Vintage 1950s Barbeque Cookbook - The Hungry Man's Outdoor Grill Cookbook circa 1953
Outdoor cooking is a man's art - an art where your ingenuity and love of good food come into full use... (from the Introduction)
{HISTORY}
As more and more people began moving around the country thanks to the building of the highway systems and a rampant rise in automobile sales, so did America's mealtimes and the idea of eating in the great outdoors. This vintage book, published in 1953, highlights the best recipes for the outdoor grill and all the summer fun that can be attained while cooking and eating outside with friends and family. Whether your setting is the beach, the woods, the lake, a campground, or your own backyard, there is a recipe for every occasion here including cocktail pairings and plenty of side dishes, all served with retro flair!
Compiled by home economists at the Culinary Arts Institue, this booklet is full of recipes that contain whole ingredients that have been designed around easy cooking techniques. There are some really interesting sauce and flavored butter recipes a host of interesting ways to cook grillable entrees like steaks, fish, chicken and burgers.
What is especially fun about this cookbook is the photography and illustrations, which highlight the types of grills that people were cooking with in mid-century America. There are tiny Hibachi grills that go to the beach, large backyard grills that were built into rollable carts with wheels, and special metal grills made to cook camper-style over an open flame. It's also interesting to see how people dressed for such activities back then (leather lace-up shoes worn with socks at the beach, dress pants in the backyard, and a host of colorful apron-clad gents!).
Also, it may be called The Hungry Man's Cookbook but there are plenty of ladies featured here as well. Even some holding court over their own barbeque setups as the master of their own grilling domain. This was a time in history when grilling often meant a night off for women in the kitchen while the guys took over meal prep and cooking. This break from indoor cooking life gave ladies a chance to decorate their dining environment out of doors with colorful cloths, baskets, hampers and seating arrangements that sparked creativity and outside-of-the-box presentation.
A vintage slice of Americana, this cookbook provides a glimpse in midcentury outdoor life that is often not really discussed anymore. Grills may have come along away in sophisticated design but the main concept of getting your pals together from a weekend grill night is still as timeless as ever.
{SPECIAL FEATURES}
- Soft cover
- Contains 64 pages
- Published 1953 by Spencer Press featuring grills available at Sears
- Illustrated throughout with colorful photography, line drawings, and whimsical art
- Each page contains Chef's Notes offering helpful tips, advice, and suggestions regarding a specific recipe
- Each page also contains a suggested menu - referred to as Outdoor Menus- that include cocktail, side dishes, and dessert pairings
- Interesting recipes include Skillet Coffee Cake, Sauce-Painted Spareribs, Angels on Horseback (aka oysters wrapped in bacon), Duckling on A spit, Rock :Lbster Tails with Lemon Butter Sauce, Banana Boats and Turkey on a Spit with Herb Stuffing
- Special Note: Some of the recipes call for monosodium glutamate (also known as MSG- which was a popular seasoning mid-century foods. Today, you can substitute salt in its place.
{CONDITION}
In well-loved condition, this paperback cookbook is completely intact but shows some wear along the spine as well as some creasing on the front and back cover and some paper-wear on the final page of the book. The interior pages are bright, clean, and spot-free. There is a hole punched completely through the book in the top left-hand corner which leads us to believe that this originally hung on a grill at Sears as part of a promotional giveaway.
{SIZE}
Measures 8" inches (width) x 10.25" inches (length) x .25" inches (thickness)