The Gallery of Regrettable Food
by James Lileks
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Book Reviews of The Gallery of Regrettable Food
Book Review: FOOD FLASHBACK! PTA Potluck Suppers of the 1950's - 60's
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up this delightful book and started to thumb through the pages. I immediately broke out in a sweat, my heart pounded, and gasped for breath...from laughing. Reading the book late one night, wavy lines appeared, music from the Twilight Zone mysteriously cued up, the flashback had started.....I was transported back in time to the "Milwood Elementary School PTA Potluck Supper". During my formitive years (1958 to 1964) my parents would drag my sister and myself to this dreaded annual event. It was easy to see where some of our classmates had inherited their looks and mannerisms. Parents of all shapes, sizes, smells, and volume---milled about making small talk and giving each other knowing nods. Then there was the food! I swear many of the dishes found in Lilek's book, at one time, found their way to the 12 foot tables which lined the gymnasium. Jello salads of many hues and configerations. Meat dishes twice removed from the dungeons of England. Vegtable & meat aspics which glared back at those who stared. Dishes that actually needed a placard for explanation. ...And Mrs. Trenklemyer...(not a real name)
Mrs. Trenklemyer brought the same yellow "chunky" souffle for three years running, and like many of the dishes probably found in the book----Mrs. Trenklemyer would always return home with a full, un-eaten dish. Poor Mr. Trenklemyer!!
Bravo to author James Lileks to whip up (pun, sorry) an absolutely wonderful book. American really have to stop and wonder when seeing some of these food dishes: "What the ... were we thinking?" I myself cooked professionally for many years and in that time, amassed a sizable number of cookbooks. But while most cookbooks have a least one recipe, replete with picture that causes us to scratch our heads in bewilderment---Lileks has saved the best(?) for us. The captions and text add the perfect condiment to those savory dishes.
WELL DONE!! (sorry, pun again) Can't wait for the "second course" to be published!
Book Review: Pokes fun at our own bad taste -- I looked, loved, laughed!
Summary: 4 Stars
Looking through this book brought back many nostalgic memories - and many of them had nothing to do with the pictures per se. Sure, the Home Ec class films made in the 50s and 60s could've been the Technicolor prototypes to the photographs of Cabbage Swirl Pie and Hot Dogs in Aspic; all delectable combinations of avocado green, saturated lumps of red, appetizingly congealed like the Blob in the centers of pink plates and yellow formica tabletops. The best part, though, was reading the acerbic sidebar comments made by the author. It was a keen flashback to the days when my sister and I would sit making wisecracks about the pictures in pretentious books, or supply alternate dialog to bad cinema. Outrageous fun!The author explains that he was first inspired to share with the world the joys of cookbook photos of decades past when he rediscovered a cookbook his mother had kept hidden away somewhere for many years (because she, thankfully, never actually used it on her grateful family). Feeling a sense of duty to explore the folly of our ancestors, he then went on a search for the pictorial formulas of all things ghastly and retro. The result is the Gallery of Regrettable Foods, a cautionary tale lest we, too, go that unfortunate route. The names of the chapters alone will clue you in: Submit to the Dominion of Ketchup; Cooking with 7up; the World of Molds; and so on... best you pop an antacid tablet before you look.
I felt that the book was compiled in a spirit of morbid fascination, softened by a somewhat affectionate regard for our silly cultural past. If you look at it as a humorous study of how our tastes and fashions have shaped food over time, you can really enjoy looking through this book. It would certainly make a great coffee table conversation starter.
Just save the anchovy balls for your cats.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle
Book Review: Great if you're dieting...
Summary: 5 Stars
This book makes you wonder how any of us survived, and certainly explains why people were thinner back then. I don't see how anyone could get fat on any of this stuff. Blecch. Of course Mr. Lileks has a knack for catching the bizarre and ancedotal in history which is evident in his website also. The 1950's weren't all about Leave it to Beaver, and when we take a look at some of the things that were drastically wrong about the past (like creamed brains on toast) we can be grateful we are alive today. I am sure that people in the 1950's were grateful that they weren't still using outhouses and living without electricity as people were doing in 1900.
