This is my all-time favorite cookbook. It was published in 1958 and contains recipes along with photos that appeared in Life Magazine between the years of 1951 and 1958. Many of the recipes are over-the-top such as pheasant pot pie, broiled anchovies, roasted suckling pig, sweetbreads in sherry, etc. Even the school lunch recipes for children are a bit too much such as pimento cheese and green olive sandwiches. Towards the back of the book is a wonderful section featuring “modern” kitchen designs as well as house specialty recipes from big city restaurants (including Scandia, Perino’s and Chasen’s in Los Angeles).
What I really love most about this cookbook is the fabulous 1950’s photos, so many great photos that it was hard for me to pick which ones to post. I’m just trying to imagine the average middle class 1950’s housewife looking thru this cookbook and then trying desperately to transform her mediocre dinner party into a lavish affair with flaming beef collops on a dagger, brains with black olives, rice flamingo and banana kirsch sherbet. Yum.
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Allee Willis
I own this cookbook too. No question it’s at the top of the heap of elegant Atomic Age cook books, especially in that it was published by Life magazine. The illustrations are gorgeous as are the table settings, photography and recipes. I also really like things like chapters called ‚ÄúMan’s Job: Steak.
The page with all the different cuts of meat on it is the best of its kind. I love how they show it inserted in the cow and then broken up into parts that subdivide out of that.
It’s also nice that the format is as large as a real Life magazine.
Carrie
Wow! Fabulous cookbook. I’m gonna have to look out for this one.
I love the heading Man’s Job: Steak and the picture across from it that looks like he’s grilling in the middle of the living room.
windupkitty
holy moly, this is beautiful….i love the blue sashed green ensemble in the penultimate pic….that dude to the right of her, is sitting on the floor, right?
If a man’s job is steak, is it a womans’ job to cover a table in chicken wire?
the arching pic of feet and food…tasty…. the wreath circumventing the eggs, salt and pepper and the weenies surrounding the mound of yellow crap is terribly festive….but i’m sorry the dead pig and cuts of meat are llost on this animal lover..i do love the beautiful dress on the girl eating tomatoes and cross-sectioned ding-dongs though…and what can bring a smiles to ones’ face more than two children playing with a gas stove?…..heart-warming…..but ido have to say, with my very limited amount of fire traing, indoor barbeques are not really ever a good idea….but then, what the hell, it was 1958…light’er up!