la Pimento Mondale,” is, unfortunately, somewhat less reassuring. To be fair, it is basically a passable (for 1984, certainly) version of fettucine alfredo. It does not call for margarine or garlic powder, and the pasta is meant to be cooked al dente. The pimentos, though, make me cringe a bit. Sour and insufficiently spicy (except in olives, where I still kind of love them), pimentos always seemed to me like the saddest way to jazz up a dish.

My favorite chapter in the book is “Menus and Recipes from the Vice President’s House.” Here, Joan is clearly in her element. The menus feature more adventurous recipes, like Poached Pears with Sabayon Sauce and Tomato Cases with Spinach and Anchovies. The real highlights, though, are the pictures with the guests. Barry Goldwater, Lady Bird Johnson, and Mrs. Marion Barry all make appearances. I love the picture above, in which Joan and Fritz earnestly discuss kinetic sculpture with artist George Rickey. Joan, in a lovely dress from New Mexico, looks enthralled.

The Reagan administration, claiming that there had been a “lowering of standards” in the National Endowment for the Arts during the Carter years, tried with limited success to reduce and restrict arts funding in the early 1980s. Joan, who as Second Lady served as the Honorary Chairwoman of the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, filled her cookbook with picture after picture of artists visiting the vice president’s house to discuss and display their work.  Above, Georgia O’Keefe smiles broadly while Joan accepts a sculpture for the vice president’s collection; Joan’s rebuke of Reagan’s policies was polite, but unmistakable.

Sadly, the election did not go well for the Mondales. Fritz won just over 40% of the popular vote, but carried only Washington, DC and his home state of Minnesota, giving him 13 electoral votes to Ronald Reagan’s 525.

Joan wrote one other book, Politics in Art, in addition to The Mondale Family Cookbook.

I was going to begin this post by triumphantly declaring that I didn’t own a single can of Campbell’s soup. But when I went to the kitchen to double-check, I found (of course) a can of cream of mushroom. I have no idea where [...]]]> Helps for the Hostess. Camden, NJ: Joseph Campbell Company, 1916.

I was going to begin this post by triumphantly declaring that I didn’t own a single can of Campbell’s soup. But when I went to the kitchen to double-check, I found (of course) a can of cream of mushroom. I have no idea where it came from, but there it was. My mother, raised in California in the 1950s and thus perversely fond of canned soups, would be proud. Some quick back-of-the-envelope math leads me to believe that I ate chicken breasts with cream of mushroom soup approximately three hundred times between the years of 1978 and 1996; green bean casserole (canned green beans, water chestnuts, cream of mushroom soup, Durkee French-fried onions) probably accounts for another hundred and fifty or two hundred exposures. My Campbell’s soup consumption, aside from the occasional can of chicken noodle when I was under the weather, was mostly in the form of these casseroles. I was not alone. John Thorne, in his wonderful Mouth Wide Open, points out that “purchasers us[e] one of every three cans as a recipe ingredient; with cream of mushroom soup, that figure jumps to 80 percent.”

Until 1916, when Campbell’s published Helps for the Hostess, canned soups were primarily marketed as, well, soups. Perhaps realizing that the demand for clam bouillon and mutton soup had its limits, Campbell’s devised new recipes. For the first time, the soups were used as recipe ingredients, rather than as stand-alone courses. Helps for the Hostess starts off with menus featuring Campbell’s soup, but eventually moves on to aspic, pointing out that with Campbell’s consommé and bouillon ”you [could] have a crystal-clear aspic without any labor.” No more “trouble boiling, straining with egg whites, etc.:”  

 The really brilliant turn, though, comes when the authors suggest that Campbell’s soups can be used as an alternative to “elaborate” sauces:

One of the most important and economical uses of CAMPBELL’S SOUPS is for sauces. Instead of taking time to make and season elaborate sauce, you need only use one of the many kinds of CAMPBELL’S SOUPS. Many times unattractive “left-overs” are thrown away when, by using a can of CAMPBELL’S SOUPS, they could have been made into an attractive, appetizing dish. You can combat the high cost of living by using CAMPBELL’S SOUPS as sauces, thus making a second meal at low expense and the quality of the sauces obtained in this way leaves nothing to be desired.

