Sam, the founder of 'Disgusting Vintage Recipes,' shared with Bored Panda that at the very start of the project, it was mostly just one other person and him. "It's crazy because she's from Australia and I'm from Canada. We connected across the whole world. My ideas on how to make a page grow started working and it took off. Now every morning is spent dealing with this page for a bit," he shared with us via email how managing the Facebook group has become a part of his daily routine.
He said that the idea for the page itself came from a night of checking out some old recipes. "The Aspic Aquarium is my favorite for sure. I saw a need for a community and put resources forward."
According to founder Sam, people are finally coming around and we're starting to understand the influence of industry on our food choices. "I think that the pressure for housewives to create elaborate recipes will wear off. I really think that we're in a good place now. The disgusting vintage recipes were a growing pain as a result of the technology available in the early Atomic Age."
In the founder's opinion, some of the vintage recipes don't look too bad. "We've had some problems having people think that the dishes are yummy. I usually don't approve of cultural creations because of that." Samuel shared that he's a historian, so he tends to look at things analytically. He shared some of his thoughts about vintage recipes and bygone food trends:
- "The photography was terrible in some of these cookbooks. The sepia tone on even the most pleasant dishes makes them look worse than they really were.
- Gelatin was prestigious at one point. It seems like there was a time period where it was still held prestige, but was inexpensively available. There's a history of jello article that is posted at least a dozen times on the page that helps out.
- Low-fat food was a new idea. Nina Teicholtz essentially disproved this concept with her book 'The Big Fat Surprise.' However, the diet-heart hypothesis was considered sound science during the Atomic Age. The result was trying to make disgusting food tasty.
- Industry seems to have lots to do with some recipes. I think this is leftover from recipes from the depression and the war. People didn't know how to use the new things available from the grocery store. To solve this, companies put out some cookbooks and recipes that promoted ways to use their products.
- Presentation was important enough for odd things to be created.
- My personal theory is that the rise of pizza availability made it seem silly to put lots of effort into these creations. The hilarity of the recipes falls into the '80s. "
Pie artist Jessica, the author of 'Pies Are Awesome,' told Bored Panda that these food corporations would even hire professional chefs to invent these "culinary desecrations."
The chefs really did showcase pretty much everything, from "how ketchup could be incorporated into dodgy mousse desserts, how 7-Up could be used as the perfect roast ham glaze, and how gelatine could be used in, well, everything," Jessica said.
"Presented alongside glossy illustrations of upwardly-mobile nuclear family types and swinging singles, the wacky dishes were portrayed as the height of sophisticated fare. Hot dog weenies trapped in jell-o were given dubiously lofty captions like 'delicate sausage segments enrobed in gleaming aspic.' Was anyone fooled? Check out the party buffets in the background of photos from your great aunties, and you tell me," the pie artist pointed out that, yes, a lot of people were totally taken in by the marketing.
Jessica believes that these vintage recipes might once again be popular today, in 2022. So long as "the corporations were successful in manufacturing a sufficiently 'authentic-feeling' viral sensation around their ingredient."
However, there's the so-called 'half-life' of these fads to consider. Things are changing far more rapidly these days in the past. This also applies to trends.
"Because of the speed with which information is disseminated today, we tend to get bored of trends far more quickly than we did before social media took over our lives. But that also means that we are hungry (pun intended) for an ever-accelerating stream of new food fads… Keep your eyes peeled for that 'gleaming aspic' on a table near you soon—it’s making a comeback!" the culinary expert shared her thoughts about a possible future where vintage recipes leap from the page and into our kitchens.
Jessica told Bored Panda that as a society, we go through phases, and everything that's old is new again. "One month, giant glitter-covered cupcakes with frosting piled to the ceiling are all the rage. The next, carbs and artificial colors are 'out' and growing your own hydroponic lettuce in your kitchen is the de rigueur pastime," she said.
"The one thing that will never go out of style? Redefining ourselves by making fun of the things we used to think were cool!"
The ‘Disgusting Vintage Recipes’ Facebook group has grown to 66.5k members in the 3+ years since its founding in the early spring of 2019. In that time, the members of the community terrified and amazed each other with some real gastronomic gems. Gems that probably should never have been unearthed and stayed firmly in history.
At the same time, no matter how disgusting the pics might look, they’re also utterly fascinating. These aren’t just random recipes: some people used to make these dishes. They’d be served at parties to impress and wow the crowd. And it’s got us thinking a lot about what current recipes might look utterly alien to folks from the future, a few decades from now.
The ‘Disgusting Vintage Recipes’ community only has a few rules that its members need to abide by. Rule number one: the food posted in the group has to be disgusting. That one’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it, Pandas? The content has to match the mission of the group.
What’s more, the food has to be vintage. So you shouldn’t be posting about bizarre current trends (though they might really be super weird). Focus on the past, ignore what’s recent.
Members of the community are also asked to be kind to each other. There should be no discussions about politics, current events, or anything that might cause an argument. Moreover, there’s absolutely no tolerance for bigotry or racism.
Something else to keep in mind is the context of a particular dish. For instance, if something’s still eaten to this very day, it doesn’t count as a disgusting vintage recipe.
A while ago, Professor Nathalie Cooke, from McGill University, explained to Bored Panda that dishes may look very peculiar to us as we move from decade to decade. However! Actually tasting these dishes would reveal that many of them have flavor profiles that we’re familiar with in the present day.
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“The taste combinations—savory and sweet (tuna waffles, ham and bananas) or sweet and sour (mayo with lime) are surely very familiar,” she explained to us that really bizarre food combos can taste well, once we get past the psychological ‘ick’ factor.
