Jell-O Molds and Nacho Platters Decade Defining Dishes in American Home-Entertaining

from the 1950s-1990s

By Danielle Stone

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for a

Degree in Writing

Journalism

December 18, 2008

WRT 465 / Thesis Advisor: Prof. John Briggs

Thesis Abstract

Each journalistic article in this collection explores one of America‘s most recognizable

home-entertaining dishes of each decade from the 1950s to the 1990s, including Jell-O molds,

fondue and quiche. The collection is full of surprising and humorous facts about these foods, as

well as how they relate to gender and the socioeconomic trends of the time. The history of each

dish and its eventual decline in popularity is also explored. It includes interviews with people

who prepared and consumed these meals in their corresponding decades, in addition to

knowledge from renowned author of food and pop-culture, Michael Stern.

Table of Contents:

Introduction…………………………………………………………pg. 1

1. 1950s Aspic Happiness:

Jell-O molds………………………………………………………pg. 4

2. 1960s Foreign Fancy

Coq au Vin………………………………………………….........pg. 12

3. 1970s Dipping into Fond Memories

Fondue……………………………………..................................pg. 20

4. 1980s Quiche vs. America‘s Real Men

Quiche…………………………………......................................pg. 28

5. 1990s South-of-the-Border Crunch

Nachos……………………………………………………………pg. 34

Works Cited…………………………………………………………pg. 40

1

Introduction: Why Study Food?

Food defines us. It defines our culture, the changes in society, and our

socioeconomic status. People can choose whether or not to listen to popular music or to

purchase the latest trendy clothing. As Americans, we have the choice of whether or not

to be politically active, but everybody has to eat.

As Sherrie A Innes, says in her book ―Dinner Roles‖: ―Food is basic to all human

life, so ubiquitous, that, paradoxically, it disappears from our attention entirely.

Although people must eat on a daily basis and spend a good deal of time, effort,

and money to obtain food, they frequently pay scant attention to what they consume, just

as they give little attention to other rituals of their daily life: bathing, getting dressed,

driving to work, going to bed.

In the past, scholars have also suffered from the cultural amnesia about food,

paying little attention to food and domestic cooking and considering such issues

insignificant.

Eating is intertwined with all our other human activities; it is difficult (or

impossible) to think clearly if you are ravenous. On a daily basis, people are subject to

the demands of their stomachs. How these demands are met – by whom and with what –

reveals a great deal about a society and its values.‖

Over the course of this project, I had the privilege of interviewing food-and-

popular-culture author Michael Stern, who also happens to be a resident of my

hometown. Over coffee in Bethel‘s Molten Java, we discussed specific culinary trends of

each decade from the 1950s- 1990s and the importance of studying food.

2

Stern brought up a good point:

―The whole idea of ‗you are what you eat‘ is particularly apropos to studying the

culture of food because if you grow up in the Deep South, for example, barbeque is part

of your life. If you grow up on the shore of Maine, eating lobster is part of your life.

Studying what people eat and how they eat it - in a banquet, casually, formally - that is

one of the most fundamental ways people express their cultural identity.‖

The latter half of the 20th

century, in particular, has seen a great many changes in

home-entertaining. Following World War II, Americans strove to make up for

everything they had been denied during the years of rationing. Cookbooks from the

1950s are full of glistening creations that showcased all the wonderful new convenience

foods that were made available to the postwar generation.

The 1960s saw the introduction of French cooking via Julia Child. She was the

leading force behind America‘s new sophisticated palate.

The Women‘s Rights Movement in the 1970s introduced communal dining in an

effort to take women out of the kitchen.

Focus returned to more traditional values in the 1980s. Dinners became sit-down

affairs that included food that was popular in the 1960s, such as casseroles and quiche.

In the 1990s, the entertaining mood became more relaxed than ever before.

Instead of dining at a table with formal place settings, it became socially acceptable for

Americans to gather around the coffee table in front of the television.

Today‘s home-entertaining methods incorporate all these varying styles of

preparing and serving food to our guests.

3

Stern concluded our interview by admitting, ―Food has always, for me, been a

way into people – I don‘t want to say in an intimate way – but a personal way that you

could never do by just looking at someone. It‘s what we do with our friends; it‘s what we

do on a date. It‘s an expression of what kind of a person you are, what your values are:

are you a fancy person? Are you a cheeseburger person? Are you a fries and steak

person? Are you a vegetarian? All that stuff tells who you are, in terms of identity.‖

It‘s with great hope that this project offers to provide an ―identity‖ for the hosts

and hostesses of home-entertaining throughout the last 50 years of the 20th century. Stern

advises the cooks of today and tomorrow to ―consider the past as a storehouse of

inspiration.‖ May this collection of articles be equally inspiring.