If we can't look at our past and laugh about it, especially the really gross/bizarre/weird stuff like Mr. Lileks points out in this book, then what can we laugh at? Worse yet, if we don't learn from history (wink, wink) we could possibly be doomed to repeat these culinary abominations.
Given some of the weirdness in this volume it makes me wonder what people will think 50 years from now about some of the swill we try to pass off as food. For instance- will it still be acceptable for the words "breakfast" and "burrito" to go together? Only time will tell.
To those who say this book is too critical, lighten up. Go watch a Monty Python flick or something. Most of the people who would have enjoyed or thought up these recipes are long dead, and given what's in some of them I'm not surprised. It's funny, OK? Give up your PC uptightness and give in to the sarcasm...enjoy the humor of it. You know someone's going to be laughing so hard they're crying their eyes out someday from looking at what we eat, wear and how we decorate our homes today, so go ahead and guffaw. It's OK, really.
Book Review: Warning: Don't Read Right After Dinner!
Summary: 5 Stars
In this book, James Lileks takes his readers back to a time when moms looked like June Cleaver and meals of creamed brains on toast were perfectly acceptable. Really - he's got the pictures to prove it!Lileks was inspired to create The Gallery of Regrettable Food after a trip back to his parents' home in Fargo, North Dakota. That's where he found Specialties of the House, a cookbook that his mom had gotten from the Welcome Wagon when they moved into the house in the early 60s. The book contained all kinds of horrifying pictures that looked very little like edible dishes - but a lot like something out of a horror film. Lileks then began creating the Gallery online... and eventually turned it into a big, disturbing book.
The Gallery of Regrettable Food is 200 pages of absolutely disgusting pictures (taken straight from the cookbooks of the 30s through the 70s) - along with Lileks's crude commentary. It definitely makes me want to take a closer look at my mom's cookbook collection.
This book is absolutely pants-wetting-ly hilarious. Every once in a while, I'd read it during the evening, and I'd start making a sound that can best be described as a mix between laughing and gagging - and my husband would continually ask if I was okay.
I have a few tips for reading this book, though. First, don't read it all at once. I believe it could do permanent damage. Second, don't read it anywhere near mealtime. Read it before you eat, and you'll lose your appetite (note: it could, however, be used as a diet aid). Read it after you eat, and, well... never mind. Third, don't read it before bed. It will create nightmares unlike anything you've ever experienced. And, finally, whatever you do, don't try this at home!
Book Review: The Little Book of Gastronomic Nightmares!
Summary: 5 Stars
Columnist James Lileks has hit a home run with this pungent assemblage of comestible horrors. Noted for his amusing website (www.lileks.com), the author has been collecting humorous bits of Americana for a while, and this is essentially the greatest hits of horrifying food that he has thus far uncovered. The book is very tongue in cheek and profusely illustrated with recipes for and photographs of hideous and disgusting real recipes that somebody thought were a good idea at the time, but in retrospect seem amazingly daft. The book is divided into chapters largely by food type ("Poultry for the Glum", "All the Smart People Eat Toast", "Glop in a Pot!", etc.) but there a couple organized more by genre ("Swanson's Parade of Lost Identity", "Eat Brains and Whip Hitler!", etc.) All told there are 192 pages of revolting and hilarious monstrosities of the kitchen. Most are descriptions and photos of the dishes, while some include the actual recipes. I actually wish more of the recipes were included, as I can't imagine what ingredients make up some of these dishes, the sardine dish on p. 76, for instance, the appearance of which is accurately described as "piscine torsos in a vinyl sauce colored with melted peach crayons." Some of the recipes, on the other hand, find the reader wishing they knew a bit less about the contents of the dish, for instance on p. 31 under the heading 'Aspic Entrees', the recipes for "Tongue Mousse" and "Jellied Calf's Liver" spring to mind readily.
This book is a wonderful addition to any library; I plan on putting mine among my cookbooks for easy future reference! Highly recommended!