When Rich Men Cook

August 23, 2016

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This is among the stranger tomes in my collection, but given the current political climate, it just caught my eye.

It was published in 1968, and the author had a notion that captains of industry made excellent cooks.  He collected their recipes and arranged them into rather fascinating meals.

I found the Mexican recipes especially interesting. In the introduction he notes that the rich were flying off to Mexico instead of  Monte Carlo, and returning with recipes like these….

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It’s a fascinating tome, with the strangest mix of recipes I’ve ever encountered. What other book, I wonder, would offer three different recipes for shad roe?  (Not one of them, incidentally, involves bacon or a simple saute.)  NExt spring, when the shad are running again, I’ll post all three of them.

In the meantime, here’s a little bit of nostalgia.  This was, I think, my mother’s favorite party dessert.

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5 Comments

  • Joy Bryden says:

    Victor Bergeron using Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup???

  • vicki abbott says:

    I remember making this as a young bride…

  • MaggieToo says:

    Man, what a long reach that Campbell’s marketing department had. You’d think rich guys would at least have had a cook who could whip them up some bechamel. I like they way they kept to their theme with the phrase “crown each dish wish a tiara of sour cream”.

    That grape/cream recipe is so odd I might have to try it. But really, no stranger than pressing grapes into a focaccia or fougasse, now that I think about it. Do you suppose “whipped sour cream” just means some sour cream you’ve loosened up with a whisk?

  • MaggieToo says:

    “wish” = “with”

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