4

1

Aspic Happiness: Jell-O Molds in the 1950s

The guests sit around the lace-covered table, a miniature vase of flowers in front

of every place setting. The men wear suits and have short, combed hair. The women

sport elaborate Victory roll hairstyles, pearls and their best shirt-waist dresses. They‘ve

already finished with their Tom Collins cocktails and are now waiting for dinner to be

served. They engage in cheery conversation – the men about new cars; the women about

new appliances – all eagerly awaiting the meal their hostess spent all day preparing.

Her heels clack on the linoleum floor as she enters the dining room, sporting her

frilly pinafore-style apron and carrying a platter of food: a meatloaf arranged to look like

a little man, with a baked potato for a head, olives for buttons and a lettuce scarf. She

places the platter at the head of the table in front of her husband, and then returns to the

kitchen for her eye-appealing aspic salad that has been chilling in the refrigerator.

The 1950s was the time when Americans were most satisfied with their lives,

according to the Census Bureau statistics from that decade. The postwar generation was

living the American Dream: a life filled with working husbands and housewives who

took pride in cooking and cleaning. The factories that produced ammunition and airplane

parts during the war now manufactured items to fulfill every desire of the new American

lifestyle: kitchen appliances, new cars, and of course, food. Shopping housewives were

suddenly offered countless choices of products on the stocked shelves of the supermarket.

According to Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman, authors of the book

―Growing Up with Dick and Jane: Learning and Living the American Dream,‖ this new-

found technology was used to improve on nature: ―cakes rose from foolproof mixes.

5

Fluffy Minute Rice cooked ‗instantly.‘ Cheese spread. Ketchup flowed. Jell-O was

sculpted, and dehydrated onion soup mixes transformed sour cream into party dip.‖

The notion of instant, futuristic food became apparent in all these post-war foods.

―This was great in cooking because it was a way of freeing people from

drudgery,‖ said Michael Stern, local author of more than 30 books about food and pop-

culture, when I interviewed him at a local coffee shop. ―Previously, housewives had to

pluck their own chicken and cook it and spend hours in the kitchen. In the 1950s, people

were thinking, ‗That‘s so old fashioned. That‘s like my grandma.‘ If you could just do it

instantly, then you were free to do other stuff.‖

One of the most popular ―instant‖ culinary ingredients of the 1950s was gelatin,

commonly referred to as ―aspic‖ when used in savory dishes. Jell-O and Knox were the

most well-known brands; the former specialized in flavored gelatin, the latter in

unflavored.

Chicken was cheap during the 1950s, so the agriculture community tried to

promote the consumption of beef and pork products. Gelatin, made primarily from beef

and pork trimmings, was just one more way to sell these animal by-products.

In order to appeal to the American population, and especially to the housewives

who did the shopping, products like Jell-O came in powdered form in brightly colored

boxes. The 1952 edition of ―The Joy of Cooking‖ by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion

Rombauer Becker, advises that the rules for cooking with ―gelatine‖ are that it ―must be

soaked in a cold liquid before it is dissolved. Dissolve it by adding it to a hot liquid –

water, milk, custard, etc. – or by placing the receptacle holding it in boiling water or over

a low flame.‖

6

Unlike today, gelatin wasn‘t classified as a dieter‘s dessert or as a wiggly, kids-

only snack. Actually, ―the original ‗target consumer‘ for Jell-O was the American

housewife who was assured that this product would please her family (be both tasty and

‗fun‘), make her somehow a better wife and mother, and allow her to exercise kitchen

creativity,‖ notes Sarah E. Newton in her Western Folklore journal article, ―The Jell-O

Syndrome.‖

Gelatin was a staple in just about every dish; from sweet pineapple-marshmallow

pies to savory salmon and tomato salad rings.

―In my day, Jell-O molds were very popular,‖ remembered Eda White, 77, a

Danbury, Conn. homemaker.

To this day, White is famous in her family for her gelatin creations.