In 1916, though, none of Campbell’s 21 varieties of soup (there are now 81 and counting) came pre-thickened. They were condensed, but not sauce-ready. The pamphlet suggests making a roux with one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of flour, to which any of their soups could be added. This is marginally faster than making a sauce from scratch, but Campbell’s eventually realized that they could make things even easier for their customers. In 1934, Campbell’s introduced cream of mushroom, and “America’s béchamel” was born. Helps for the Hostess has a number of recipes based on tomato soup instead, like the vol-au-vent, halibut, and spaghetti below:  

For time-saving recipes, they are curiously involved. The rice for the vol-au-vent is carefully molded (and since when is a vol-au-vent made with rice?); the halibut is broiled and brushed with butter; the spaghetti (once the “tubes” are cooked) is tossed with a fancy ham/mushroom/green pepper/onion sauce. Canned tomatoes or even fresh tomatoes would hardly have been more work. If the aria below about their tomato farms and choice meats is to be believed, Campbell’s was trying to sell their customers on the idea of quality and consistency more than convenience, at least in the early days:  

Campbell’s has published many cookbooks and produced lots of memorabilia over the years, so much so that there’s a book just for collectors. Sample titles include: Campbell Kids Alphabet Soup, Cooking with Soup, and Back Label Recipes and More!

I have been known to buy them in moments of weakness, but I don’t really approve of joke cookbooks. I own dozens of cookbooks with barely usable recipes, but I make a distinction between books that are [...]]]> Margolis, Jack S. and Daud Alani. Cooking for Orgies and Other Large Parties. Los Angeles: Cliff House Books, 1972.

I have been known to buy them in moments of weakness, but I don’t really approve of joke cookbooks. I own dozens of cookbooks with barely usable recipes, but I make a distinction between books that are intentionally bad and those that have merely aged poorly. Cooking for Orgies and Other Large Parties: How to Cook and Serve Fabulous Six-Course Gourmet Dinners for Ten to Thirty People in One Hour for $1.00 per Person has always been a crowd pleaser, though, and I feel some genuine affection for it.

The authors, Jack S. Margolis and Daud Alani, claim to be “Hollywood Bachelors” with no first-hand knowledge of orgies. Their “friend,” Ernie Lundquist, “has an orgy…every Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m.,” and has taught them everything they know. Perhaps because of their lack of experience, or perhaps, as I suspect, because they are mostly excited about their cooking method (see below), Margolis and Daud don’t devote much of the book to talk of orgies. There are naughty line drawings throughout, and there is a perfunctory “Special Consideration” section at  the beginning, complete with a suggested time-table (”9:30-12:00: Free Play”), but that’s about it:

They quickly move on to the meat of the book, as promised in the subtitle: “How to Cook and Serve Fabulous Six-Course Gourmet Dinners for Ten to Thirty People in One Hour for $1.00 Per Person.” Their definitions of “Fabulous” and “Gourmet” may differ from mine, and, but I like their approach. Each recipe is presented as part of a menu. The book then provides two sets of instructions, one for making each dish step-by-step, and one “integrated recipe,” wherein all of the dishes in the menu are made simultaneously. Not a bad idea, really. It would help, of course, if their recipes sounded appetizing. The menu below, in which spare ribs are marinated in frozen orange juice, tabbouleh is scrambled with eggs before serving, and avocados are doused with apricot brandy is, unfortunately, indicative of their questionable taste.

Things don’t improve much in the seventh menu. The zucchini recipe calls for two tablespoons of instant coffee, and the Strange Bananas are coated in a sauce made from bread crumbs, buttermilk, and banana liqueur. Strange indeed.

Margolis may not be a trustworthy cook, but if his other books are any indication, he would probably make an entertaining host. They include A Child’s Garden of Grass: The Official Handbook for Marijuana Users (in which Ernie Lundquist makes another appearance), Jack S. Margolis’ Complete Book of Recreational Drugs, The Poetry of Richard Milhous Nixon (really!), and The Ins and Outs of Orgies.

My favorite book about entertaining is, without a doubt, Elsa Maxwell’s How to Do It, but the Better Homes and Gardens Guide to Entertaining has its moments too. Published in 1969, it covers everything from picking the right guests (”a party revolving [...]]]> Better Homes and Gardens Guide to Entertaining. New York: Meredith Books, 1969.

