This week on we are rocking the gelatin kitchen picks from eBay! We have lots of lima beans, wartime gelatin, sky-high molds and a gallery of 200 additional cookbook and kitchen kitsch eBay picks at the end of this post. So let’s get started!
Vintage Cookbook Royal Gelatin Aspic "Movie Recipes" 1934
Why I Want This: I don’t think I have ever wanted a gelatin recipe booklet as much as this one! Did you check out the lima beans in that chicken loaf on the front? And the last recipe on the back has macaroni AND Russian dressing in it. Be still my heart.
1943 Jell-O Recipes for Wartime WWII Print Ad
Why I Want This: Did you see the gelatin in the left corner?? More lima beans! As a bonus, it has canned tomatoes as well. If that doesn’t say “Welcome” I don’t know what does.
ALL TIME FAVORITE SALAD BETTER HOMES BOOK
Why I Want This: I really, really want to know what makes that Spanish Vegetable Mold “Spanish” instead of just “filled with V-8”.
Favorite Recipes Americas FOOD EDITORS
Why I Want This: It really, really looks like this is a gem of a cookbook. I mean, get a load of that molded salad. It looks like it could either be gelatin or some kind of savory bread pudding thing, but I am really, really hoping it is gelatin. And that loaf thing with the olives on top? Get out. It is probably pate, but in my heart I hope there is gelatin in it.
The Complete Gelatin Cookbook 1978 by Manuela Soares
Why I Want This: I’m not sure what else this book has up its sleeve, but they seem to like the same mold that the Food Editors of America like. And that is very, very promising.
Vintage Nickel Lined Copper Cake / Jello Mold Pony
Why I Want This: Pony. Gelatin. Mold. Yeah, I want this.
Lot of 2 Pet Milk 1936 Cook Books-Precious Pet Recipes And Good Things To Eat
Why I Want This: Two books packed full of molded food! Love it. This also reminds me that I really need to get my butt in gear and do a whole platter with a molded salad in the middle!
Vintage 50"s Sebastian Minature Jello Moose Advertising
Why I Want This: I LOVE this moose! If only this wasn’t so expensive, it totally would be mine. If you want to read more about these little gelatin promotional figures, you can click here!
1942 Royal Recipe Parade Fruit Gelatin
Why I Want This: Besides being freaking adorable, this book is also jam packed with gelatin molds! Check out that melon mold, it even looks like a watermelon.
Vintage Mini Gelatin/Jello pudding Molds 9pcs colorful plastic
Why I Want This: Fun colored plastic gelatin molds? I’m in! Bonus that they are individual-sized.
Want to see more fun cooking goodness?? Click here to see a gallery of over 150 more vintage cookbook and kitchen kitsch picks by yours truly:
How fun is that!?! And if you are still jonesing for even more kitsch, check out the eBay picks on my other blog, No Pattern Required!
*Disclaimer: Mid-Century Menu is part of the eBay Partner Network, and that means that when you click on our eBay links we may earn a very small commission.
Wow – these are so good! I can’t eat any savory jello without thoughts of gagging, but I’m all about the fruit ones. I love these posts! Great finds (omg, the moose!).
HA! That moose……hee-larious!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
What fascinates me about the veggie-gelatin concoctions is not how strange they seem now, but how normal they seemed fifty years ago. My mother absolutely saw them as the vegetable/salad part of a meal in place of canned vegetables (frozen vegetables appeared sometimes; fresh vegetables rarely). We accepted a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and lime Jello with grated carrot, diced celery and sliced olives-with-pimentos, as a perfectly nutritious and balanced dinner. Washed down with a glass of whole milk, it was everything a growing mid-century boy could want from the four food groups, as far a mother was concerned: meat, starch, vegetables, dairy.
That wartime Jell-O ad will make me say “Partify” all day….
Red kidney beans make it ‘Spanish.’ I’m old enough to remember when red beans were ‘exotic.’
I have the BHaG Salads book, if you want me to send you some scans. I also have the BHaG Meat Cook Book, Barbecue Cook Book (they never hyphenate it, for some reason), All-Time Favorite Recipes: Beef, All-Time Favorite Recipes: Fish and Seafood, Make-Ahead Cook Book, After Work Cook Book, Cooking for Two, Best Buffets, and a bunch of other gems.
It’s interesting to note that one of the dishes that shows up in the Salads cookbook also is featured in the Make Ahead Cook Book as “Sweet-Sour Chicken Mold.” This is the thing that Lileks identified as a sort of floating pesto cog from some terrifying Space Odyssey knockoff.
I’ve covered some of these in my Non-Euclidean Food tag on my old Blogger site (see link).
Let me know if you’d like me to scan any of these and send them over for your horror and astonishment. I love that you’re actually taking the plunge and MAKING some of these atrocities. Cheers.
-Liz
In that photo of the molded salad from Favorite Recipes Americas FOOD EDITORS, behind the pedestal of olives, I think that’s a kumquat tree branch, with kumquats on it. I guess there must be kumquats in that salad… But, wait, behind that, what’s with that pinkish arthropod with all the antennae?
Hey Liz!
Feel free to scan away! I have the 1950’s version of the Salads book, and I love that sucker to death! I have the rest that you mentioned, but I just have never picked up this later salads book for some reason. I am going to have to remedy that soon!