―I‘ve been making them for, oh gosh, let‘s say 40 or 50 years,‖ said White. ―I

make them for holidays or summer picnics - usually for company.‖

White‘s family counts on her to bring her cranberry mold to Thanksgiving

gatherings. She has made this holiday staple so many times that White hardly pauses

before listing all the ingredients from memory:

―The ingredients are: raspberry Jell-O, whole-berry cranberry sauce, pineapple,

celery, and nuts – I use walnuts. You can put oranges in it too – I think the recipe calls

for them. I‘ve made it that way before, but usually I don‘t include the oranges.‖

One of the attractions of Jell-O molds is that the combination of gelatin and solid

food are limited only by the creativity of the cook. In fact, Erika Endrijonas states in her

essay ―Processed Foods from Scratch: Cooking for a Family in the 1950s‖ from the book

―Kitchen Culture in America,‖ edited by Sherrie A. Inness, ―If the woman who viewed

7

cooking as a pedestrian task rededicated herself to becoming a gourmet chef (and a food

chemist), what had once been a tiresome chore could be transformed into a creative

adventure.‖

It was actually the cookbooks themselves that taught women how to find their

way around the kitchen, as well as how to be the best mother and wife possible.

In her book ―Dinner Roles,‖ Inness states: ―Cooking literature played an

important role in the domestic re-entrenchment of the fifties. Cookbooks and cooking

articles made cooking seem exciting, challenging, and technologically up-to-date.

No wonder many women returned to their homes and kitchens after World War II.

Cooking literature alone was not responsible for the vast shift, but it did make cooking

more appealing to millions of women. Fifties women were promised that cooking would

be enjoyable and creative; cooking was still women‘s ―natural‖ responsibility.‖

The emphasis on creativity explains the pairing of ingredients in White‘s

signature Thanksgiving dish, as well as in such recipes as "Quick Aspic Salad‖ from the

1952 ―Joy of Cooking.‖ This recipe instructs the cook to have an oiled mold ready, then

―pour part of the gelatine into it, sprinkle some canned grapefruit, canned crab and

canned asparagus over it, then alternate layers of gelatine and the other ingredients.

Wind up with gelatine on top. Chill the aspic until it is very cold. Serve it on lettuce

with herb mayonnaise.‖ The cookbook also suggests the addition of capers and

―materials on hand‖ such as celery, olives, or hard-boiled eggs.

―This dish – my own palate child – has saved my life – at least my reputation, on

so many occasions,‖ Rombauer wrote, preceding the recipe. ―that I dedicate it gratefully

with all good wishes to any hostess caught in a pinch.‖

8

White agreed that Jell-O molds can be a homemaker‘s saving grace: ―You can

create interesting dishes very easily. It adds to the meal.‖

Cookbooks from the 1950s place special emphasis on the art of presentation as a

surefire way for the hostess to keep a good reputation.

―Food that was aesthetically pleasing was thus presented as a pleasure both to

create and to consume,‖ notes Endrijonas in her essay, adding that, ―the concern for

creativity, in tandem with the desire to satisfy their family‘s need for interesting cuisine,

led many women to spend enormous amounts of time on silly dishes.‖

By today‘s standards, it doesn‘t seem like dinner-party dishes could get any sillier

than Jell-O molded into shapes, placed on beds of iceberg lettuce and served with a

generous dollop of mayonnaise on the side. In fact, this is what the term ―salad‖ referred

to in the 1950s; the raw vegetable-lettuce mixes of today were snubbed as ―rabbit food‖

because they didn‘t contain the obvious creativity and elegant presentation of gelatin

molds.

―‗When I was a young woman, it [molded Jell-O] really was the most elegant

thing you could do. There wasn‘t anything as elegant. It was the center of the table,‘‖

read a testimonial in ―The Jell-O Syndrome.‖

Though White limits her gelatin molds to fruit-flavored Jell-O today, she readily

acknowledges the appeal of more savory molds in the 1950s.

―In my day, tomato aspic was very popular. I think I made one with beets one

time,‖ she said with a laugh.

Aspic was actually the original gelatin. The idea behind gelatin desserts was

patented by Peter Cooper in 1845.

9

―No one paid any attention [though], because no one had a refrigerator; besides

most people still thought of making gelatin as an all-day affair requiring the processing of

crushed calves feet,‖ according to Jane and Michael Stern in their book ―The

Encyclopedia of Bad Taste.‖

It wasn‘t until the 1890s that a prepackaged powder form of gelatin, invented by

Charles B. Knox, hit the market. The new phenomenon was used to make aspic. Around

the same time, a cough-medicine bottler from LeRoy, N.Y., named Pearl B. Wait, came

up with the idea for a flavored gelatin. Sales for this new product were so poor that Wait

sold the company to Orator Francis Woodward of the Genesee Pure Food Company.

