Y’know, I recently read this series of small cozies, set in 1920’s Pasadena. The protagonist’s female relatives all have 1920’s-style female occupations, and the like and one of them is this “famous” cook. As an ongoing part of the series, people try to finagle invites to this person’s house, to eat well. As someone who has some domestic talent skills in that arena, I was always wondering why the author had not, in fact, included any (famous) recipes or…the like.
WELL, lemme just say, some 20 books into it and she did and I want to admit to being the first to post a review and say STOP POSTING THESE NOW. Don’t get me wrong, sure, 100 years ago, cooking was a bit different than it is now, but…OMG, these “recipes” were AWFUL.
I mean, dead AWFUL and in one circumstance, not even the right recipe. I can only assume that the relative positions of the characters–the non-cooking protag and the “cooking” aunt, is a repeat of real life, and she (the author) had no way of knowing how to judge a “good” recipe or method from a bad one, but holy cow.
Nobody cooking these recipes would have had people importuning them. These would have been edible if you were starving, but you would not have been inveigling invitations. (Seriously, for example, for “beef stew” dice meat into cubes, flour, sear in a pan, add WATER and then in an hour or two, add cubed potatoes and veggies. Voila, Beef Stew. NOT KIDDING.. Now, is that sorta the basis for a beef stew or the like? YES but that’s not everything!!!).
So…this is the long-way ’round to say, we should probably be grateful. You never know. Humorously, for me, Aunt whats-er-name’s meals haven’t been remotely as interesting, since I saw this collection of “recipes” as they were prior. Can’t unsee it, can’t untaste it!
Whatever is in that pot, I think the guy should just pretend to eat it and feed it to the dog. And the dog should pretend that he’s allergic to it.
The dog said for me to tell you that Mystery Meat is a trigger phrase for him….
That’s a shame. That was starting out with some legs, and then…welp, somebody just chopped ’em right off. Left this poor book legless, they did…
Why is the stove knee-high D:
The recipe said to use low heat?
A cookery recipe book to make meals that no one can recognise, including mystery meat.
Y’know, I recently read this series of small cozies, set in 1920’s Pasadena. The protagonist’s female relatives all have 1920’s-style female occupations, and the like and one of them is this “famous” cook. As an ongoing part of the series, people try to finagle invites to this person’s house, to eat well. As someone who has some domestic talent skills in that arena, I was always wondering why the author had not, in fact, included any (famous) recipes or…the like.
WELL, lemme just say, some 20 books into it and she did and I want to admit to being the first to post a review and say STOP POSTING THESE NOW. Don’t get me wrong, sure, 100 years ago, cooking was a bit different than it is now, but…OMG, these “recipes” were AWFUL.
I mean, dead AWFUL and in one circumstance, not even the right recipe. I can only assume that the relative positions of the characters–the non-cooking protag and the “cooking” aunt, is a repeat of real life, and she (the author) had no way of knowing how to judge a “good” recipe or method from a bad one, but holy cow.
Nobody cooking these recipes would have had people importuning them. These would have been edible if you were starving, but you would not have been inveigling invitations. (Seriously, for example, for “beef stew” dice meat into cubes, flour, sear in a pan, add WATER and then in an hour or two, add cubed potatoes and veggies. Voila, Beef Stew. NOT KIDDING.. Now, is that sorta the basis for a beef stew or the like? YES but that’s not everything!!!).
So…this is the long-way ’round to say, we should probably be grateful. You never know. Humorously, for me, Aunt whats-er-name’s meals haven’t been remotely as interesting, since I saw this collection of “recipes” as they were prior. Can’t unsee it, can’t untaste it!