Unfashionable Dinner

[cyalexa]

I also have that recipe for mock apple pie.  I think it was of the depression era like City Chicken was also. 

 

I remember seeing that recipe on the cracker box.  Was it good?

 

We sometimes ate City Chicken when I was a child. Was it pork? I only remember that it was breaded squares of something on a stick. 

[Smithy]

The mock apple pie with Ritz crackers was surprisingly good.  We never could figure out why the recipe worked, but it fooled a lot of people.  I think my father and I could tell the difference, but Mom (who made wonderful apple pies) claimed she couldn't.  Or maybe I have it the other way around.  I may try it again someday, for kicks.  I think I may be more discriminating now than I was back then.  

 

I've never heard of City Chicken.  What was it?

[Norm Matthews]

I remember seeing that recipe on the cracker box.  Was it good?

 

We sometimes ate City Chicken when I was a child. Was it pork? I only remember that it was breaded squares of something on a stick. 

 

Most people could not tell it wasn't apple pie.  City chicken was usually pork, sometimes with lamb on a skewer to resemble a drumstick.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_chicken

[SylviaLovegren]

For this purpose, I highly recommend the 1969 book "Great Dinners from Life" [Magazine], by Eleanor Graves. 

 

It proposes grand dinner parties divided by season, each one illustrated by a jaw-dropping double-page color photo. Coq au vin, trout amandine, crown roast of pork, quail, fondue and more.

 

Here's a piece about it:

 

http://theculinarycellar.com/aint-life-grand/

 

It's a beautiful book.  The spine is shot on mine from so much opening and drooling.

[SylviaLovegren]

I remember seeing that recipe on the cracker box.  Was it good?

 

We sometimes ate City Chicken when I was a child. Was it pork? I only remember that it was breaded squares of something on a stick. 

 

 

City Chicken was usually veal.  Back then, veal was cheap and chicken was expensive.  Ha. 

 

ETA:  Norm and I seem to differ. The recipes I had for City Chicken and Mock Chicken gathered from old cookbooks from the 20s and 30s were usually veal -- maybe that changed into the 50s.  

Edited September 30, 2014 by SylviaLovegren (log)

[Arey]

In my freshman year in college 1958-1959 I had to eat in the cottage cafeteria, and they served City Chicken regularly we were told it was veal, although some of us had our doubts.  Tomato aspic,  and carrot and raisin salad also appeared regularly.  The catering was done by a firm out of Baltimore.

[Norm Matthews]

City Chicken was usually veal.  Back then, veal was cheap and chicken was expensive.  Ha. 

 

ETA:  Norm and I seem to differ. The recipes I had for City Chicken and Mock Chicken gathered from old cookbooks from the 20s and 30s were usually veal -- maybe that changed into the 50s.  

You are correct. City Chicken was made with veal.  It was not lamb.  My friend used to make lamb on skewers but it was called shashlik. My mistake. I have another friend who still makes it today. He uses pork. Perhaps that is just him. I have never made it.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Norm Matthews (log)

[patrickamory]

re: City Chicken. This is deep - I've never heard of it. Surely veal (and even pork) were more expensive than chicken? Or was it just a clever preparation, and not an attempt to disguise something?

[Tri2Cook]

re: City Chicken. This is deep - I've never heard of it. Surely veal (and even pork) were more expensive than chicken? Or was it just a clever preparation, and not an attempt to disguise something?

My grandmother made city chicken using pork. By the time I existed to eat it, pork definitely cost more than chicken and she just made it as a nostalgia thing. But she claimed that it was the cheaper option at one point in time, that she could buy it already cubed and skewered at the butcher shop for less than she could buy chicken. The last time I was in the area where she lived, there were still small butcher shops that carried it so it must live on in enough memories to be worth selling.

IowaDee mentioned tuna casserole made with potato chips instead of noodles. I remember my stepmom making that one and a thing from the bisquick recipe book called tuna ring sometime in the late 70's/early 80's. She's actually a good cook but those particular two things were items of dread. I don't know if they were considered fashionable at the time or not but I didn't love them. The potato chips made the casserole way too salty. The tuna ring, complete with it's accompanying cheese sauce, wasn't loved by any of us but we wouldn't dream of saying so after she did the work of making it for us... so it continued to be made. They both have to be period items, I can't imagine them having persisted, but I don't recommend either for your dinner party.

I've never had the tamale casserole but my stepmom also used to make a thing called enchilada casserole that involved ground beef cooked with onion and layered with corn chips (the recipe probably called for something like Doritos but she just cut up corn tortillas and fried them until crispy), canned enchilada sauce and cheddar with some sliced black olives on top and then baked.

