Scientific Cookery -- Now with Cottage Cheese!
Among my cookbook stash are a number of those little cooking pamphlets put out by companies as marketing ploys to get women to buy and use their products. One of them is Sealtest Kitchen Recipes -- World's Fair Edition. This was the New York World's Fair of 1939, and the theme was science and how it would impact the life of the average man.
The Sealtest Laboratories rose to the occasion with a ninety-six page booklet of recipes developed and tested in the Sealtest Kitchen, all of which, naturally, featured dairy products in one form or another. The folks in the Sealtest Kitchen seemed especially fond of cottage cheese for some reason, and they found ways to use it that wouldn't occur to the average cook today. You'd expect things like "Cottage Cheese in Tomato Aspic", or even "Cottage Cheese Beet Salad". But how about this little number?
Cheese Fruit Salad
18 large stewed prunes
1 cup cottage cheese
3 oranges
Watercress or other greens
Remove the pits and stuff prunes with cottage cheese. Peel the oranges, cut in thin slices and place on watercress or other greens. Top with the stuffed prunes and serve with mayonnaise or French dressing. Serves six.
. . . If you can find six people willing to eat it.
As I said, you expect to find cottage cheese as a major ingredient in 1930s salad recipes. Another place you'd expect to find it would be in sandwiches, and here the Sealtest Kitchen was right in line with the trendy sandwich fashions of the time. This next recipe might be fun to make and serve today at a potluck. Certainly nobody would expect anything like it.
Cottage Cheese Loaf
1 loaf bread
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup condensed tomato soup
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups cottage cheese
1/2 cup chopped stuffed olives
1/2 cup soft butter
Trim the crust from the loaf of bread and cut a slice about 1/2 inch thick from the top to make a cover. Scoop out the crumbs from the inside, leaving 1/2 to 1 inch on the sides and bottom. Beat the eggs slightly and add 2 cups of the bread crumbs (scooped from the inside of loaf), the salt, tomato soup, the 2 tablespoons butter, melted, cottage cheese and olives. Fill the hollowed-out loaf with the mixture and cover with the top. Spread the top and sides with soft butter. Bake in a hot over (400 degrees F.) for about 30 minutes. Serves six to eight.
Salads, check. Sandwiches, check. There are also a couple of soup recipes with cottage cheese as an ingredient, and I wasn't really surprised to find a recipe for Baked Kidney Beans and Cottage Cheese, nor one for Cottage Cheese and Rice Croquettes. But then I got to the dessert section, and cottage cheese appeared in a place I'd never have thought to look for it.
Cherry Pie with Cottage Cheese Lattice
2 No. 2 cans red pitted cherries
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cornstarch
1 baked pie shell
1 1/4 cups cottage cheese
Drain cherries and bring the juice to boiling point. Add the sugar, salt and cornstarch mixed together. Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly for 5 minutes, then occasionally for 10 to 15 minutes longer or until the cornstarch is cooked and the mixture thickens. Stir in the cherries gently and pour into the baked pie shell. When cool garnish, lattice fashion, with cottage cheese, using pastry bag. (If cottage cheese is in large curds, press through a sieve.) This recipe makes a nine-inch pie.
Yum.
So, today we've had a salad, a main course, and a dessert. Just for fun, I'm going to throw in a beverage from this same scientific cookbook. It doesn't feature cottage cheese, but it does go nicely with the cherry pie.
Cherry Buttermilk
1 No. 2 can or 2 1/2 cups cooked red cherries
Sugar
4 1/2 cups buttermilk
Press the cherries through a sieve and sweeten to taste. Chill. Add cherry pulp and juice to the buttermilk, mix well and pour into tall glasses. Serves six.
Prosit!
Before I finish, I'll add a note from the cookbook:
"ALL SEALTEST KITCHEN RECIPES ARE ORIGINAL."
To which I can only say yes. Yes, indeed.
The Sealtest Laboratories rose to the occasion with a ninety-six page booklet of recipes developed and tested in the Sealtest Kitchen, all of which, naturally, featured dairy products in one form or another. The folks in the Sealtest Kitchen seemed especially fond of cottage cheese for some reason, and they found ways to use it that wouldn't occur to the average cook today. You'd expect things like "Cottage Cheese in Tomato Aspic", or even "Cottage Cheese Beet Salad". But how about this little number?
Cheese Fruit Salad
18 large stewed prunes
1 cup cottage cheese
3 oranges
Watercress or other greens
Remove the pits and stuff prunes with cottage cheese. Peel the oranges, cut in thin slices and place on watercress or other greens. Top with the stuffed prunes and serve with mayonnaise or French dressing. Serves six.
. . . If you can find six people willing to eat it.
As I said, you expect to find cottage cheese as a major ingredient in 1930s salad recipes. Another place you'd expect to find it would be in sandwiches, and here the Sealtest Kitchen was right in line with the trendy sandwich fashions of the time. This next recipe might be fun to make and serve today at a potluck. Certainly nobody would expect anything like it.
Cottage Cheese Loaf
1 loaf bread
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup condensed tomato soup
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups cottage cheese
1/2 cup chopped stuffed olives
1/2 cup soft butter
Trim the crust from the loaf of bread and cut a slice about 1/2 inch thick from the top to make a cover. Scoop out the crumbs from the inside, leaving 1/2 to 1 inch on the sides and bottom. Beat the eggs slightly and add 2 cups of the bread crumbs (scooped from the inside of loaf), the salt, tomato soup, the 2 tablespoons butter, melted, cottage cheese and olives. Fill the hollowed-out loaf with the mixture and cover with the top. Spread the top and sides with soft butter. Bake in a hot over (400 degrees F.) for about 30 minutes. Serves six to eight.
Salads, check. Sandwiches, check. There are also a couple of soup recipes with cottage cheese as an ingredient, and I wasn't really surprised to find a recipe for Baked Kidney Beans and Cottage Cheese, nor one for Cottage Cheese and Rice Croquettes. But then I got to the dessert section, and cottage cheese appeared in a place I'd never have thought to look for it.
Cherry Pie with Cottage Cheese Lattice
2 No. 2 cans red pitted cherries
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cornstarch
1 baked pie shell
1 1/4 cups cottage cheese
Drain cherries and bring the juice to boiling point. Add the sugar, salt and cornstarch mixed together. Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly for 5 minutes, then occasionally for 10 to 15 minutes longer or until the cornstarch is cooked and the mixture thickens. Stir in the cherries gently and pour into the baked pie shell. When cool garnish, lattice fashion, with cottage cheese, using pastry bag. (If cottage cheese is in large curds, press through a sieve.) This recipe makes a nine-inch pie.
Yum.
So, today we've had a salad, a main course, and a dessert. Just for fun, I'm going to throw in a beverage from this same scientific cookbook. It doesn't feature cottage cheese, but it does go nicely with the cherry pie.
Cherry Buttermilk
1 No. 2 can or 2 1/2 cups cooked red cherries
Sugar
4 1/2 cups buttermilk
Press the cherries through a sieve and sweeten to taste. Chill. Add cherry pulp and juice to the buttermilk, mix well and pour into tall glasses. Serves six.
Prosit!
Before I finish, I'll add a note from the cookbook:
"ALL SEALTEST KITCHEN RECIPES ARE ORIGINAL."
To which I can only say yes. Yes, indeed.