Rockin’ around the tuna tree!
Why hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams readers! I didn’t hear you come in over my manic mixing of gelatin and mayonnaise. Come, grab yourself a glass or three of peppermint martinis. Sure, they taste like regret, but what worthwhile doesn’t, Mary.
Even though we recently published our suggestions for terrifying vintage foods for your Thanksgiving, there’s no time like the present to start making your list and checking it twice for what dish you’ll be bringing to your holiday potluck. Will it be an aspic? An unidentifiable pile of tuna slathered in cream? Suggestive (possibly votive) banana candles? The options are seemingly endless.
My personal favorite holiday vintage food tradition is a variety of foods shaped like Christmas trees. I know when I’m in the mood to nosh, I want to think I’m gnawing on an evergreen. When I’m picking pine needles off of a cocktail shrimp, it makes me feel just so outdoorsy and filled with the Christmas spirit.
The holidays are a time for family too, which is what makes these festive felonies against food so special. Why? Because an adoration of these violently nauseating vintage recipes apparently runs in my family. My mother–otherwise known as Mama on Filthy Dreams–recently found this clipping, snipped and saved by my grandmother in 1950:
Come for the pudding, stay for the HARD SAUCE!
This hard sauce doesn’t come from nowhere!
So gather around the Christmas tree created out of cornflakes, choke down a cranberry surprise and get ready to discover your demented December delectables. Don’t forget to thank our overlord Santa that you’ll probably never be asked to bring a dish to another holiday party again!
If nothing else, make like Betty Draper and wash it down with as many martinis as needed.
I’m blinking back tears looking at the beauty of this cocktail weenie tree
Anyone else getting turned on?
Oh cornflake tree! Oh cornflake tree!
A Christmas roast pork sounds innocuous at first, but what is it dotted with?
Red and green are the colors of the season. So why not psychotically refuse to eat anything but those colors for the month
FA LA LA LA LAAAAA
I don’t know what this is
If you really want to send hearts a-thumpin, why not bring a tree full of meat?
A white mystery fruitcake is what we have in the White House
Little known fact: The wise men also brought this to baby Jesus’s manger
Words meant different things in the mid-20th century. Case in point: “salad”
Don’t forget to empty a can of cat food in the middle for some panache!
SURPISE!
Holiday fact: “Let It Snow” was really about slopping mayonnaise on top of ham
This is a Christmas tradition in Australia
Ever want to just munch on Santa’s beard? Me too
For all the vegetarians at the party
Mystery log
Those are screams of delight, not horror, as you bring this one out at Christmas dinner
Yes, yes it should
Roy Orbison had his pretty paper. Well, Alice has pretty pickles
And what do you wash this down with? Heineken? FUCK THAT SHIT! PABST BLUE RIBBON!
I make those Santa Whiskers cookies every year. It’s the closest recipe I could find to a cookie my grandmother made.
It’s a soft-ish sugar cookie with fruitcake fruits and nuts. I think it benefits from being baked a little hotter and longer than called for.
Not my favorite cookie (that would be carrot cookies w/ orange icing), but it’s an nice take on fruitcake flavors.
I know gelatin and aspic was considered the height of class and elegance back in the day, but I’m kinda glad the ubiquity of Jell-o made it all seem de-classe and go away.
Pretty lame tying in your political opinion to what was otherwise an entertaining read.