’60s cuisine
The counterculture of the time didn’t extend to the kitchen
The 1960s were a turbulent decade.
The war in Vietnam roiled the U.S. The fight for civil rights caused another, sometimes violent divide, and women disrupted the status quo by asserting their independence. The birth control pill ushered in the sexual revolution. Baby boomers turned on, tuned in and dropped out.
Yet in the world of food, the changes were less revolutionary.
Women were beginning to enter the workplace — the idea was still new and quite unusual — which meant the trend toward convenience foods continued to grow. With Julia Child’s cookbooks and popular show on television, plus the culinary influence of Jackie Kennedy, many cooks turned their eyes to France as the most sophisticated and desirable cuisine in the world.
Cooks also looked westward, to Polynesia. North Americans flocked to anything Tiki, such as the famous Polynesian-themed Trader Vic’s restaurants that were considered wild and exotic.
Cookbooks of the era took ordinary dishes, added pineapple to it, and called it Polynesian. Parfaits were popular for dessert, possibly because of the interest in French food. And gelatin came into its own as a way to make ordinary foods more fun.
One of the more disturbing tendencies in the decade was the insistence on giving cute names to dishes that probably should not have been invented in the first place. Sundae Bubble Crown was a layered dessert with cream puffs and ice cream. Coconut Ham Slice was ham, mandarin oranges, coconut syrup and flaked coconut.
Fruited Chicken en Crème hit the trifecta with cream of chicken soup, pineapple chunks and grapes. And the less you know about Paradise Chicken Salad in Pineapple Boats, the better.
(Really? OK, you asked for it: add pineapple chunks to curried chicken salad, mix in a combination of bananas and peanuts, top with coconut and mandarin oranges, and serve in boats made out of hollowed-out half-pineapples.)
For my look at food of the Sixties, I began with perhaps the decade’s quintessential dish: Sandwich Loaf. Not a shower was held that someone did not bring out this astonishing creation. It was as much a part of the celebration as the motherto-be or the blushing bride.
It begins with a loaf of bread, sliced horizontally several times. This is then reassembled like a layer cake, but instead of frosting between each layer you put chicken salad, egg salad, chopped tomatoes and devilled ham mixed with pickles. The loaf, now tall and quite heavy, is then frosted with a mixture of cream cheese and mayonnaise, thinned with a little light cream.
I tinted mine light green and decorated it with flowers made from olives and pimentos. It seemed like a 1960s kind of thing to do.
The whole idea sounds dreadful and looks ... amusing ... but it actually tastes quite good. And why wouldn’t it? Each of the fillings is homemade. And because I could not find the right size and shape of unsliced bread anywhere, even my bread was homemade. (I used a recipe that takes just one hour to make.)
A sandwich loaf requires a lot of effort, so I rewarded myself with a nice Grasshopper Pie. Based on the cocktail that was popular in the ’50s — and the ’60s, too — Grasshopper Pie is a delightful blend of chocolate and mint, with cream and other good things.
Though it is anchored in a sturdy crust made from chocolate wafer cookies, the filling itself is impossibly light and delicate. It’s like a minty cloud that melts in your mouth.
My entrée was a more substantial dish: Beef Stroganoff. If there were a meal that was almost as ubiquitous in the 1960s as Sandwich Loaf, it was Beef Stroganoff.
Hearty and with a hint of the exotic — the recipe really did originally come from Russia — Beef Stroganoff mixes thin strips of lean beef and mushrooms with a cream sauce flavoured with onions and beef stock. A bit of tomato paste adds depth. And it is all served on hot, buttered egg noodles. Delicious.
Finally, I turned to breakfast. Pancakes. Everybody loves pancakes. One 1960s way of serving them was called Hawaiian Pancakes.
What makes them Hawaiian is the same thing that would have made them Polynesian: pineapple. OK, there are some macadamia nuts sprinkled on top, too. But pineapple is the star in this dish, and it is used in two ways.
First, the pancakes are topped with pineapple syrup, which is just the juice from a can of crushed pineapples boiled with maple syrup; the fruit adds a light, refreshing boost to the syrup. And then the crushed pineapple itself is blended into a cup of sour cream.
