I picked up a very, very old copy of the Tassajara Cookbook (with the brown paper cover) from the free bin at work years ago. It's full of helpful veggie-tidbits. It doesn't really have recipes, more just information about different produce and how to use it--which can come in handy!
I have a book from an Eskimo school in Alaska, ca 1950, where kids were told to bring in recipes from their mothers. The one I remember best starts out "Find you an Oogruk and boil him well..."- I never tried it.
I recently bought a Cuban cookbook, circa 1952, in Spanish, for my daughter. Turns out it’s a pressure cooker cookbook sponsored by the island’s propane company. The mint green cover with its drawing of a homemaker presenting a whole chicken on a platter (presumably pressure cooked?) is a bit unnerving.
Junk Foodie by Emily Bultz. Includes croque bouchée a l'americaine, w 6 Twinkies around a 7 up can,1 jar marshmallow fluff, 6 Tootsie rolls, 12 Whoppers, 1pack jelly bellies, 1 pack Starlight Mints.
I have one called "From Vassar To Kitchen." It's a completely un-ironic cookbook assembled by Vassar graduates who, I can only suppose, found themselves doing a lot of housewifely duties after college. I think it was printed in the early 50s.
Then, there's the Dali cookbook (I think it's called Les Diners de Gala), which is very bizarre and wonderful.
I also have one called When the Cook Can't Look. It's a cookbook for the blind (and no, it's not in braille--it's written to be read aloud).
(Looking over shoulder nervously)...listen, I know I can trust you all not to blab, but I hid a copy of "How to Eat Like a Republican" on my sister's bookshelf...got it used for a dollar. Because she's a staunch Republican...and I'm not.
The recipes are akin to those in fundraising cookbooks, only provided by politicians and their spouses, and with a lot of backstory for each recipe, including a healthy dose of humor.
Haven't heard if she found it yet...
I have "The Explorers Cookbook" which was published by the Explorers Club of NYC and includes great tales from Mary Hemingway, and many other members, plus recipes like, Fried Bear Intestine,Elephant Trunk a La Mode and Loin of Lion among many other Not PC recipes.
Why? The authors had a shop in the Sun Valley Lodge and someone gave it to me as a gift when I lived there. I have never cooked any of the recipes, except one for trout.
I don't own it. But there's a Placenta Cookbook on Amazon...that features 25 delicious Placenta recipes.
http://www.amazon.com/25-Placenta-Recipes-Delicious-placenta-ebook/dp/B00BN2JP78
If you're cooking placenta I think taking a short cut and picking up a box of placenta helper would be acceptable.
Standard Home Library's "The Family Cookbook" 1962 Edition. The pictures are fantastic, canned fruit cocktail en flambe, ham banana rolls. There is a section for "The Woman Who Works" and "Diets For Invalids, Allergies, and Teen-Agers". I found it in a used book store years ago. I do love the section on table service.
From the answers already given, 'weird' can mean different things. This book is weird beyond the oddities of former food fads or bizarre cooking techniques. The concept, the recipe names and some of the combinations in Bum Steers, by Frances Sheridan Goulart: How and Why to Make Your Own Delicious High Protein Mock Meats, Fake Fish.... (1975) are what I would call weird. I bought the book as a fairly new vegetarian, because it sounded like fun, but never made a thing. Oddly, going through it last night, I found some possibilities to try, masked by titles like Red Hots, Flesh-free Finger Franks. If it was titled Red Peppers stuffed with walnut-basil pesto I would have made it years ago! Lesson: there's probably hidden gems in all these books!
In my first venture into vegetarianism, I owned "The Farm" cookbook, from one of the early communes in Tennessee. I was and still am a cheese fiend so tried their "nutritional yeast cheese" awful stuff, but the cookbook was hand printed, charming and such a symbol of its times.
I recently inherited the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, published in 1966. Molds, chafing dish cookery, handy-dandy culinary definitions (e.g. women need not apply), Lots of processed food, no organic foods or special diets, except for l ow calorie cookery. There is a version of Jamie Oliver's milk chicken though. Boy how times have changed. Silver lining: I also received a brand new Vitamix.
