Sing Us A Song You're The Banana Man

 If you came here looking for a banana man, he's at the very end of this post, and you'll be glad he's there to sing you a sweet banana lullaby after this mess.

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I gave in and bought a vintage cookbook. Yeah, I'm weak. I thought I'd put vintage cookbooks behind me five or six years ago, but the pull was just too strong. The instant I saw it I had to get this classic from my childhood:

Ta daaa!  Ta da ta da ta daaaaa!   

My mom had this cookbook. EVERYBODY had this cookbook.  This is the culinary identity of Milwaukie, Oregon c. 1964 - 1975 (when sun dried tomatoes came in.)

I'm going to note here:  any ingredient or combination of ingredients I mention from here on out is actually in this cookbook.  Don't come crying to me afterward like you weren't warned because you were.

See, back when cows weren't a critically endangered species like they are now, if price is anything to go by, ground beef was for folks on a budget, which was a euphemism for poor.  Of course, we were ALL on a budget.  But! If you zhuzhed up that ground beef with stuff like burgundy, deviled ham out of a can or cinnamon, well that was a horse of a different flavor. The more obscure the ingredients, the merrier. It said 'I shop like a rich person.' The more obscene the combination, the better. It made you look adventurous and broad-minded. Therefore:    

 If you mushed bananas into the ground beef, fried that, and dumped a red wine sauce made using orange marmalade over it -  JACKPOT BABY YOU WIN! 

Yes. That is a real recipe out of this book.

 

"This is my fault. I am the one who brought you here. I am the one that said "keep

reading I dare you." I am the one who is gonna write about raw liver. It is my fault,

because it is my blog. Everything has to be my way. And this is where we've

ended up and it's all because of me."

 Crimes against mankind aside, half the recipes in here are pretty good. (Naturally, we won't be spending much time on them. This is Steve, baby.)  I can say that for a fact because I've had about 3/4 of the stuff in The Ground Beef Cookbook.  They're the dishes I remember eating when we had guests, at friends' homes, after funerals and at lodge picnics and reunions.  You got familiar with them quickly, seeing them at every potluck and buffet, and knew your favorites.  The trick, as a kid, was to go through the line authoritatively or you'd get some old bag chasing you around with Campbells Soup Green Beans, squash casserole, or some sauerkrauty abomination insisting you eat some vegetables. You had to use strategy. You had to step into the middle of the line and quickly occupy your paper plate territory with delicious Spanish Meatballs and keep on moving. No more room for Bean Salad, Gladys! **

Because this cookbook was published in 1965, there are many horrible, inappropriate, and scary ingredients in use. There is far too much soy sauce, for starters. It doesn't need to be in everything. There is ketchup all over the place. There are canned tamales. Used as an ingredient. 

LOOK AT THEM.  

 

Lunchmeat. Cornflakes. Raw liver. White bread and wheat bread. Potted meat product. Eggplant in places where eggplant does not belong. American cheese. Bologna. Bananas.  Oatmeal. Canned prunes.  Karo Syrup and way, way, way too much Worcestershire sauce. 

Not that Worcestershire sauce isn't good, it is - but because back in the day, all we had was Frenches' terrible Worcestershire sauce. Everybody's mom, per Frenchs' magazine campaign 'Make hamburger night zesty!' was already dumping that stuff in their meatloaf and hamburgers by the half-cup, and it was awful. All you could taste was vinegar, indigestion and brownness. 

Utter complete garbage Worcestershire sauce     

Once Lea and Perrins hit the shelves, even us 'budget' people started buying it.  Fuck French's Worcestershire. Fuck it in the heart.

When seasonings are used, they are used in minute 1/4 teaspoon amounts. Tabasco sauce is measured out by the drop like it's plutonium.  All chili powder is mild and used in trace amounts, and the chili sauce called for is the weird stuff in the bottle that isn't even hot and has no chilis in it at all. None. I don't understand it and it frightens me.

 In contrast, tomatoes - canned, peeled, unpeeled, chopped, pureed, stewed, whole, sauce, paste, ketchup, tomato soup, oh my yes, throw all the tomatoes at that ground beef. All of them except the fresh, raw kind. 

'cuz fresh tomatoes are the Devil!    

