We Tried Terrible Vintage Recipes & Regret It
âWhy?â
âDear God, why?â
These were the questions we raised while watching this Buzzfeed video. After recoiling in abject horror, we thought to ourselves, âJust how bad are some of these vintage recipes? They canât be that bad!â Oh, but how wrong we were. This post is all about the time we tried shitty vintage recipes and lived to regret it. We tried three different vintage recipes â and three was enough.
Lime Jello Cabbage Salad
There are a lot of vintage jello recipes out there (unfortunately), so we had to make at least one jello-based recipe. The Spaghetti O Jello was a close contender, but in the end we went with Lime Jello Cabbage Salad because Brittanyâs Mom mentioned that her Grandma used to make it all the time. So it must be good, right?
This recipe calls for one package of lime Jello, shredded cabbage, grated carrot, and crushed pineapple. We bought a bag of coleslaw mix for this recipe because we didnât want to waste our time shredding and grating cabbage and carrot to make this abomination.
All you have to do is follow the directions on your jello package and add the cabbage, carrot, and canned pineapple. Then simply pour it into a pan or mould. Itâll take a few hours for this salad to set.
Also, how is this a salad? How? Maybe this helped kids eat their vegetables, but there must be a better wayâŚ
“Dessert salads are dishes made with jellos, whipped toppings, fruits, vegetables, mayonnaise, and various other ingredients. These salads are served at some buffet and cafeterias, and are also served at potlucks and parties. They can be prepared ahead of time and are transportable.”
Barf!
If you want to find out the full history of Jello Salad, check out this article by Serious Eats.
Sidenote: This was the best recipe of the three that we tried. And by best we mean it was better than the rest â we managed to eat a couple bites. However, we definitely wonât be making this Jello salad for our next family dinner⌠Sorry, Grandma.
Bologna Cake
Bologna and cake shouldnât ever be in the same sentence, yet here we are. Donât worry, we didnât add bologna to cake mix. Thatâd be going too far.
But, what if, instead of making a layered cake, you had layers of bologna? And instead of icing, you used cream cheese mixed with Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing mix? Who came up with this idea? Why? We have so many questions.
But we made it anyways. This is the result:
Back to the abyss with ye.
In Canada we donât have cheddar cheese in an aerosol can (which is probably a good thing for public health), so we decorated our cake with the next best worst thing we could find â Velveeta. And some sliced olives, to make our cake look⌠more sophisticated?
This is something that was probably served at parties, but it really is a terrible idea. You have to commit to so much on your plate because in order to eat it you have to take a slice. And then, how do you eat it? The recipe says to serve with crackers. Okay, but the crackers canât cut through the bologna layers and the individual bologna layers are too large to fit on one cracker. THIS IS THE WORST.
If you decide to delve into the world of vintage recipes and make this for your next family get together, be warned â it is very rich. We had a bite each and that was enough for us.
Hard pass on the bologna cake. Hard pass.
Skillet Franks and Potatoes
When we were choosing recipes for this post, we tried to find one that seemed like it would be palatable â we were tackling a cabbage/jello hybrid and a stacked bologna monstrosity after all. We spent time perusing and finally settled on Skillet Franks and Potatoes. There were hot dogs, potatoes, cream of celery soup â what could go wrong? Many, many things could go wrong as we found out.
So why was it bad? Well, for starters, cream of celery soup is not tasty â full stop. This recipe takes a soup that is bland and boring and you spice it up with sweet relish, vinegar, and onion. And milk. And salt. And a dash of pepper. (Because why would you want something thatâs seasoned?) What results is a sickeningly sweet and sour creamy bastardized gravy. There are just so many flavours happening and none of them work well together. Then you add in hot dogs and cooked potatoes (or a can of potatoes if you live in post-war America and those are the only potatoes that you have).
Just look at the way the light bounces off the hotdogs. Doesnât it make you hungry?
The fruit of your labour is a mushy, sweet, sour, sickly, fucking all around nasty as hell soup with hot dogs in it. We wouldnât feed this to a prisoner of war. In fact, if you fed this to a prisoner of war, you would likely be charged with a war crime. Avoid. This. Recipe.
Final Thoughts
Listen, we get it. During and after wartime, food needs to be rationed. We understand that a lot of these recipes were born out of a necessity to make good food with very limited ingredients of dubious quality, and we applaud those who innovated in a time of need. However, how-fucking-ever, you can not tell us that these recipes are objectively good. Some things should stay in the past as a reminder of how far weâve come.
We would like to apologize for the hideousness of the food in his post, and, in the immortal words of the great Ethan Klein, âI hope that anyone who unironically eats this for dinner at night has better days ahead.â
Want to gag at more gross vintage recipes? Check out disgusting recipes from yesteryear on Pinterest.
Whatâs the nastiest 50s/60/70s recipe youâve ever had the pleasure of eating? Let us know in the comments below!