How to Eat and Entertain Like It’s 1958

Throughout most of my adult life the oldest cookbook I owned carries the name Fanny Farmer and collects dust in a high kitchen cupboard. It’s a 1979 edition revised to include 1,800 recipes of American and international persuasion, most of them timeless or acceptably kitschy.

But it wasn’t until a friend gifted me a used, sullied cookbook printed in 1958 titled, “Thoughts for Buffets” that I entered into an era when sexism was as common as steak Diane and fresh pear pie.

More than just a compendium of archaic recipes, the book captures a world in which housewives sported pearl necklaces while wheeling out hors d’oeuvres on tea carts as hubby and his work colleagues talked shit at the wet bar.

With tips for entertaining strewn throughout, the unnamed authors of the book (Riverside Press Cambridge) instruct subordinate matriarchs of the day how to grace their serving tables with tureens of soup and “non-delayed roasts.” Or when the guys gather for “football suppers,” it’s suggested the wives occupy their time “arranging lovely red apples on silver paper doilies for background.” This, after banging out a meal of topside cheese sandwiches, sour cream coleslaw and eggnog pretzel pie.

The “hostesses,” as they’re commonly called, are clued in to “the latest collapsible aluminum trays” for gaining extra table space. And they’re advised “in this changing world” to take advantage of “new mixes, spices and frozen foods” that would soon become ubiquitous.

Still, many of the recipes given for brunches, dinners and even barbecues are labor-intensive by today’s standards. I mean what 30-something mom with a day job is going to lace up Cornish game hens with homemade wild rice stuffing, and then glaze them with bourbon and currant jelly when having a few friends over from yoga class? Even if Martha Stewart bothers, you can bet she whips her assistants into making them while buying and dumping stock shares all day.

A chapter in the back of the book speaks to “help-less housewives,” the iconoclasts who flunked home economics without learning that heavy cream doubles in volume when whipped and that you should never freeze cheese. Yet even for today’s fairly experienced cooks, the section offers such revelations as adding a piece of rye bread to the water when boiling cabbage to eliminate odor—and storing fresh tomatoes with their stem ends down to keep them fresh longer. I never knew.

Trendy noshes at the time included chicken livers in foil, asparagus sandwiches, cold trout, and “savory bits” comprising Wheat Chex, Rice Chex, and Cheerios broiled with melted butter. As the authors point out, they’re among the culinary antidotes for conversation lulls among guests. A good wife might keep a clean kitchen and make fantastic glazed beef balls, but she’ll never chair the neighborhood Christmas-party committee if boredom plagues her soirees.

From the cocktail chapter, Hollywood legend Joan Crawford might have cherished the “pink carnation” for her famed parties and undying love of vodka. Yielding six servings, it calls for nine ounces of the liquor and lesser amounts of pink lemonade and shaved ice. No need to make that a double.

One gets the impression when reading “Thoughts for Buffets” that dishes fancy enough to appease the rich and famous found their way into everyday households — at least in those inhabited by housewives who aspired to the respectability of June Cleaver from the Leave It to Beaver television series (1957 to 1963), and Crawford, whose film career and tony house parties were thriving at the time. .

A friend recently proposed holding a party with a 1950s culinary theme once the pandemic is behind us. I’m all in, and armed with a treasured, quirky book to give me ideas. Below are a couple of far-out recipes I might consider.

Caviar Ring

• 1 envelope gelatin
• ½ cup milk
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 cup heavy cream, whipped
• 1 four-ounce can of caviar

Dissolve gelatin in cold milk. Heat in top of double broiler until completely dissolved. Cool. Add mayonnaise, lemon juice, whipped cream and then the vaviar. Place in a 1-quart ring mold. Chill until firm. Un-mold onto a platter of iceberg lettuce leaves. And fill center with crab meat salad (optional).

Soup to Nuts Cake

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 scant teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup raisin, preferably yellow
• 1 cup chopped nuts
• 1 cup canned, condensed tomato soup

Cream butter and sugar. Sift dry ingredients together; add nuts and raisins. Add this mixture alternately with the tomato soup to the butter and sugar. Grease a loaf pan (10” x 5” x 3”) very well and line the bottom with wax paper. Bake 1 ½ hours in a 275-degree oven. Let cool and then frost with your favorite vanilla butter cream frosting.