It tastes awful. The thing about sour cream is, it’s sour. While sour cream pairs well with, say, potato pancakes, the same cannot be said for pancakes that are sweet. So I simply sweetened it up by adding powdered sugar to the pineapple and sour cream. That did the trick.
And the name for this mixture of sour cream and pineapple? That may be the most Sixties thing of all. The 1967 Betty Crocker cookbook the recipe came from calls it Aloha Cream Topper.
Sandwich Loaf MAKES 8 TO 10 SERVINGS
1 unsliced loaf sandwich bread, about 1 pound, 13 ounces, in a rectangular shape 1½ (4 1/2-ounce) cans devilled ham ¼ cup chopped dill pickles About 1 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing spread, divided 2 teaspoons grated onion, divided 1 tsp lemon juice ¾ tsp salt, divided Black pepper 1 cup cooked chicken, chopped 1/3 cup celery, chopped 3 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped 1 tsp prepared mustard ½ tsp curry powder 3 hard-cooked eggs, finely chopped 2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped 3 tbsp butter, softened 16 ounces cream cheese, softened 2 tbsp light cream 2 drops green food colour, optional 2 olives stuffed with pimentos, optional Pimento strips, optional
1. If desired, cut the crusts from the bread. 2. Make ham-pickle filling: Mix devilled ham with pickles. Set mixture in a strainer over a bowl to remove moisture.
3. Make chicken salad filling: Mix together 1/3 cup of the mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon of the grated onion, lemon juice, ½ teaspoon of the salt, a dash of pepper, chicken, celery and parsley.
4. Make curried egg filling: Mix together ¼ cup of the mayonnaise, mustard, the remaining 1 teaspoon grated onion, curry powder, the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt, a dash of black pepper and eggs. 5. Dry chopped tomatoes on paper towels. 6. Lay bread on its side; cut horizontally into five even slices (four cuts). Spread three of the slices with soft butter; spread fillings onto the buttered slices. Spread 2 tablespoons of the mayonnaise on another slice, and arrange chopped tomatoes on that slice. Stack slices to re-form loaf shape.
7. Combine cream cheese, ¼ cup of the mayonnaise and the light cream. Add 2 drops of food colour, if desired. Blend until smooth. Spread mixture on tops and sides of loaf. Chill thoroughly.
8. If desired, decorate with flowers made
from sliced olives, with pimento strips serving as petals.
Per serving (based on 10): 593 calories; 45 grams fat; 17 g saturated fat; 140 milligrams cholesterol; 17 g protein; 32 g carbohydrate; 4 g sugar; 2 g fibre; 894 mg sodium; 67 mg calcium. Adapted from the American Home magazine, April 1965, via Click Americana.
Grasshopper Pie
MAKES 6 TO 8 SERVINGS
1¼ cups chocolate wafer crumbs ¾ cup granulated sugar, divided 1/3 cup melted butter 1 envelope gelatin 1/8 teaspoon salt ½ cup cold water 3 eggs, separated ¼ cup green crème de menthe 2 tablespoons cognac or crème de cacao 1 cup heavy cream, whipped
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 2. Mix the chocolate crumbs, ¼ cup of the sugar and the melted butter. Press the mixture against the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Bake 5 minutes and chill.
3. Off the heat, combine in the top of a double boiler the gelatin, ¼ cup of the sugar and the salt. Stir in the water and blend in egg yolks, one at a time. Place the mixture over boiling water, stirring constantly until gelatin is dissolved and mixture thickens slightly, 4 to 5 minutes.
4. Remove mixture from the heat and stir in the crème de menthe and cognac. Chill, stirring occasionally, until mixture has a consistency resembling unbeaten egg white.
5. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry, then gradually stir in the remaining ¼ cup sugar. Continue beating until whites are very stiff. Fold them into the gelatin mixture. Fold in the whipped cream and turn mixture into chocolate crumb shell. Chill until firm.
Per serving (based on six): 380 calories; 23 grams fat; 13 g saturated fat; 131 milligrams cholesterol; 5 g protein; 36 g carbohydrate; 30 g sugar; 1 g fibre; 179 mg sodium; 39 mg calcium.
Recipe from New York Times, 1963.