The 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s gave us a lot of things to be grateful for. Rock and roll. Color television. The Interstate Highway System. Good times, all.
The food, though? That is a different story.
Something strange happened in American kitchens during those decades. Cooks got creative in ways that, looking back, are hard to explain. Gelatin showed up in places gelatin had no business being. Perfectly good fruit got paired with fish. Mayonnaise went into everything.
Here are ten vintage recipes from that era that most of us are perfectly happy to leave in the past.
1. Cranberry Candles
Hellmann’s (yes, the mayonnaise company) actually tried to convince American families to mold cranberries and mayonnaise into the shape of a candle. A gelatin candle. You were then supposed to light it on fire. It is a little hard to imagine that pitch going over well at the dinner table.
2. Ham and Bananas Hollandaise
Bananas wrapped in ham, smothered in hollandaise sauce, and finished with mustard. This was a real recipe. At least one blogger who actually made it reported that it was not that bad. We’ll take their word for it.
3. Tuna and Jell-O Pie
This one came from Betty Crocker herself. Tuna salad combined with Jell-O, set in a pie mold, and chilled. The picture of the finished dish is exactly what you are imagining right now, and not in a good way.
4. Tuna ‘n’ Waffles
Chicken and waffles raised some eyebrows over the years. But tuna and waffles? This was a real recipe published in a 1954 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. Campbell’s appears to have been behind it. Whether it was sincere or the 1950s version of a dare remains unclear.
5. Bologna and Prune Sandwich
Oscar Mayer once suggested blending bologna with prunes and spreading the result onto Boston brown bread. The prunes here were not a garnish. They were a main ingredient. The bread, which deserved better, did not ask for any of this.
6. Liver Sausage Pineapple
Another entry from Better Homes and Gardens: liver sausage, mayonnaise, gelatin, and olives, all molded into the shape of a pineapple. One Reddit user summed it up nicely by noting that just because you can do something does not mean you should.
7. Perfection Salad
This one actually won third place in a recipe contest in 1904 in New Castle, Pennsylvania. A cook named Mrs. John E. Cook entered it. The dish was a molded Jell-O creation packed with vegetables, reportedly made as a way to use up week-old produce before it spoiled. One food blogger who recreated it gave it a score of zero out of ten.
8. Prawn Stuffed Apples
From the 1960s: apples hollowed out and filled with prawns, then dressed with mayonnaise. No gelatin this time, which puts it a step above some of the other entries on this list. Still, seafood and fruit held together with mayonnaise did not exactly become a staple.
9. Terrine of Garden Vegetables
Most of us assume the gelatin-mold craze wound down after the 1970s. But this recipe appeared in a 1982 book called Appetizers, proving the trend had a little more life left in it. Vegetables, set in gelatin, presented as a terrine. The kids were apparently still not eating their vegetables.
10. Worcestershire Apple Halves
Someone, at some point, sliced open a fresh apple and thought it needed Worcestershire sauce poured over it. A blogger who actually tested this 1955 recipe reported that she immediately spit it out and described trying to rid her mouth of the taste. It does not appear to have ever caught on widely, which is perhaps the best possible outcome.
Looking back at those decades, it is easy to forget just how adventurous (or maybe just how puzzling) some of the cooking really was. Every era has its quirks. Ours just happened to involve a lot of gelatin and some very confused fruit.