 

[Lisa Shock]

re: City Chicken. This is deep - I've never heard of it. Surely veal (and even pork) were more expensive than chicken? Or was it just a clever preparation, and not an attempt to disguise something?

 

Before factory farming started in the 1930s, chicken was one of the most expensive foods you could buy. I recall seeing a magazine article about a decade ago where they adjusted the average 1930 price per pound for chicken to its 1990s equivalent and it came in at $9/lb. Literary references to chicken being eaten were meant to invoke images of wealth and prestige -kind of like when we mention caviar and champagne.

[Norm Matthews]

Lisa Shock beat me to it but to add a little, when people started moving in large numbers to the city from the farm for factory jobs, chicken was not readily available in local city grocery stores until they started mass producing chicken for sale in the city for meat.  Until then they were mostly raised for eggs and only killed and eaten when they stopped producing... or had one too many roosters.  

Edited October 1, 2014 by Norm Matthews (log)

[patrickamory]

Aha, that makes sense. Thanks guys - very edifying!

[huiray]

Before factory farming started in the 1930s, chicken was one of the most expensive foods you could buy. I recall seeing a magazine article about a decade ago where they adjusted the average 1930 price per pound for chicken to its 1990s equivalent and it came in at $9/lb. Literary references to chicken being eaten were meant to invoke images of wealth and prestige -kind of like when we mention caviar and champagne.

 

Lisa Shock beat me to it but to add a little, when people started moving in large numbers to the city from the farm for factory jobs, chicken was not readily available in local city grocery stores until they started mass producing chicken for sale in the city for meat.  Until then they were mostly raised for eggs and only killed and eaten when they stopped producing... or had one too many roosters.  

 

...and why the Republican Party's claim that electing Herbert Hoover was like putting a chicken in every pot had such resonance then.

 

[Jaymes]

And why the "Chicken Ranch" in Texas accepted chickens as payment.

[Lisa Shock]

And, as to why it was made with veal, the big cities had dairies farms. I know it sounds weird now, but New York, Chicago, Boston, etc. all had several dairies within city limits because good refrigerated transportation and distribution systems did not exist. Veal is traditionally from male calves, a by-product of dairy farms.

[CatPoet]

Pig trotters in jelly,  salmon in aspic, does any one remember that?

[Lisa Shock]

I saw salmon in aspic, and lots of other garde manger items at luncheons. Never had trotters, but, we were from the North. I certainly saw plenty of Perfection Salad and the like.

 

IMO, there's a difference between what one would serve to the family, or mom would serve just to the kids (tuna casserole) vs what people made for dinner parties. Especially when beef was so cheap in the 50s and 60s. My mom used to serve giant roasts, and/or Wellingtons,  I haven't seen a slab of meat that big at the supermarket in decades. In my family, meatloaf and casseroles were only served when dad wasn't home, ditto for a lot of chicken dishes.

 

Cornish game hens were popular, too. (and, they are easy to serve)

[huiray]

 

My mom used to serve giant roasts, and/or Wellingtons,  I haven't seen a slab of meat that big at the supermarket in decades. 

 

 

Like these?

 

(Mind you, I think the author of that "review" doth complain too much; although the rest of the gallery is amusing to flip through.  The dishes were the product of their circumstances.)

[CatPoet]

My parents would  oven cook salmon  and that we had for dinner and the next  day for the party there would be   salmon in aspic  or salmon mousse ring , I remember these dishes mostly from early summer or early autumn.. 

[Lisa Shock]

Like these?

 

(Mind you, I think the author of that "review" doth complain too much; although the rest of the gallery is amusing to flip through.  The dishes were the product of their circumstances.)

 

Kind of, that roast on the cover actually looks to be a bit on the small side. I can recall putting roasts in the oven which were like large hams, over a foot high. We raised our own beef for a while, and they'd custom butcher it for us, so mom ordered the cuts. I don't know if they were like modern day standards or not. Some of the pictures from inside the book look familiar.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Lisa Shock (log)

[SylviaLovegren]

re: City Chicken. This is deep - I've never heard of it. Surely veal (and even pork) were more expensive than chicken? Or was it just a clever preparation, and not an attempt to disguise something?

 

No, chicken used to be expensive, at least in North America.  That's why Sunday roast chicken was a big deal and why "a chicken in every pot" was considered really spreading the wealth.  Before battery farming. 

 

ETA: Should have read everyone else's answers first!  Interesting about the dairy farms in big cities as the source for so much veal -- makes sense. 

Edited October 2, 2014 by SylviaLovegren (log)