New ‘Happy Days’ cookbook is filled with Milwaukee-inspired recipes
No way was Milwaukee native Christina Ward letting some New York writer create a cookbook inspired by the TV series “Happy Days.”
When actors from the comedy set in Milwaukee came here in 1983 for an event celebrating the last season of the series, the young Ward and a few of her friends “skipped out of school and met them at the airport.”
A food historian and an official Wisconsin Master Food Preserver, Ward happily rewatched the 11 seasons of “Happy Days” (1974-1984) and pored through transcripts to create the dozens of recipes in “Happy Days The Official Cookbook: From Aaaay to Zucchini Bread” (Insight Editions).
It’s a frankly nostalgic book. In addition to recipes and food pictures, it includes dozens of cast and scenic photos from the show, and trivia quiz questions created by Ward. She embraced that approach. If you’re a Gen Xer, she said, “Happy Days” is a large part of your nostalgia.
She drew recipe ideas from specific episodes as well as longer narrative arcs of the series, and from characters’ stated likes and dislikes, such as Richie Cunningham’s love of his mom’s meatloaf. Even minor characters get their culinary shoutout, such as rugelach from Mrs. Nussbaum, Fonzie’s grandmother. And a reader will find some characteristic foods of the series’ 1950s-early ‘60s time period: hello, “city chicken.”
Ward also made sure no unusual equipment was necessary to make these mid-century Americana dishes. “I was really trying to develop recipes that were accessible to cooks with the standard array of tools,” she said.
But she did include an appliance invented long after the Cunninghams enjoyed their family dinners that’s increasingly popular today.
Here are some of the Milwaukee references, Easter eggs and other surprises in her book.
Yes, she jumps the shark, too
Ward said the first question everyone asked her was if she was doing “jump the shark,” the notorious water-skiing episode. No real sharks are harmed in her recipe for Jump the Shark Candy Sushi, which tops individual crispy rice cereal concoctions with gummy shark candy.
Secrets of the Thick Milwaukee Malt
There were regional varieties of malts during the “Happy Days” era, Ward said, with a higher ratio of milk to ice cream or custard in other places. Milwaukeeans used less milk, making a thicker milkshake, she said.
As a good Milwaukeean, Ward’s malt is based on custard, not ice cream. She includes a recipe for Arnold’s WorldFamous Frozen Soft-Serve Custard you can make at home.
Mrs. C wasn’t the family’s only cook
Ward drew on Howard Cunningham’s background as a former Army cook for such recipes as Mr. C’s Weekend Hash with Poached Eggs.
“Happy Days” sometimes had fun with storylines of men flopping as cooks, but even then men knew how to cook, Ward said. For example, men did the cooking for summer union picnics, she pointed out.
Dueling potato salads
Reflecting a culinary and cultural divide, Ward offers two potato salad recipes: Howard’s German Style, vinegar based, and Marion’s American Style, with mayonnaise.
In general, Milwaukeeans are “a mayonnaise potato salad people,” she said. The exception is the German recipe, which she included to reflect the city’s German heritage.
Recipes based on a classic Milwaukee restaurant’s menu
When the Cunninghams went out for a special occasion, they went to Chez Antoine. For her book’s Antoine-inspired Chicken Cordon Bleu, Shrimpand-Crab Stuffed Crepes, and Oysters Rockefeller, Ward turned to menus from Frenchy’s, the classy Milwaukee joint that closed in 1975.
Fried favorites, but without the oil
Ward brings on the mozzarella sticks, French fries and onion rings suggested by the show’s Pizza Bowl and Arnold’s, but without deep frying them in oil. These recipes in her book are designed for air fryers. “Even something that is looking backward still has to reflect some modernity,” she said philosophically.
There is a long history of kitchen gadgets that fall by the wayside, Ward said. But she believes the air fryer, which she considers a mini-convection oven, “has permanence in an American kitchen.”
Naming Milwaukee names
The Pizza Bowl of “Happy Days” is really the Falcon Bowl in Riverwest, Ward said.
And yes, the surname of Ashley Pfister, one of Fonzie’s girlfriends, is a shoutout to Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel, Ward said.
Ward speculates that the real-life counterpart to the show’s Lake Whitefish is Lake Geneva, perhaps with some Green Lake mixed in.
Then there’s Arnold’s Drive-In, the favorite hangout of Richie, Fonzie and company. Ward notes that “Happy Days” co-creator Tom Miller, who went to Whitefish Bay and Nicolet high schools, has said Arnold’s reflects the old Milky Way Drive-In on North Port Washington Road in Glendale (where Kopp’s is now).
But all the south siders would say no no, it’s Leon’s, Ward said playfully (she’s a fourth-generation Bay Viewian).