Fresh Tomato Shortcake: Bisquick Ick

I’ve been awfully busy of late, which means I’ve been sitting on a gold mine: A cookbook titled More Favorite Name Brand recipes Cookbook and a 1967 Bisquick cookbook. I’m leading off with Bisquick.

Ah, Bisquick. The convenience food that frees you from the trouble of finding and measuring actual ingredients when you want to make biscuits or breads. I hadn’t thought that measuring flour and leavening was especially difficult, but apparently there has long been a demand for pre-mixed ingredients, standardized, shelf-stable, safe from the annoyingly delicious flavor of dairy fresh butter, replete with partially hydrogenated oils. I know our family had a box of the stuff on the shelf for a while; kind of a long while, actually, as I think my mom was quick to realize that she could do a lot better herself when she chose to. But Bisquick is still available, in Original; Heart Smart; Bisquick Complete, enabling you to make biscuits in the flavors Buttermilk, Cheese-Garlic, Honey-Butter and Three Cheese; and now in a “Shake and Pour” jug to which you add water so you can make pancakes. The Web site suggests this enables you to make pancakes for the family in minutes, but doesn’t bother to point out that the time-consuming part of making pancakes is cooking them.

But Bisquick is so much more than pancakes. It’s muffins, dumplings, hamburger pancake roll-ups, meatball pie, chicken fricassee, and country-fried steak. All these and more can be found in So Quick With New Bisquick, a 1967 recipe book that helps home cooks work from breakfast to dessert with the box of lumpy powder. I’ll be fair: Lots of the recipes in the booklet are innocuous, the basics of short dough and casserole thickener and dessert pastry. They might be better if made from scratch—they would certainly be less likely to contain trans fats—but they’re probably not that bad made with the mix. But 1960s color photography and food design seldom disappoints me for long, and I soon found a glorious image of the Fresh Tomato Shortcake.


I’ve given the recipe below, but I admit the description of the ingredients is more appealing than the picture. Far more scary recipes in the book include Ring Around Tuna (canned tuna, cheddar cheese and biscuit dough), Batter Franks (deep fried in a Bisquick batter), and Oriental Meat Pie, which combines ground beef, chopped onion, cream of mushroom soup, milk, soy sauce, salt, olives, parsley and Bisquick biscuit dough in a casserole. I think the soy sauce is supposed to be what makes it “Oriental”; but seriously, that’s quite a stretch.

Here’s the tuna ring:

Upsetting, isn’t it?

And here’s the Chicken Fricassee and Dumplings:


Which doesn’t look quite as awful but is rather pale. There’s a sauce that says, mmm, flour and milk; white, white goodness.

The booklet is full of breathless, cheerful prose exhorting the reliability and speed of Bisquick, and promising that you’ll become the most popular hostess and a well-loved mom if you spoon up Bisquick delicacies from dawn to dusk. One section titled “Remember Gramma’s?” promises you traditional foods like pancakes, chicken and dumplings, and fruit cobbler, in less time, all thanks to the magic of Bisquick. Gramma probably didn’t have the heart to tell readers that making cobbler from scratch doesn’t add more than about five minutes to the effort.

Fresh Tomato Shortcake
Bacon, tomato and cheese flavors—good with lettuce wedges.

Prepare Cheese Sauce (below). Keep sauce hot over hot water. Prepare Shortcakes from Basic Recipe (below), except—omit sugar. Cut 3 tomatoes into thin slices. Fry 6 slices of bacon until crisp; drain on paper towels. Split shortcakes crosswise; spread butter on halves. Place tomato slices between layers and on top of each shortcake. Spoon Cheese Sauce over shortcakes and garnish each with a bacon slice. 6 servings.

Cheese Sauce
3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. New Bisquick
¼ tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. dry mustard
1/8 tsp. ground thyme
1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ cups shredded process sharp Cheddar cheese
Melt butter over low heat in saucepan. Blend in Bisquick and seasonings. Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in cheese. Cook and stir over low heat until cheese melts. Makes about 2 cups.

