Last weekend, while I had my nose to the grindstone on this project and that, Jeff was down in Oregon at a big family garage sale. He unloaded all the no-longer-wanted stuff that had been crowding our basement (and my weight room in particular, which had been making me cranky), and brought me back a pile of cash and a few treasures.
Exhibit A: This classic beauty of a Fire-King Jade-ite bowl pictured above. I love this bowl so much! (I also love the four mismatched Fiesta ware wine tumblers, not pictured.)
Exhibit B: This 1976 “classic” cookbook.
I love reading cookbooks…that’s one reason I have more than 200 of them. But never ever has a cookbook made me laugh as hard as this one did. Seriously…I laughed so hard that my ribs hurt. I’ve decided that 1970s cookery revolved around these five ingredients:
  1. Gelatin
  2. Mini marshmallows
  3. Canned cream of mushroom soup
  4. Canned, crushed pineapple
  5. Mayonnaise
I never saw all five ingredients in a single recipe, but I saw many recipes that included three or four of them. My pick for the grossest recipe in the book is the simply but unfortunately titled “Molded Salad.”
To show that I am not making up the ingredient list, I took a photo of it:

Mmmmm….yummy. And by yummy I mean scary. This recipe reminds me of the episode of “Frends” where Rachel accidentally made a hybrid of trifle and shepherd’s pie, which, among other things, combined beef, peas and jam. In case you want to offend your next party or dinner guests, here are the directions for “Molded Salad”:

Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling water. When partly congealed, add the peas, pineapple, capers and pickles. Mix together well and put in individual molds. Refrigerate or freeze. If frozen, thaw in refrigerator before serving. Serves 8 to 10 depending upon size of molds.

Delightful! And by delightful, I mean dreadful. Capers and pineapple…two great tastes that I’m certain do NOT taste great together. Jeff is threatening to make this. I dearly hope he’s lying.