The WD series was my introduction to cooking and I learned a lot! The first place I found the famous David's pancake (Seattle Dutch Babies), excellent breads, lots of information including articles by James Beard, Orange and Onion Salad that we made last week... International recipes when we were still mostly insular -- give it a chance!
sexy: My sister still has that set of cookbooks. There are a few really good recipes in it, but I'm not sure whether I'd take the time to comb through it these days, with so many great recipes at the ready.
When I was 19 and couldn't boil an egg, someone gave me the I Hate to Cook cookbook by Peg Bracken. I plowed through, trying everything my limited palate could handle. And I discovered that I loved to cook! And that I didn't love the taste of powdered onion soup mix, or tinned tomato soup, in my food. So it was onto the Time-Life Foods of the World series, and Julia Child. Surely thanks to that first book!
I have this one: http://www.adlibris.com/se/bok/kaffekokarkokboken-9789186183790 It's only available for purchase in Sweden I think. One of my friends knew someone who was visiting and had them pick up a copy and he gave it to me as a birthday present. The book is in Swedish of course and I don't speak it, but you can guess what most of the words mean. All of the food in the cookbook is made with only a coffee maker. It's pretty wild, and the pictures are amusing too. There's also a blog here: http://kaffekokarkokboken.blogg.se/
Unmentionable Cuisine by Calvin W. Schwabe. It’s a serious look at animal foods rejected by Americans. Why IS it that we only eat the legs of the frog?
No question: The Twinkies Cookbook. My parents gave it as a gag gift at Christmas, and we were in hysterics going through it. Highlights (lowlights?) include Pigs in a Twinkie, Twinkie Sushi and a Twinkie wedding cake.
I have a mousse cookbook that's shiny-red and shaped like, yes, a moose. I've never cooked from it, though. I'd attach a photo but I don't have it handy.
Here's a picture:
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Mousse-Cookbook-Jack-Stone/dp/0809243164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421949965&sr=8-1&keywords=Ultimate+mousse+cookbook
A friend bought me 'Freud's Own Cookbook' (I'm a psychologist). The recipe titles are all play on words on Freud's circle, or his theories etc., and it's full of fake history. Recipes like "Good and Bad Breasts of Chicken" served with sour cream sauce and mole sauce; Minna's Strone, a vegetable soup; or sugar cookies that are shaped like privates...with strategically-placed raisins for nipples, etc. The recipes work! Best Sacher torte recipe I have.
Both disgusting and interesting, right? When I hear about books like this, I don't feel so bad about frittering away a little time on a project or two that don't contribute anything to World Peace. Someone worked on that book and got it published! :-)
Manifold Destiny, a cookbook of recipes for cooking using your car's engine. Actually tried out baking an apple on a drive to my sister's house about 20 years ago, and it worked.
On extremely hot days, my brothers and I would often try to fry eggs on the tar driveway. We didn't want to eat them, it was purely for scientific research.
Pegeen, ah, scientific research. Just like my 12 yr old summer campers conducted on how to break surface tension. By pouring bug juice into glasses so high they made a curved tip of liquid and broke.
I gave away my copy but Manifold Destiny came to mind. I also, very sadly, have a cookbook written in a concentration camp during WW II. Don't know if "weird" is the right word.
The Alice's Restaurant Cookbook - full of helpful suggestions like covering spare hubcaps with aluminum foil when unexpected guests arrive and you have run out of plates. I don't recall ever cooking from it, but I always thought it would be fun to try her baked sweet potato dinner suggestion...served with about a dozen different toppings.
Campy cookbook - I own it, too, along with Alice Brock's second cookbook, My Life as a Restaurant. I wasn't near enough To get to the original Alice's Restaurant made famous in song by Arlo Guthrie. But when my husband and I came to live in New York, near the border of Massachusetts, we dined at her much more upscale place, Alice's at Avaloch, in Lenox near Tanglewood. Of my delicious meal, what I remember most was her tomato and cheddar cheese soup which I make to this day. The recipe is in one of her cookbooks. I also remember the experience of ordering coffee by the origin of the bean, something entirely new to me then. It was an Ethiopian coffee, Djiba if memory serves. That started me on a life-long appreciation of fine coffee. Don't be too quick to diss Alice's cookbook! You have a treasure in your hands. :-)
A “Betty Crocker Bake-Off” cookbook from the 1960s. It has bizarre aerial photos of the hundreds of contestants slogging away in their test kitchen cubicles (they look like they’re about 6-foot square). There are hundreds of cubicles! Where did they erect all of that – in an aerodrome?