Woodward named the product ―Jell-O, after [his] popular coffee substitute, called

Grain-O. [He then] decided he might pep-up sales if he advertised it as ‗America‘s most

famous desert,‘‖ wrote the Sterns.

As sales grew, Jell-O and Knox became household names across the nation,

eventually reaching their ultimate heyday in the 1950s.

―It was relatively inexpensive to make,‖ White reasoned about the popularity of

gelatin-based dishes. ―People got inventive with Jell-O.‖

As the decade came to a close, however, Americans were starting to look

elsewhere for inventive ways to prepare their food.

―Some lay the cause for the change in attitude about Jell-O at the feet of Julia

Child who in the 1960s demystified French cooking,‖ states Newton in ―The Jell-O

Syndrome.‖ One informant for the journal article, ―laughingly testified, ‗the Jello mold

went out when that stuff came in… [Before], you‘d never go to someone‘s house without

10

knowing they‘d have a molded Jello salad. Jello molds were as exciting as American

food got.‘‖

Stern agreed that Child had a lot to do with the de-sophistication of Jell-O.

―I think what happened when Julia Child came along, is that people - let‘s say

amateur cooks; people who wanted to improve their cooking skills – viewed Jell-O as a

kind of unsophisticated food. If you wanted to be sophisticated, you got rid of your Jell-

O recipes and replaced them with recipes for aspic, which is sort of the sophisticate‘s

Jell-O. I think that interest in foreign food and exotic cuisine was the desire to cook in a

sophisticated way. For many people, Jell-O was, and remains, a staple of life, but foreign

food made Jell-O less of a mainstream item and more of a kitsch item.‖

Gone are the days when high-heeled housewives reigned the kitchen and gelatin

molds were the centerpiece of American meals. Today, it is hard to come by some of the

more bizarre dishes that were so proudly displayed at the center of the dinner table.

―Yeah,‖ Stern said with a long laugh. ―like Twinkies submerged in Jell-O!‖

11

Mrs. White’s Thanksgiving Cranberry Mold (Double Recipe)

2 small or 1 large package Raspberry Jell-O

1 cup boiling water

1 ½ cups cold water

1 16oz. can whole berry cranberry sauce

1-2 small cans crushed pineapple, drained

1 cup finely chopped celery

1 cup chopped walnuts

Orange segments, optional

Put Jell-O powder in bowl.

Stir in boiling water, until powder is dissolved.

Stir in cold water.

Chill in refrigerator until partially set (about 45 min.)

In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together.

When Jell-O is slightly set, remove from refrigerator, add other ingredients and mix well.

Pour contents into large mold or pretty bowl.

Put mold in refrigerator until fully set (about 2-3 hrs.)

To serve, unmold onto serving patter, spoon out individual servings.

12

2

Foreign Fancy: Coq au Vin in the 1960s

The evening has a fun, flirty vibe: it‘s a night for trying new things. The guests

have just finished cocktail hour: martinis made extra dry from a large silver shaker. The

room is swarming with singles – maybe tonight will be the night to take home someone

new. The men are wearing wrinkle-free suits, looking as slick as James Bond. The

women wear their hair in high bouffant beehives. Everything about the place is sleek,

crisp perfection.

The table is set for a new adventure, too. The hostess has prepared an elegant

chicken the French way – tender fowl stewed in a rich purple sauce with an assortment of

vegetables. She learned the recipe from watching cooking programs on television and

now, as her guests gather around the table on plush velour chairs, she proudly astonishes

her company with her newfound sophisticated culinary skills.

American entertaining took an exotic turn in the 1960s as foreign foods were

introduced to the kitchens of homes across the country. French food in particular had a

glamorous appeal that down-home American dishes lacked.

Many credit this palate change to the beloved French chef, Julia Child. As the

star of her own cooking show, which premiered on PBS in 1962, Child taught

housewives how to cook simple, elegant dishes from France right in the comforts of their

own homes.

―The thing about Julia Child, is that her recipes were simple, but they had a nice

presentation,‖ recalled Geraldine Munce, 86, while sitting at the kitchen table of her

Westport, Conn. home.

13

The introduction of foreign foods provided a glamorous, yet fun distraction from

the chaos of the Vietnam War and the hippie counterculture that seemed to be taking over

the minds of America‘s youth.

