What's The Strangest Food Book in Your Collection?

[Ellen Shapiro]

Name it.

[tommy]

"White Trash Cooking" by Ernest Matthew Mickler.

has a good recipe for Jailhouse Chili, and various varmints.

[Fat Guy]

Excellent recipe for potato-chip sandwiches in there too, as I recall.

[tommy]

Excellent recipe for potato-chip sandwiches in there too, as I recall.

indeed. Pardie Tickette says: "Wash it down with a Pepsi, it's some good!"

[Suzanne F]

Mud Book -- How to make pies and cakes by John Cage and Lois Long

[Andrew Fenton]

Moose in the Pot Cookbook, by the students of Burchell High School, Wasilla AK.

Has valuable information on how to dress a roadkill moose. Also a good recipe for "Year Old Salmon or Halibut."

[fifi]

I have a book around here somewhere on medieval cooking that I picked up in England. The spicing is really bizarre.

[Andrew Fenton]

Oh yeah, I have a few books with ancient Roman recipes, too. Definitely bizarre.

[fresco]

Unmentionable Cuisine, By Calvin W. Schwabe. A 476-page study of taboo foods around the world, from dog and cat meat to insects and reptiles. With recipes.

[WHT]

The Roadkill Cookbook.

[heyjude]

Balls. The all-round cookbook.

[KNorthrup]

Normal food, but it's own kind of strange. Kings in The Kitchen. From the not-tongue-in-cheek-intro:

The traditional ruler of the pot and pan domain is woman. But when something really special is created in the kitchen - the piece de resistance, the chef d'oeuvre of a meal - it's a man's job and every woman knows it.

The author accumulated recipes from 'men of distinction,' including the president at the time, JFK. He contributed waffles. J Edgar Hoover contributed popovers. Many captains of industry, governors, nuclear scientists, supreme court justices, arctic explorers... a bit surreal. Totally stereotypical Leave It to Beaver type cuisine.

[Xanthippe]

Normal food, but it's own kind of strange.  Kings in The Kitchen.  From the not-tongue-in-cheek-intro:

The traditional ruler of the pot and pan domain is woman. But when something really special is created in the kitchen - the piece de resistance, the chef d'oeuvre of a meal - it's a man's job and every woman knows it.

The author accumulated recipes from 'men of distinction,' including the president at the time, JFK. He contributed waffles. J Edgar Hoover contributed popovers. Many captains of industry, governors, nuclear scientists, supreme court justices, arctic explorers... a bit surreal. Totally stereotypical Leave It to Beaver type cuisine.

How did you come by this, er, "unique" period piece?? J. Edgar Hoover's Popovers -- the mind boggles.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

The Bull Moose Cookbook by Christian Herter of political prominence in the '40s (?). It is male oriented, opinionated, ignorant and a good reference book on how not to dress, prepare or cook almost anything!

[Katherine]

Manifold destiny

[nightscotsman]

I think I've mentioned this on a couple other threads, but "Caramel Knowledge" by Al Sicherman. Each chapter revolves around a theme menu that he swears he really served to actual humans - who ate it. Includes recipes for items like "peanut butter coffee", "herring in a cloud", "cold SPAM mousse", and "mockaguole". Hilarious stuff.

[inventolux]

The Physiology Of Taste - Brillat Savrin

[Flocko]

The Bull Moose Cookbook by Christian Herter of political prominence in the '40s (?).  It is male oriented, opinionated, ignorant and a good reference book on how not to dress, prepare or cook almost anything!   

Isn't that one a trip?!!

Every recipe has a "true" historical reference, e.g. "Doves Wyatt Earp" or my favorite: "Spinach Mother of Christ"!

Also the money saving tips like how to convert cheap bourbon into the best, smoothest whiskey......(add a jigger of port to the bottle)!; or his recipe for homemade worchestershire sauce.............which I tried once.............ACK!!!

[Really Nice!]

The Physiology Of Taste - Brillat Savrin

This is strange?

[Richard Kilgore]

Not bizarre, but unusual --- "Lobscouse & Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels" by Anne Chotzinoff and Lisa Grossman Thomas. Aimed at reader's of, and tied directly to, Patrick O'Brien's British novels, it includes nineteenth century recipes for Burgoo, Ship's Biscuit, Skillygalee, Drowned Baby, Sea-Pie, Figgy-Dowdy, Soused Hog's Face, Solomomgundy and much, much more. And no, I have not tried any of it.

[sparrowgrass]

Unmentionable Cuisine, By Calvin W. Schwabe. A 476-page study of taboo foods around the world, from dog and cat meat to insects and reptiles. With recipes.

I have a picture book--no recipes--like this, called Critter Cuisine, by Al and Mary Ann Clayton. Full of lovely photographs of things like tadpole soup, bat sandwiches, roast armadillo and mouse kebabs.

Buy it!!

[Carolyn Tillie]

Unmentionable Cuisine, By Calvin W. Schwabe. A 476-page study of taboo foods around the world, from dog and cat meat to insects and reptiles. With recipes.

I have a picture book--no recipes--like this, called Critter Cuisine, by Al and Mary Ann Clayton. Full of lovely photographs of things like tadpole soup, bat sandwiches, roast armadillo and mouse kebabs.

Buy it!!

I've got both these PLUS one called 'Man Eating Bugs' which shows a picture on the front of a young girl with half a large tarantula in her mouth.

Then there is the classic, 'To Serve Man' which (besides being a Twilight Zone episode), is a REAL cannibalistic cookbook by Karl Wurf. Out of print and expensive, but a fun read! (The Cowboy Stew where it is necessary to determine what kind of tobacco the cowboy chewed will help determine which spices to use...)

Too fun!

[kpurvis]

I have the 1950s Betters Homes and Gardens Meat Cookbook that was once dissected on the Gallery of Regrettable Food. I was proud as a parent when he featured it. And he's right. The pictures are truly dreadful.

[KatieLoeb]

"White Trash Cooking" by Ernest Matthew Mickler.

has a good recipe for Jailhouse Chili, and various varmints.

I've always wanted to contribute to this book. My recipe for Trailer Park Cassoulet is Beanie Weanie Casserole (canned Pork 'n Beans with sliced hot dogs) with a Fried Chicken Leg on top! Legendary stuff.

[eat2much]

Northern Cookbook by Eleanor A. Ellis has some very intriguing recipes but I find shopping for ingredients to be a real bitch.

some examples:

Roast Polar Bear

Braised sweetgrass buffalo steak carbonade

baked stuffed caribou heart

sweet pickled beaver

baked seal flippers with vegetables

seal portugaise