It’s mostly cakes of every stripe imaginable but the entrees are fairly scary as well. I find it so interesting to look at old cookbooks and think about how cuisines has changed and all the reasons why. I’ve never cooked from it but love it as an historic artifact.
I have to confess that I recently lost several hours of my life I will never get back when I stumbled on the Pillsbury Bake-off website. I just became weirdly fascinated with the fact that you can win $1 million in a "baking" contest in which no actual baking occurs - it's really just about assembling pre-made dough products now. And most of the recipes would be right at home on my Grandma's table in the 60's, right next to the cream of mushroom soup casseroles. It's quite a throwback but I guess a lot of folks still eat like that.
My own weirdest cookbook was was written by my uncle in the late 1960's after he closed his Italian restaurant - and actually most of the recipes are pretty decent, if old-school. But he does have recipes for things like Whale Steak Stew because I guess you could still buy whale meat back then? And the chapter on "light meals" is hilarious because it starts with fritto misto, which is a mixed fry of various offal and organ meats and the occasional vegetable, progresses through the meatball hero and the tongue salad and ends with steak and eggs and an Italian fondu or fondue with truffles. I think the definition of "light" has changed a lot since then! There are some great old family favorites in there but the book itself cracks me up.
I own Better Homes & Gardens Salad Book. It includes more molded salads that you can shake a stick at, and gems like "Speedy Cheese-Over-Pears" -- "fun to make and eat! Drain chilled canned pear halves. Sandwich together with mayonnaise; place on greens. Top with shredded American cheese; trim with ripe olives."
It's kind of remarkable what used to count as "salad." My great grandmother still makes something called Watergate Salad--pistachio Jell-O mix with non-dairy whipped cream, chopped pistachios, green grapes, and mini marshmallows (I'm probably missing something...maraschino cherries?).
A fruit distributor's organization from my hometown Wellington, NZ, gifted to the world 'Be Bold With Bananas', a beautiful time capsule of 1970s cooking horrors including the particularly ill-advised 'banana candle' pictured here. A friend owned it and many drunken dares involved attempting a bold banana meat loaf - thankfully my memory as to whether we ever went through with it is very foggy . . .
I love peanut butter and onion! Also delicious (not from that book, from my Dad) is thinly sliced onions and ham. In both cases, the onions must be sliced as thin as you can make them.
I think the most fantastic recipe in that book is for the Grand Canyon Cake! if memory serves: Box cake mix batter, divided and colored, then layered into the pan. After baking use a couple of forks to crack open a canyon through the middle. Pour on whiskey sauce. I've not made it, but find the concept spectacularly funny. Plus I love that it's "educational" for the kids, yet they douse it in whiskey sauce.
Poppy Cannon's Can Opener Cookbook. Absolutely ghastly recipes including a casserole made of layers of Spam, canned asparagus and canned macaroni and cheese. I have never cooked from it but enjoy reading it for the laughs.
That's kind what I grew up with as a kid in the 50s Midwest. It was all about making it easy for moms to throw a meal together... in a "jiffy". My favorite oddity is "Cooking in Wyoming" lots of game dishes, some foraging, offal, etc.
Any of the community cookbooks from the 50's have a lot of that kind of recipes. I have a few of them I kept from my mother's collection. Yes, they're really good for a laugh. I used to have one called "The Joys of Jello." I don't think I ever made anything out of it, although I did used to make jello molds. My mother made really delicious ones, and I used her recipes rather than the book...