―Another thing you want to think about in the 1960s are the Kennedys,‖ noted

Michael Stern in our interview. He took a sip of his tea before elaborating. ―People

adored the Kennedys. They were sophisticated. What it seemed to be was Dwight and

Mimi Eisenhower were very mid-Western and square farm folks, whereas Jackie

Kennedy was very glamorous. One of the first things they did when they got into the

White House was to hire a French chef and they served meals with a lot of French food.

That was the sign of sophistication.‖

International traveling also became a class act in itself. The increase of

commercial jet travel made it easier than ever before to hop on a plane and go somewhere

new and exciting. This ability to expand our physical space opened up a world of cuisine

that hadn‘t existed on American dinner tables before.

Sophisticates could now achieve a heightened level of class by presenting their

guests with such exotic delicacies as sweetbreads, Pheasant under Glass, and Coq au Vin.

The latter was one of Child‘s best known specialties. The dish, which translates to

―rooster in wine‖ is typically made with chicken in red wine and is cooked with onions,

mushrooms and bacon.

In her 1961 cookbook, called ―Mastering the Art of French Cooking,‖ Child, as

well as fellow authors Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, explains,

14

―In France Coq au Vin is usually accompanied only by parsley potatoes [but]

buttered green peas could be included if you wish a green vegetable. Serve with it a

young, full-bodied red Burgundy, Beaujolais, or Cotes du Rhone.‖

While this recipe certainly appealed to the adventurous cooks of the 1960s, it

actually came from Burgundy, France, where it is considered a comfort food.

―The traditional recipe for Coq au Vin did not include chicken, but rather a "Coq,"

which is a rooster. A lot of recipes originally called for old barnyard fowl, roosters, capon

(a de-sexed rooster), and old laying hens. Coq au Vin was originally considered peasant

food, and the farmers would make do with what they had on hand,‖ wrote culinary

historian and cookbook author, Linda Stradley on her Web site: http://www.

whatscookingamerica.net.

Depending on the kind of wine used, it may also be referred to as Coq au

Chambertin or Coq au Riesling, though red wine is most traditionally used for this recipe.

―The red wine in the recipe was used not to mask flavor, but to allow the acids to

help break down the old meat of the rooster,‖ notes Stradley on her Web site. ―True Coq

au Vin was actually finished with the blood of the rooster stabilized with brandy and

vinegar; this would help the blood not clot.‖

This meal was especially appealing to home entertainers because it looks rich, has

a rich-sounding, high class name, and yet, it‘s not time consuming to prepare.

―It‘s ideal for a party because you may prepare it completely a day or more before

serving. In fact, Coq au Vin seems to be even better when done ahead so all its elements

have time to steep together,‖ mentions Stradley.

15

Anything that was ideal for a party was ideal for a playboy. Yes, foreign cuisine

was especially tantalizing to suave young bachelors who wanted to make a classy

impression on their lady friends.

―If you look at ‗60s Playboys, it‘s all about how to be sophisticated,‖ said Stern

with a nod. ―It included cooking and eating and how to order in a restaurant.‖

In his book, ―Sixties People,‖ co-written with his wife Jane, Stern further explains

this sophisticated outlook from the magazine that is known for little more than its nude

centerfolds today: ―By the early sixties, a taste for gourmet food was becoming a symbol

of the kind of manly, globe-trotting, derring-do that playboys wanted to exude.

Ten years earlier, such finicky behavior might have been considered effeminate

by most meat-eating American men; but in the soaring sixties, when the world was the

playboy‘s oyster, the fussier a guy was about his fancy food, the more masculine he

seemed.‖

One of the best known movements of the 1960s was the sexual revolution.

Although sexual freedom was most commonly experienced in the hippie communes, the

idea of who could appropriately seduce whom spread to other groups of people, aside

from the nature-loving hippies. Food in the 1960s became a way for sophisticated

women to seduce men and vice versa.

Cookbooks from the time such as, ―Saucepans and the Single Girl‖ were written

with these flirty women in mind.

―They entertained by serving fun things to eat: foods with a dash of exotic

flavoring that required little culinary skill, designed to impress all bachelors – especially

16

if it‘s preceded by a very dry martini, and accompanied by a stack of ‗cool jazz‘ records

piled on the turntable,‖ wrote the Sterns in ―Sixties People.‖

That explains why, when Arlene Becker, 74, of Red Hook, N.Y., tried her hand at

making Coq au Vin in the 1960s, her guests were bowled over.