My favorite book about entertaining is, without a doubt, Elsa Maxwell’s How to Do It, but the Better Homes and Gardens Guide to Entertaining has its moments too. Published in 1969, it covers everything from picking the right guests (”a party revolving around touch football would be inappropriate for your elderly friends”) to the setting (”You can even decorate the garage, carport, or attic, for parties if you wish”) and, of course, the menu (”if you’ve invited foreign guests–their religion will often determine what they can eat”). Relentlessly upbeat, it promises a “comprehensive treatment of all elements of entertaining so that you may find the answer to any hostessing problem.” The solutions they suggest to these problems resemble, at best, the set of a Douglas Sirk movie and, at worst, a Jell-O and maraschino cherry fueled nightmare. I think this table setting falls squarely in the center of that continuum:  

I sort-of like the placemat (it’s cheerful!), but the aggressively painted egg-carton flower arrangement is a little too much for me.

I *love* anything that touches on teens and their blossoming hostessing skills. The Guide doesn’t disappoint, noting that “[s]picy, hot, unusual foods seem to be teen favorites.” Their suggested menu: Tamale Hero Sandwiches, “pickle-sickles,” and ice cream. Yum.

The menus for the adults aren’t much better. The meal below is, as promised, “colorful and eye-appealing,” but I have some doubts about the flavor combinations. I would probably secretly enjoy that ham/cheese/mushroom/cornflake casserole (the dishes aren’t labeled, so I’m guessing about the contents), but I feel less certain about the artichoke and mandarin orange salad, and more than a little worried about that (canned?) cherry parfait.

Aside from a delicious-sounding recipe for Swiss Baked Eggs (bacon, light cream, Swiss cheese, eggs) and some truly lovely mid-century modern furniture lingering in the background, I’m afraid that The Better Homes and Gardens Guide to Entertaining hasn’t aged so well. But if you, like me, have a soft spot for the garish and optimistic hostessing styles of the 1960s, this book is a treasure trove.

The editors of Better Homes and Gardens are responsible for many other books, including the famous “Plaid” cookbook, now in its 12th edition.  

The lacquered lobster on the cover was all it took. I was unable to resist buying Jim Fobel’s Beautiful Food  when I found it in a used bookstore several years ago. To its credit (as promised on the jacket), it has been a “constant source of [...]]]> Fobel, Jim. Beautiful Food. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983.

The lacquered lobster on the cover was all it took. I was unable to resist buying Jim Fobel’s Beautiful Food  when I found it in a used bookstore several years ago. To its credit (as promised on the jacket), it has been a “constant source of delight and inspiration to [me]” since then. Possibly more delight than inspiration–I’ve never actually made any of the recipes, which range from the merely fussy to the totally insane. The premise of the cookbook is that “meals in minutes” must be vanquished, and that food should be as much (or more) about appearance as taste. While I’m all for lovely presentation, Fobel sometimes took things a bit too far, in a completely charming sort of way. On Thanksgiving, for instance, he recommended dressing up the turkey “with a tailor-made pastry outfit,” otherwise known as a tuxedo:

(Recognizing that it might be difficult to freehand those spats, he was kind enough to include a template.)

 As Fobel mentioned several times, his background as a painter and potter (in San Francisco, in the 60s) informed his ideas about food. He saw his dishes as “finished edible creations,” fertile ground for experimentation. Unsurprisingly, his antipasto jars and Bas-Relief Oat Bread were a sight to behold.  The Mosaic Shrimp-and-Salmon Mousse was especially elaborate and exciting:

 As with most of the recipes, the mousse was accompanied by helpful diagrams (like this one) and detailed structural advice. Fobel seems to have recognized that his Erector Set-approach to cooking needed ample documentation.

One last treat: the author photo. I LOVE the cats.  

All in all, a delightful, if not so useful, cookbook. And it’s going for $.20 on Amazon! A steal, if you ask me.

Fobel wrote at least nine other cookbooks, including Jim Fobel’s Old-Fashioned Baking Book, Jim Fobel’s Big Flavors, Jim Fobel’s Casseroles, and Jim Fobel’s Diet Feasts.

(Housekeeping note: I finally put all of my cookbooks on LibraryThing.) 

Brief infatuation with From Mr. Bingle’s Kitchen aside (the recipe for fruit pizza was and is awesome), I never had much interest in children’s cookbooks. I was a strictly Better Homes and Gardens kind of girl. (I have a weakness for binders, not [...]]]> Oliver, Michel. La Cuisine Est Un Jeu D’Enfants. Paris: Plon, 1963.