My most eccentric cookbook by far is “Tito’s Cookbook”. For those who missed the history lesson on Balkans and post II world war Europe, Josip Broz Tito, also known as Marshal Tito, was a life-long Yugoslavian head of state and “benevolent dictator”. The cookbook is an ode to Tito’s extravagant food tastes and lavish state dinners – it is a collection of stories, photographs and recipes from his meetings with heads of states and other dignitaries (e.g. Winston Churchill, John Kennedy, Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Richard Nixon, Sophia Loren, Fidel Castro, even Sadam Husein). And I cooked quite a few dishes from the book, most notably the “Russian Chicken”, which Tito ate with Stalin, and “Shtrukli”, which his served to Josephine Baker.
I have a 1950s cookbook for kids that I bought from a garage sale sometime in high school. While most of the recipes are too 1950s -- think jelly molds and casseroles -- and half don't really work (I recall an unfortunate incident involving cinnamon rolls), it taught me that eggnog and PB&J sandwiches make the perfect (ultra-sugary) pair, and for that I am ever-grateful.
Delectable Past by Esther Aresty...recipes from Greece through middle ages and colonial amer. Made Greek cheesecake, chickwn from apicius, stuffed tomatoes from I forget where...all tasted good. History and notes made me aware of wider rangwvof foods and customs than we grew up with in usa/west, including more fermented and rotten foods. Also a booklet on foraging and preserving in late 60s and early 70s. Nor from hippies or new California...just people who 'd always used weeds, etc for food. More rural continuity than an urban kid knew about.
I love the 2 Chainz cookbook, #MEALTIME. I only have a PDF version, but the garlicky greens recipe is pretty good. The problem is, I can never get the first step right. ("CALL FERGIE, INVITE HER TO WATCH A MOVIE ON NETFLIX. ONCE SHE ACCEPTS, START MAKING GREEN BEANS.")
Proud owner of A Feast of Ice & Fire, the official Game of Thrones companion cookbook, here. George R.R. Martin writes about food a LOT in the GoT books (I know because I've read all of them), which is why it exists it in the first place. For just about every recipe, there's a Medieval version and a reasonable modern version. I know I made something from it for the show's season finale last year. I'll let you guess whether it was the sweetcorn fritters or honey-spiced locusts.
I do not own, nor have I ever cooked from "Sweetie Pie: The Richard Simmons Private Collection of Dazzling Deserts", but longtime Food52er Heather Bednarek has cooked me its "Diamond Lemon Bars" and, I'll tell you what, they're pretty great.
Oh my goodness, I have this one. My grandmother, bless her heart, was a QVC addict and that led to many unexpected packages. I believe this arrived with accompanying miniature pie pans.
68 Comments
Then, there's the Dali cookbook (I think it's called Les Diners de Gala), which is very bizarre and wonderful.
I also have one called When the Cook Can't Look. It's a cookbook for the blind (and no, it's not in braille--it's written to be read aloud).
The recipes are akin to those in fundraising cookbooks, only provided by politicians and their spouses, and with a lot of backstory for each recipe, including a healthy dose of humor.
Haven't heard if she found it yet...
http://www.amazon.com/25-Placenta-Recipes-Delicious-placenta-ebook/dp/B00BN2JP78
If you're cooking placenta I think taking a short cut and picking up a box of placenta helper would be acceptable.
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Mousse-Cookbook-Jack-Stone/dp/0809243164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421949965&sr=8-1&keywords=Ultimate+mousse+cookbook
It’s mostly cakes of every stripe imaginable but the entrees are fairly scary as well. I find it so interesting to look at old cookbooks and think about how cuisines has changed and all the reasons why. I’ve never cooked from it but love it as an historic artifact.
My own weirdest cookbook was was written by my uncle in the late 1960's after he closed his Italian restaurant - and actually most of the recipes are pretty decent, if old-school. But he does have recipes for things like Whale Steak Stew because I guess you could still buy whale meat back then? And the chapter on "light meals" is hilarious because it starts with fritto misto, which is a mixed fry of various offal and organ meats and the occasional vegetable, progresses through the meatball hero and the tongue salad and ends with steak and eggs and an Italian fondu or fondue with truffles. I think the definition of "light" has changed a lot since then! There are some great old family favorites in there but the book itself cracks me up.
Voted the Best Reply!