I love that so many of the recipes here have glam names - well, glamourous for blue-collar Oregon of the early 1960's.  Indian Meatballs, for example. It is a perfectly mundane meatball recipe save for the addition of soy sauce, bran cereal flakes (??) and exactly 3/4 teaspoon of sugar. What makes them Indian?  Which Indians do they mean? Where did they get bran flakes?

Watercress Beef Patties with Oriental Sauce contains a shake of allspice. I think the shake of allspice is what makes it Oriental. Or maybe I'm wrong.  Could be the watercress.  Could be the Worcestershire sauce.

Beef Tomato Swirls sounds like something a ballerina conjured up in her Parisian garret one rainy Sunday afternoon, doesn't it? What it is, is ground chuck, Worcestershire sauce, canned tomato soup and cheddar cheese.  Rolled into a log, baked, and...sliced.  Now, this tastes OK. But it doesn't swirl at all. It doesn't have a swirl design either. It looks like a grey CD lying on your plate bleeding grease. 

Here is a picture of a jolly jack tar dancing with a can of corned beef. I hope he doesn't step in that leghold trap someone left on the deck.  

Coffee Glazed Hamburger Patties are said to have a 'surprising' flavor, which I'm sure they do, given the half- cup of rolled oats in there. For the glaze? Oho.  You dump a half-cup of ketchup into a half-cup of cold coffee and let your patties blurble around in that mixture until the excess liquid evaporates and voila - trauma. 

German Meatballs contain brown sugar, allspice and nutmeg - which tracks, actually. Oh, but if they'd only put in some caraway too. Then they could have called them UberGerman Meatballs.  

This is the most German dude on the Internet and he is playing German Meatball Tennis. If you throw a meatball at him he catches it in his mouth. If you don't he whaps you with the racquet.    

The worst concoction in The Sunset Ground Beef Cookbook is on page 34. Now, on page 35, there is a recipe for Meatloaf With Prunes, which is frankly vile, but must take the silver because it is something you might feed a parrot and it would be good for the parrot. No, our winner is an agglomeration of random, pointless indecency that mocks the entire concept of food. 

 Before you continue, you need to sprinkle a circle of salt around yourself OK? Light a few candles. do a novena. This is going to be really, really bad. 

First, there is 

THE LOAF.  It is an average loaf.  You're feeling safe.  Right?

Then, there is THE FROSTING.  Who thought 'Hey, you know what would be a trip is if we put frosting on a meatloaf! You know, like it's a cake, but it's really a meatloaf!'  Bad toilet people is who. 

The frosting is made of boiled and mashed sweet potatoes, mixed with chopped onion, brown sugar and cinnamon. You slap it on the loaf and slide it around until that meaty loaf is entirely orange and smells like a forgotton pumpkin pie in the trash.  Here. Have an antacid. OK now let's continue.   

There is a sauce for this frosty, meaty loaf.  Oh yeah there is. 

THE SAUCE

Onions. Green pepper. Celery. Garlic. 

Margarine. 

Lemon Juice. 

White Sugar.  Mustard. 

Cinnamon. 

Four drops of Tabasco - no more, no less!

HALF A CUP OF EFFIN' KETCHUP.

AND HALF A CUP OF 

RAISINS.

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**Come on, Americans, you all remember this stuff.  It is simply not a smorgasbord without the damn Bean Salad, with all those little beans pressed up against the clear plastic bowl like the faces of drowned sailors.

1 can red kidney beans, extra bland

1 can cut green beans, extra bland

1 can garbanzo beans, extra bland

1 can black-eye beans, extra bland

2 1/2 cups minced celery

1 bunch green onions, chopped 

1 tiny, tiny clove of garlic, minced

one small jar stuffed green olives, sliced

1 can sliced black olives

1/2 cup salad oil

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons brown sugar - Oh hell, make it four

Salt and pepper because that's what people do

You have ten minutes. 

1. Light up a smoke. 

2. Open and drain all the jarred and canned ingredients. 

-Nah, just open them and dump them in that bowl. Yeah.

3. Chop whatever needs chopping.

4. Dump all ingredients into a bowl and mix. Add salt and pepper just to say you did. Cover with Saran Wrap and put in the trunk of the car because 'It's winter so it'll cool off by the time we get there.'  

Now here's your banana man.

*sings to Mr. Peenee* "Oh banana mio, oh, go to sleep now, banana, avoid the monkeys, my sleepy bananaaaaaaaaa, my sleepy banana child."