Brief infatuation with From Mr. Bingle’s Kitchen aside (the recipe for fruit pizza was and is awesome), I never had much interest in children’s cookbooks. I was a strictly Better Homes and Gardens kind of girl. (I have a weakness for binders, not to mention plaid.) From what I could tell I wasn’t missing much, just a lot of knife-less, stove-less, fun-less recipes. My position has softened a bit lately. I’ve found a few good books (see Alice Waters, Marion Cunningham, Heston Blumenthal), and at least one great one: Michel Oliver’s La Cuisine Est Un Jeu d’Enfants*. It has whimsical illustrations, ambitious recipes (coq au vin, cheese soufflé), and an introduction by Jean Cocteau. I would have *loved* this book when I was eight. Take, for instance, this recipe for Lapin à la Moutarde:

I like the idea of this refined, bib-wearing rabbit having a mustard snack in preparation for becoming dinner. If the rabbit already loves mustard, why not slather him in it? As this recipe suggests, Oliver’s definition of children’s food was generous. He kept the ingredients and the steps to a minimum, but the flavors were complex (in a traditional French kind of way) and he wasn’t afraid to involve knives or an oven.

If your French (like mine) is a little lacking, there is also a lovely English translation, called Cooking is Child’s Play, by Charlotte Turgeon. The entire book is reproduced in the original French, with monochrome English translations after each recipe. Like this, for our friend the rabbit:

The translation includes a small note at the top about buying quartered, frozen rabbit if whole, fresh rabbits are not available. This is apparently not a problem when the recipe is in French.

One last picture, because I love this chicken and his swimsuit. (English version here.)

Also by Michel Oliver: La Cuisine Est Un Jeu De Grands Enfants, La Patisserie Est Un Jeu D’Enfants

*Apologies for the somewhat crappy scanning. This book is HUGE, and my poor scanner couldn’t handle it.

The Food Control Division of the War Shipping Administration (the agency that oversaw Merchant Marine ships during WWII) published several books about managing food and cooking while at sea. Though I don’t use it much for recipes (they all [...]]]> War Shipping Administration, Food Control Division. Cooking and Baking on Shipboard. Washington: GPO, 1945. 358pp.

The Food Control Division of the War Shipping Administration (the agency that oversaw Merchant Marine ships during WWII) published several books about managing food and cooking while at sea. Though I don’t use it much for recipes (they all serve 100), I have a copy of one of them, Cooking and Baking on Shipboard. Published in 1945, it is full of bland food and remarkable illustrations of butchery. Pages and pages of how to cut up a cow. Followed by pages and pages of how to cut up a pig. And then a couple of recipes for biscuits and mashed potatoes thrown in for good measure. In the earnest letter that accompanies the book, Harold J. O’Connell (Director, Food Control) explains that it provides “the most up-to-date and efficient suggestions for planning and making better meals,” exactly what the stewards, cooks, and bakers need to run “the best-feeding Merchant Marine in the world:”

What Mr. O’Connell doesn’t say is that being the “best-feeding Merchant Marine” appears to have involved a lot of beef and some creepy illustrations. In the spread below, our friend the cow has been enlisted to point out his “less-tender” cuts and how best to use them. He seems so happy! He’s gleefully pointing at the butchery chart while rubbing shoulders with the captain and the cook! He’s even (in the lower left corner) carrying a box of “WSA Beef,” looking pleased as punch to play his part. Is he happy that it’s not him not cut up into tiny pieces in that box? Or is he just thrilled that the WSA likes beef? Hard to say.

The chicken in this next illustration doesn’t look quite so happy, unfortunately. It does, however, provide a fascinating look at the changes in chicken anatomy over the last sixty years. Aside from the fact that this chicken still has its head and feet, unlike its neatly packaged modern supermarket counterpart, this chicken is clearly different. Just look at its breasts: small and seemly. Not at all the puffed up, bloated chicken breasts that are de rigeur today. The legs clearly have at least as much meat, if not more, than the breasts! For an idea of just how much things have changed, look at this. It’s as if someone took the chicken below and blew it up with a bicycle pump. Yuck.

More publications of the War Shipping Administration: How to Keep Food Records on Shipboard; How to Stow and Take Care of Food on Shipboard.