Basic Recipe for Shortcake
2 1/3 cups New Bisquick
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
½ cup milk*
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix all ingredients with fork to a soft dough. Knead 8 to 10 times on lightly floured cloth-covered board. roll dough ½ inch thick. Cut with 3-inch floured cutter. Bake on ungreased baking sheet about 10 minutes. Split warm shortcakes.

* If desired, omit butter and add 2/3 cup light cream.

So Quick With New Bisquick: A Betty Crocker Cookbook for Breads, Main Dishes, Desserts. General Mills. New York: Golden Press, 1967.

Appetizers

A friend lent me Good Housekeeping’s Appetizer Book from 1958, and I thought I’d share some of the findings with you. Let this be a lesson on what not to do when you entertain.

“This is an era of dips and dunks and sticks and picks,” announces the booklet. “And we say ‘hurrah!’” The authors’ excitement may be premature.

Not everything in the book is bad, of course, but a lot of the recipes seem as if they’d be best enjoyed by people who have deadened their taste buds through heavy smoking. Some of these might also be more palatable after the third martini. In fact, the booklet insists on it:


“And when it comes to selecting that drink, don’t overlook the possibilities of fruit, tomato or vegetable juice, hot or cold soup, bouillon-on-the-rocks, hot tomato juice, mulled cider,” the booklet counsels. Yeah, sign me up for bouillon on the rocks. Preferably large rocks that I can use to hit myself in the forehead to condition myself not to do that again. If that’s not enough shock therapy for you, take a hard look at this:


There’s nothing wrong with an appetizer of prosciutto and melon, but this looks as if it’s been sitting out in the sun all afternoon.

And here’s some good old-fashioned nightmare fodder:


Another of the recipes keeps us in the tradition of inappropriate cakes. It’s the Hors d’Oeuvre Birthday Cake, and it combines olive spread and deviled ham and liver pate in a layered fright. And as a special bonus, you can get melted wax all over it! I notice the “cake” serves 12-15, which I’m guessing is a conservative estimate; a little of this would go a long way.

A section of “Slimmers” includes celery sticks filled with a corned-beef and sauerkraut juice mixture. That sounds like a very effective appetite suppressant.

The back cover of the booklet sends us off in style. I’m not sure just what’s in the basket behind the flying shrimps, but once I decided it looked like macaroni and cheese I could not see it as anything else. Yum!


Hors d’Oeuvre Birthday Cake
1 1-lb. round loaf pumpernickel
1 jar or pkg. cheese spread
1 4-oz. jar olive spread
2 2 ¼-oz. cans deviled ham
1 4-oz can liver pate
3 3-oz pkg. cream cheese
¼ cup top milk or light cream
Birthday candles
Red carnations and laurel leaves

Several hours ahead: Cut ½-inch thick slice of pumpernickel from bottom and top of loaf (save these to use next day). Then slice remaining loaf into 5 layers.

Starting from the bottom, put layers together with the following fillings: cheese spread, olive spread, deviled ham, and liver pate. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To serve: Place “cake” on round tray. In bowl, rub cream cheese with milk until smooth; use to frost loaf. Around cake on tray, put candles, securing them with melted wax. Place red carnations and laurel leaves between candles.

Cut cake into pie-shaped wedges. Serve on dessert plates with forks.
Makes 12 to 15 servings

Peanut-Butter Catchup Dip
½ cup peanut butter
½ cup catchup
corn chips

Mix peanut butter with catchup until smooth. Refrigerate until served.
To serve: Arrange dip in bowl, surrounded with corn chips. Let guests dip their own.

From Good Housekeeping’s Appetizer Book: Irresistible Canapes, Hors d’Oeuvres and Nibblers. The Hearst Corporation, 1958.

Breakfast Cake

I expect to be able to post a little more in the coming weeks while I am on vacation from work. I have a lot of content wrangling to do, so for now here's a quick link to Breakfast Cake, which I don't think is specifically related to Meat Cake, though I don't know for sure.

Gummy Popcorn

You might think that the words “gummy” and “popcorn” do not belong together, at least not as a description of something you might want to eat. But today at a 99-cent store in Queens,* I spotted this product:



It’s not just Gummy Popcorn, it’s Sour Gummy Popcorn. “Wow, that’s even worse,” you may be thinking. “This is the kind of thing that can bankrupt a farmer.” But of course we’re talking about candy here, not corn,** and sour candy lines range from bears to worms to random shapes, so corn is not terribly exceptionable here.

