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.

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.