There are Worse Chefs than You: Avoid these Food Abominations

There are worse chefs than you, no matter how bad you think your cooking is. How do we know? There seems to be a lot of nostalgia for the 1960’s that floats around above pop culture. Unfortunately, a lot of it is way overblown. The time period that brought us the Vietnam War, rampant cigarette use and mass-marketed processed foods might not be the best one to romanticize.

What does that have to do with food abominations? Trust us, we’re getting there. You see, there are worse chefs than you out there: 1960’s era cookbooks make that plainly clear. If you’ve ever wondered what dishes were popular in the middle of the 20^th Century, we’ve got you covered. Here are some of the worst food abominations from the 1960’s.

There are Worse Chefs than You

Prune Whip

One of the nastiest-looking things we’ve seen in a 60’s cookbook is prune whip. So, get this: start with raw whipped egg whites and then fold them into a prune puree. Now, let’s think about this: we’ve got uncooked eggs that could cause salmonella and we’ve got prunes, pureed, which have well-known laxative-like properties.

How did anyone survive the 60’s eating crap like this? What’s next, guys, steaks with cigarette butt garnish? No wonder people used to keel over in the mid 50’s.

Asparagus Macaroni Loaf

Any food item that ends in the word “loaf” goes straight into the garbage can. This particular dish was a popular choice in the 60’s among suburban moms and macaroni lovers. Whoever told them that asparagus belonged with macaroni in a congealed loaf mess was absolutely wrong, but, hey, what can you do.

At least this dish is a bit better than meat crammed into loaf form. Meatloaf is also a perennial favorite of this era and we still don’t understand who exactly enjoys that dish.

“Circle Pups”

Dishes that include hot dogs were really, really popular in the 60’s. The companies who produced these processed foods had a really good marketing department, because just looking at dishes like the “Circle Pups” dish from Better Homes and Gardens Meals in Minutes makes us lose our appetite.

The Circle Pup in particular is a pair of hot dogs on a slice of bread with rice and mustard. Which is just… why? What’s wrong with the hotdog bun? Why is there rice in the mix? Well, what can you expect from the era that brought us American “cheese.”

Dad’s Denvers

This heart-stopper is created by spreading deviled ham on a French roll. Oh, you haven’t heard of deviled ham? Good, it’s terrible. Avoid it like the plague. Next, make an omelet in bacon fat and add green onions. But this on top of the French roll and top it with sliced tomato and broil the whole mix.

Okay, if you survived cooking this thing without dying of a heart attack then you can now attempt to eat this monster. You’ll probably get a few bites in before you start to black out from the amount of trans fats flooding into your blood stream.

Pickle-Stretcher Salad

In the 60’s there was a weird trend of making tons of salad that didn’t include fresh vegetables. Let that sink in. Macaroni salad? Cool. Potato salad? Awesome. Caesar salad? Absolutely not, throw that to the animals.

One of the most nauseating “salads” from this era is the Pickle-Stretcher salad. It was so named because it allowed the maker to stretch a few pickles into a meal that could help the whole family projectile vomit. This monstrosity has olives of both green and black varieties mixed in with diced dill pickles and probably with a heaping on vinegar just for good measure.

Do you want acid reflux? Because this is how you get acid reflux.

Jellied Chicken

I don’t really know what else to say about this dish that the name doesn’t already give away. It’s like Jell-O but with chicken. The cookbook this particular nightmare is from is entirely based on cooking with blenders.

I mean… guys. I know it was the 60’s, but it wasn’t the dark ages. Why was anyone cooking with exclusively blend-able recipes?

Conclusions

Take it easy on the fried food, the processed stuff and the canned foods. If your meat comes out of a can, if you can’t name what part of the animal it’s from and you can’t imagine it served in a nice restaurant, maybe you should avoid it. And thank goodness the 60’s were fifty years ago, because some of these dishes are giving me diabetes by proximity.