Recipes Of The Damned–Jan. 3, 2000: Burning Bush
From Appetite Tempters from the Kraft Kitchens (pamphlet, undated; possibly mid- to late 1960s)
Well, the New Year may have begun, but it’s never too late for delightful party foods to charm your guests. I’m not convinced this recipe will provide any, but I found this pamphlet at a local shop and couldn’t rest until I’d shared its joyous offerings with everyone. As with the Joys of Jell-O Cookbook (see Shrimp Salad Surprise), a large portion of the fun of this pamphlet is the alarming color photography. Sadly, perhaps for reasons of economy, a number of the offerings are shown in black-and-white rather than in color. It may be just as well, really.
One of my favorite aspects of this brochure is not a recipe, but a product pitch:
Kraft gives you 8 varieties of cheese spreads all in re-usable Swankyswig glasses. Get acquainted with every one of these delicious Cheese Spreads: Kraft Pimento, Olive Pimento, Roquefort, and Pineapple. Cream Spreads; Kraft’s Limburger, Kay, “Old English” Spread and Teez. Try them in sandwiches and salads as well as appetizers!
The little glasses pictured do not look terribly swanky, unless I missed a period when the height of swank was to swig your drink from small jelly jars. Also I do not know what “Old English” spread is; the only substances I can think of that are termed “Old English” are malt liquor and furniture polish, and let’s hope neither of those are featured in cheese or cream spreads.
The pamphlet also suggests serving appetizers, well, pretty much all the time. Don’t just limit your offerings to the hour before a sit-down dinner; serve them with or for lunch, at five o’clock, for Sunday supper. Or, “An after-the-theater buffet means appetizers and something hot to drink…coffee or steaming bouillon.” Yum! Swig it all up now, you hear? Sounds especially good with another recipe that requires you to take perfectly good (or, depending on your opinion, perfectly wretched) caviar and mix it with Miracle Whip. I guess I’d want a swanky swig of something after that.
This particular recipe probably doesn’t taste all that bad; really its most likely flaw is being rather salty, but the cream cheese may offset that taste enough. Chopping chipped beef is probably best done with a sharp heavy knife; I’ve only dealt with chipped beef a few times, and those about seventeen or eighteen years ago when I was in junior high school in Indiana, but I seem to remember it being rather tough. (Physical education was weird back then.)
Burning Bush
Ingredients:
Chipped beef
“Philadelphia” Cream Cheese
Grapefruit, or large red apples
Chop the chipped beef very fine. Divide each package of “Philadelphia” Cream Cheese into twelve pieces, then roll each one into a ball, on butter paddles. Toss each ball in the chopped beef until entirely coated. Put a toothpick through each ball, and stick them onto the grapefruit, or large apples.
Serve with small crisp crackers, or caviarettes, spread with caviar.
From Appetite Tempters from the Kraft Kitchens (pamphlet, undated; possibly mid- to late 1960s)
