January 18, 2008

umm, not so much

In this month's Saveur there is a very cool article by Laura Shapiro called "Taste of the Nation" about a fascinating project from the 30s to collect together a massive book of recipes that they wanted to call "America Eats".

It was part of Roosevelt's New Deal program to put writers to work. Unfortunately it was never finished - although some people are working on projects to get it out of the archive dungeon and into the light of day. It sounds amazing and I hope we see more of it.

The disturbing part is that apparently the Roosevelt White House used to hold their dinners and "sometimes sat down to a salad of pineapple 'sticks' rolled in crushed peppermints."

oh...my...

Now the most disturbing word in that sentence?

"Sometimes..."

…Does Ms. Shapiro mean to say they served this more than once? Was it to Stalin? Because peppermint rolled pineapple sticks is for evil doers.

3 comments:

aforkfulofspaghetti said...

bleurrggghhh.... sounds absolutely disgusting! I shall never be able to look at pineapple in the same way again!

Anonymous said...

Yikes! That was sort of the era of bad salads though. It was a time when "molded" salads were all the rage and they're just about as unappealing. I'm told my husband's great aunt's signature dish (and one she was very proud of)was a salad which included lime jello, cabbage, and green olives. Can you imagine?

Nicola Pulling said...

a fork: Oh I know, and I love pineapple - what a disaster on a plate...

julie: eeks, molded salads...I have another example I'll post from a book I read, I just have to dig through and find it. I remember the aspic days - and I read an article about how they're back again. save us. why would you do that to a perfectly ripe tomato?