I wasn’t going to buy it, but then I saw this challenge:


My immediate response was, “I bet you can’t!” So I had to get it and find out for myself.

The candy pieces are actually pretty similar in appearance to the pictures on the box.


As you can see, the pieces are a bit larger around than a quarter, and of course much thicker.


Please, don’t feed Sour Gummy Popcorn into the machines at the Laundromat. After wrestling with the plastic bag for several minutes*** I was able to open it and free the candy nuggets. My husband looked alarmed. “Guess which flavor I’m not eating,” he said. “Oh, that’s right—all of them.”

They smell a bit like marshmallows—probably because they contain gelatin—but the first taste impression is sour, sour, sour. I bit into one and chewed and chewed (they’re not kidding when they call these “gummy”), and then guessed the flavor. What are my choices again? Apple, strawberry, watermelon, and popcorn. (Popcorn? Are you kidding me?) I chewed and mused. Apple, I think. Curious, my husband tried one too. After some deliberation, he said, “It’s either strawberry or watermelon. Oh, there’s the aftertaste. Watermelon.”

I can confirm that Sour Gummy Popcorn offers 99 cents worth of entertainment. But I can’t recommend it as something to eat.
---
* Just so you know: Queens is the world champion of 99-cent stores. Our neighborhood favorite has a hang tag in one aisle advertising “Plastic Stuff.”

** But in terms of the industrial food chain it’s still probably corn; see Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or the documentary “King Corn” for more detailed explanation.

*** Why didn’t I just use scissors? Because I am stubborn.

Sunday Roundup

It’s been another busy time for me; work continues to be hectic, plus I squeezed in a five-day trip to Portland last week. Mmm, Terminator Stout. But I do want to offer up a few quick looks at food issues in the news.

First, the Bush Administration doesn’t want you to know if your beef is carrying mad cow disease. Speaking as somebody who is barred from giving blood because I ate meat in England at the wrong time, I think consumers should be able to find out the information if they want it. What’s really interesting to me about this case is that as far as I can tell, it’s not about requiring suppliers to test all their beef; it’s about permitting suppliers to test more than the minimum to meet the wishes of customers (e.g., Japanese buyers).

The New York Times spotlights some unlikely farmers, or more accurately gardeners in East New York, who are not only having fun but are also growing enough to sell their produce to neighbors. Which means Greenmarket produce has more “food miles” than these vegetables.

And Brandweek reports that casual dining chains such as Applebee’s and TGIFriday’s are feeling the pinch as consumers take their dining-out dollars to in-store eateries at supermarkets such as Publix and Whole Foods. Is it churlish of me to point out here that most of what you find in the ready-to-eat section at Whole Foods is probably better, and perhaps better for you, than the menu standbys at Applebee’s? Of course that’s just my opinion.

Seen on a diner menu

Um...maybe I'll just have the soup.

Earth Day Roundup Post

No time for a real post today, but I’m trying to get back on track. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of things in the news lately.

The Return of the Victory Garden?
In Sunday’s NYT Magazine, Michael Pollan makes a convincing argument that the greenest thing you can do is grow some of your own food. Other writers confirm that not only do you save fuel and reduce “food miles,” you gain flavor. As for me, until I can make my work schedule more reasonable, I’m going to have to rely on the Greenmarket.

The Recipe Flap
Most of us have heard by now that recipes offered up on the McCain campaign Web site as Cindy McCain’s family favorites were actually lifted from the Food Network. In Sunday’s NYT, former White House chef Walter Scheib points out what should have been obvious: The spouse of the next president isn’t going to be doing much cooking.

Calorie Counts in NYC
The New York State Restaurant Association is still fighting it, but new city rules go into effect this week requiring restaurants with more than 15 locations nationwide to prominently post the calorie counts for their food. The Gothamist Web site offers a sampling of calorie counts for chains that have started to comply, and I’m sure I’m not the only person alarmed to learn that a Chiplotle Mexican Grilled Chicken Burrito has 1,179 calories.

Eat Your French Fries
And then drive your car with the oil.