Mock Duck
I've not been knitting as much as I'd like, with all the hoopla going on at the moment, but I HAVE been making a bit of progress on "Queen Anne's Lace," and will post a picture of it before I abandon it for the research trip, upon which I am toting "Margaret Tudor," which requires only one color of yarn but is a fiddly long-term thing; would be nice to use the long lonely evenings of the research trip (sniff, sniff) to whack a chunk out of the project, so as to finish it someday when I can still wear it. (i.e., while I'm still working; after I retire I can't imagine where I'd be wearing the thing.)
So that's the knitting news.
But the REAL news is that I went to a wedding shower for one of the dearly beloved graduate students yesterday, and a truly excellent wedding shower it was, and as party favors I was given 1) a lovely organdy fancy "apron" which is not really an apron, as if you spilled anything on it both the "apron" and the underlying skirt would be ruined -- it's really a pleasant artifact meant to signify apron space; and 2) an immensely useful cookbooklet from 1950:
Heh, heh.
Oh, what a different time we lived in, back in the 1950's! How worrisome it was to us when the little children would not eat enough to build up their little bodies! The booklet has a great deal of Extremely Useful Advice. For instance:
The little child should have a period of quiet before coming to the table. A child over-tired or over-excited will not eat as he should even though very hungry. Sometimes a dreamy or imaginative child will become so abstracted that he will not eat. A fairy story that points up his good food while he is casually fed a few forkfuls will usually bring his thoughts back to the table.
Or not.
Especially if what you're trying to get the little child to eat is one of the suggested menus: "Liver and Potato Pie," for instance, served with "Minced Uncooked Cabbage with Lemon Juice."
But there are many useful recipes in this little booklet, too.
My favorite at the moment is for "Mock Duck." I like it because it is, hands down, the scariest food I have ever seen:
Here's how to make it, boys and girls:
(You need 1 shoulder lamb, 4 slices salt pork or bacon, and salt and pepper) Have the butcher prepare a mock duck from the shoulder of lamb. Wrap the duck's head in salt pork or bacon. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and place on rack in open roasting pan. Roast in slow oven (300 F) about 45 minutes per pound or until a meat thermometer registers 180 F.
No.
For one thing, nobody I know is getting through the first sentence of the directions. I think I'd pay good money to see somebody go on over to the butcher's counter at the Giant Eagle and ask the people behind the counter to make a mock duck out of a shoulder of lamb.
Did this happen a lot in the 50's? I was there, and fairly conscious, despite being one of those dreamy and imaginative children whose mind was in the backyard with the fairies, and I think I would have damn well noticed if my mom stuck a mock duck on the table.
Anyway. It was hard times in the 50's, back when the little children wouldn't eat enough to stave off their parents' visions of the Old Country and all those famines and depressions.
How I wish I could go back there and comfort the writers of this booklet. It'll be ok, guys! You'll see! A day will come -- and it's not too far away -- when the little children of America will no longer be too skinny! Don't worry!
And it won't be too difficult, either. Forget the Mock Duck, that's going nowhere. All we need is some corn syrup and a TV....
So that's the knitting news.
But the REAL news is that I went to a wedding shower for one of the dearly beloved graduate students yesterday, and a truly excellent wedding shower it was, and as party favors I was given 1) a lovely organdy fancy "apron" which is not really an apron, as if you spilled anything on it both the "apron" and the underlying skirt would be ruined -- it's really a pleasant artifact meant to signify apron space; and 2) an immensely useful cookbooklet from 1950:
Heh, heh.
Oh, what a different time we lived in, back in the 1950's! How worrisome it was to us when the little children would not eat enough to build up their little bodies! The booklet has a great deal of Extremely Useful Advice. For instance:
The little child should have a period of quiet before coming to the table. A child over-tired or over-excited will not eat as he should even though very hungry. Sometimes a dreamy or imaginative child will become so abstracted that he will not eat. A fairy story that points up his good food while he is casually fed a few forkfuls will usually bring his thoughts back to the table.
Or not.
Especially if what you're trying to get the little child to eat is one of the suggested menus: "Liver and Potato Pie," for instance, served with "Minced Uncooked Cabbage with Lemon Juice."
But there are many useful recipes in this little booklet, too.
My favorite at the moment is for "Mock Duck." I like it because it is, hands down, the scariest food I have ever seen:
Here's how to make it, boys and girls:
(You need 1 shoulder lamb, 4 slices salt pork or bacon, and salt and pepper) Have the butcher prepare a mock duck from the shoulder of lamb. Wrap the duck's head in salt pork or bacon. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and place on rack in open roasting pan. Roast in slow oven (300 F) about 45 minutes per pound or until a meat thermometer registers 180 F.
No.
For one thing, nobody I know is getting through the first sentence of the directions. I think I'd pay good money to see somebody go on over to the butcher's counter at the Giant Eagle and ask the people behind the counter to make a mock duck out of a shoulder of lamb.
Did this happen a lot in the 50's? I was there, and fairly conscious, despite being one of those dreamy and imaginative children whose mind was in the backyard with the fairies, and I think I would have damn well noticed if my mom stuck a mock duck on the table.
Anyway. It was hard times in the 50's, back when the little children wouldn't eat enough to stave off their parents' visions of the Old Country and all those famines and depressions.
How I wish I could go back there and comfort the writers of this booklet. It'll be ok, guys! You'll see! A day will come -- and it's not too far away -- when the little children of America will no longer be too skinny! Don't worry!
And it won't be too difficult, either. Forget the Mock Duck, that's going nowhere. All we need is some corn syrup and a TV....
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