Sequential thoughts on a 1966 "Cooking with Cheese" cookbook.

[brooksmoses]

1.) This recipe is ... wow. No, wait, I missed that; it gets worse. And that. With every ingredient it gets worse; it's probably the most disturbing recipe I've seen using mundane ingredients.

Appetizer Cheese Mousse: Soften 2t unflavored gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water; heat over double boiler until gelatin dissolves. Stir into 2 cups sour crea, Add 2t Italian salad-dressing mix, 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese, 1 cup cottage cheese. Blend until well blended. Pour into ring mold, chill until set.

It's blue cheese aspic. It's actually, really, honestly, blue cheese aspic.

[Note: In the dessert section, they have a similar recipe that takes out the Italian dressing mix and sour cream, and adds limeade concentrate and candied pecans -- and doubles the blue cheese.]

2.) Hmm. The idea of hot cheese dip for apples and pears sounds good. The idea of one that starts with American cheese (in equal amounts with Swiss), and then mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and canned pimentos ... not so much.

[Note: Later, I noticed that I'd missed the evaporated milk, in quantity equal to that of the cheeses.]

3.) "French Fried Camembert".

[Note: No, it's exactly what you think. Battered, and fried.]

4.) Oh, dear. My brother and I have been looking for this recipe for a decade and a half. There's something in this cookbook that I actually want to make, and not as a "is this really as weird as I think it is" sort of for-science! type of way. I am now really quite disturbed.

[Note: The recipe is for what they call "Angel Food Cheesecake". It's cheesecake, but you separate the eggs, beat the whites, and fold them in. It's cheesecake but light and fluffy. My mom made this once, and decided it was rather too much work to do again, and we never could find the recipe.]

Comments

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

(1) Hyaaaghghgh! They've discovered Theresa repellent!

(For science!)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you have a problem with fried cheese in general? Or just Camembert?

[lizw.livejournal.com]

But deep-fried Camembert is a classic! With cranberry sauce, ideally.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yes! Bleu cheese aspic! THAT would work!

See, when we were at a restaurant called STIX in Boston, Lis had a pear liqueur and port drink. And we liked it, but it needed something to cut the sweetness. Traditionally, port is served with things like pears and Stilton, so we were trying to figure out an interesting way to add a blue cheese to the mix -- something that would be able to be individually controlled by the drinker.

Slices of blue cheese aspic would just about fit the bill perfectly.

Um.

Not THAT recipe, though.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Blue cheese and limeade...does not compute.

While deep-frying camembert sounds like a horrible thing to do to good camembert, it's probably great for mediocre camembert. Probably works better if it's slightly under-ripe.

[suzanne.livejournal.com]

"Not THAT recipe, though."

Oh thank goodness. You had me worried for a second.

suzanne

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

Oh dear...I'm honestly sitting here, mouth agape, wondering who thought these recipes were a *good* idea.

The cheesecake sounds rather yummy though. As long as it doesn't have blue cheese. *grin*

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

3) is something you'll find on a number of restaurant menus and, I would guess, in the deep freeze section of my local supermarket. To me, that sounds pretty normal. The idea of cheese mousse, on the other hand...

[brooksmoses]

On reflection, and having considered the existence of mozzarella sticks (which are yummy), I think my primary objection is to referring to it as "French Fried". And also, as wshaffer guesses below, I think I also have an objection to doing it to anything other than relatively average cheese.

[brooksmoses]

On the fried cheese: Indeed; I think a lot of it was that I saw "French Fried" and thought of french fries and fried chicken, and completely forgot about mozzarella sticks, which are the USian version of that.

The cheese mousse is particularly bad when one considers that this is from the era when what they actually meant by "mousse" was, in UK English, "jelly".

[brooksmoses]

Hee. I'm glad to have provided you with inspiration!

I hope you'll write a post about how it turns out, if you try it.

[shandrew.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the pimentos add, but cheese+mustard+worcestershire is a classic mix for mac and cheese.