My mother barely drinks at all, and while my father does, it’s in a decidedly unglamorous cans-of-bud-lite and jugs-or-sometimes-even-boxes-of-red-wine kind of way. Either because, or perhaps in spite of my upbringing, I’ve always liked the idea of serious, [...]]]> Erlanger, Baba and Daren Pierce. The Compleat Martini Cook Book. Illus. Elizabeth Fraser. New York: Random Thoughts, 1957.

My mother barely drinks at all, and while my father does, it’s in a decidedly unglamorous cans-of-bud-lite and jugs-or-sometimes-even-boxes-of-red-wine kind of way. Either because, or perhaps in spite of my upbringing, I’ve always liked the idea of serious, yet controlled, drinking, the kind done by ad men and literary types in movies from the 1950s and 60s. Hence my fondness for the The Compleat Martini Cook Book. Clearly a farce (the authors report being “shoved” from their “Newport nest” at the tender age of 34), the book nonetheless includes some fairly edible-seeming recipes, arranged in order of how many martinis should be drunk before attempting to cook them. The instructions take into account the sobriety of the chef, suggesting, sensibly, that knives should probably be avoided after four or five drinks. I chose the recipe below because it includes pickled beets (yum!) and because I LOVE the illustration. I think it perfectly captures that green, yet languid, state that can be reached after a night of hard drinking:

In keeping with the book’s boozy, breezy tone, the authors made a few mistakes. But such funny mistakes! I have to admit, I’ve never been so charmed by errata. They forgot to list peas as an ingredient in “Mrs. Joseph Erlanger Peas Wild or Tame;” they left a spoon sitting in the “Cartier Chowder;” and they forgot to list the tuna in the “Tuna Princess.” The mistakes sound suspiciously like mistakes a tipsy cook would make, and the skeptic in me wonders if the errata were more a joke than honest omissions. Either way, they made me laugh:

Baba Erlanger (real name: Jane Trahey) and Daren Pierce went on to one more glorious collaboration: Son of the Martini Cookbook, which I will write about another day.

Written by F. T. Marinetti, The Futurist Cookbook was published in 1932 in Italy. The book aimed to bring the tenets of Futurism into the kitchen, via “aerofood” served at meals with grandiose names like the “Synthesis of Italy Dinner” and the [...]]]> Marinetti, Fillippo Tommaso. The Futurist Cookbook. Trans. Suzanne Brill. San Francisco: Bedford Arts, 1989.

Written by F. T. Marinetti, The Futurist Cookbook was published in 1932 in Italy. The book aimed to bring the tenets of Futurism into the kitchen, via “aerofood” served at meals with grandiose names like the “Synthesis of Italy Dinner” and the “Get-Up-to-Datee.” Marinetti had a special vitriol for pasta; he felt it made the Italians sluggish and complacent. He proposed a radical new cuisine, based on the idea of food as art rather than food as sustinence. Lesley Chamberlain, in her introduction to the cookbook, argues that Marinetti’s proposal was, in fact, “one of the best artistic jokes of the century.” The thrust of the book does seem to be more about performance than consumption, but serious or not, it’s certainly good fun.

The names of the dishes are all fantastic. Some of my favorites: Tasty Equator + North Pole; Like a Cloud; Futurist Risotto with Cape Gooseberries; Carnaleap; More-Less-By-Division; Fisticuff Stuff; Manandwomanatmidnight; Strawberry Breasts; Senate of the Digestion; Pocket Book Turnips; and, of course, Carrot + Trousers = Professor. A few of the recipes are also accompanied by helpful little illustrations, like the Tennis Chop below:

I’m also fond of this illustration for the Elasticake. I think the prune looks like a tiny beret:

The recipes are, on the whole, more lyrical than useful, more focused on the placement and consumption of the ingredients than on their taste. For example:

Words-In-Liberty
(formula by the Futurist Aeropoet Escadamè)

Three sea dates, a half-moon of red watermelon, a thicket of radicchio, a little cube of Parmesan, a little sphere of gorgonzola, 8 tiny balls of caviare, 2 figs, 5 amaretti di Saronno biscuits: all arranged neatly on a large bed of mozzarella, to be eaten, eyes closed, letting one’s hands wander here and there, while the great painter and word-in-liberty poet Depero recites his famous song ‘Jacopson’.

It all sounds so round and lovely, but I can’t imagine it would actually be a nice snack. Nor would most of the dishes; but they do make for excellent reading.

More by Marinetti: The Futurist Manifesto, The Untameables, Futurismo e Fascismo, and Mafarka the Futurist.