I have a new hero. This blogger not only collects frightening recipes, she MAKES them and feeds them to her husband. And takes pictures of him eating them. This would never work in our house. http://www.midcenturymenu.com/ She has separated them into “worst” and “best” – of course I am reading the worst first. I may have nightmares tonight.

RetroRuth has inspired me to try some new recipes. It is Spring, hey, why not? So, I am going to have a little interactive feature here, and allow you to VOTE on which cookbook I should make a recipe out of, and then vote on the recipe. Of course, I am not married to someone who will eat tuna and mayo in lime jello, so I am going to pick recipes that look edible, but I will pick a good selection and then you can have your say, and then I will take photos and document the process, including our reaction. Sound like fun? Tough, do it anyway!

So, I pulled five cookbooks from my stash (I tried to narrow it down but really, who can resist some of these lurid covers) and at the end of the entry, you will find a poll on which one you want to see recipes from. I will be on travel for a few days, so you probably won’t have a recipe choice until Monday. Hopefully something entertaining will happen to my on my business trip that I can write about. (Not TOO exciting however, like being stuck in Chicago an extra day, etc.) (Not that I mind being in Chicago, but I like to DO THINGS in Chicago, not be stuck at the airport.)

1st Cookbook – Metropolitan Cook Book, by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. I am guessing this one is from the 40s. It appears the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company published a series of these, I saw one from 1922 that looks similar on the inside but the cover on this one seems more recent. Has an assortment of recipes and I love the graphics on the cover.

The 2nd cookbook – “Meals for Two” from the Encyclopedia of Cooking, complete in 24 Volumes (I don’t think I have them all…..) published by the Culinary Arts Institute. I figure at least with this one I won’t be making a recipe with a large quantity. Again, a variety of foods. From 1954, a true Mid-Century cookbook. From the appearance of that meat, they didn’t go for “lean” back then.

Again from the Culinary Institute: 500 Tasty Sandwich Recipes. If you think I am going to make that one on the cover with the asparagus and tomatoes, you are wrong. But it is a delightful picture, yes?

Number 4 is “Body Building Dishes for Children” – again from the Culinary Institute. I just love the lurid photography on these. I do believe that is hash on the cover. Back from the days when we needed to fatten the children up, not skinny them down. I know we don’t have any children but this one just amused me too much.

This one is also from the Culinary Arts Institute but is not part of the Encyclopedia of Cooking. It is part of their “500” Series. Apparently they figured 500 recipes for anything was enough for anyone. 500 Snacks – Bright Ideas for entertaining. From 1940. This cover is kind of dark but if you start looking at it closely you can see some frightening things.

So vote away! One vote per person! I will keep the poll open until Sunday night! Ken, you will just have to figure out which book looks least disturbing and tell all your friends to vote for that one.