―Everybody loved it,‖ she recalled. ―They thought it was wonderful and very

successful.‖

Becker is an artist who has always enjoyed dabbling in the artistic preparation of

food. She remembered seeing the recipe in a cookbook and decided to give it a whirl.

―I was a little more experimental than most of my friends,‖ she said with a laugh.

―It was a time when mid-America didn‘t know truly gourmet food. Coq au Vin appealed

to me because it had a little more of a heavy flavor than regular chicken.‖

Munce, on the other hand, never made the dish herself, but recalls eating Coq au

Vin and other similar meals at friend‘s houses during the 1960s.

―My husband Howard and I went to quite a few dinner parties,‖ she reflected.

―Roasts and chicken that baked in the oven were popular because it allowed the hostess

to socialize while the dinner cooked.‖

Both women commented enthusiastically on the deep violet hue of the wine sauce

for Coq au Vin. Purple, a color long-associated with richness, was perfectly suited for

the highly sexualized sophistication of the 1960s. It‘s no wonder this dish became a

symbol of foreign class at dinner parties across America.

Though Becker admitted that she hasn‘t made Coq au Vin since the late 1960s,

our conversation left her feeling inspired.

17

―I think I‘m going to dig out that recipe and make it again,‖ she said, already

heading toward her cookbook collection. ―But this time around, I might add some

different spices. I know a lot more about cooking than I did back then!‖

Julia Child’s Coq au Vin

(Serves 4-6)

A 3-4 ounce chunk of lean bacon

2 Tbs. butter

2 ½ -3 lbs. frying chicken, cut up

½ tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

¼ cup cognac

3 cups young, full-bodied red wine, such as Burgundy, Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, or

Chianti

1-2 cups brown chicken stock, brown stock, or beef bouillon

½ Tbs. tomato paste

2 cloves mashed garlic

¼ tsp. thyme

1 bay leaf

12-24 brown-braised onions*

½ lb. sautéed mushrooms**

3 Tbs. flour

2 Tbs. softened butter

Sprigs of fresh parsley

*For onions:

12-24 peeled white onions 1 inch in diameter

1 ½ Tbs. butter

1 ½ Tbs. oil

½ cup brown stock, canned beef bouillon, dry white wine, red wine, or water

Salt and pepper to taste

Medium herb bouquet: 4 parsley sprigs, ½ bay leaf, and ¼ tsp. thyme tied in cheesecloth

**For mushrooms:

2 Tbs. butter

1 Tbs. oil

½ lb. fresh button mushrooms, washed, well dried, left whole if small or quartered if

large

18

Prepare the chicken:

Remove the rind of the bacon and cut into rectangles ¼ inch across and 1 inch long.

Simmer bacon for 10 minutes in 2 quarts water. Rinse in cold water. Pat dry.

Saute bacon slowly in hot butter in 10-inch fireproof casserole dish or electric skillet until

it is very lightly browned.

Remove bacon to side dish.

Dry chicken thoroughly. Brown it in the hot fat left behind from the bacon in the skillet.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Return bacon to casserole with chicken.

Cover and cook for 10 min., turning chicken once.

Uncover and pour in cognac.

Averting your face, ignite cognac with a lighted match.

Shake dish back and forth for several seconds until flames subside.

Pour wine into casserole.

Add just enough stock or bullion to cover chicken.

Stir in tomato paste, garlic, and herbs.

Bring to a simmer.

Cover and simmer slowly for 25-30 min. or until chicken is tender and juices run clear

yellow when pricked with a fork.

Remove chicken to a side dish.

While chicken is cooking, prepare onions:

Heat butter and oil in separate 9-10 inch enamel skillet; when bubbling, add onions and

sauté over moderate heat for almost 10 min., rolling the onions about so they

brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break the skins.

Pour in the liquid, season to taste with salt and pepper, and add herb bouquet.

Cover and simmer slowly for 45-50 min., until onions are perfectly tender, but retain

their shape and the liquid has evaporated.

Remove herb bouquet.

Set onions aside.

Then, prepare mushrooms:

Heat butter and oil in 10 inch enamel skillet over high heat.

When butter foam begins to subside (indicating it‘s hot enough), add mushrooms.

Toss and shake the pan 4-5 min.

(While sautéing, the mushrooms will first absorb fat. In 2-3 min. the fat will reappear on

the surface, and mushrooms will begin to brown).

As soon as they have browned slightly, remove from heat.

Set mushrooms aside.

19

Return attention to chicken:

Simmer the chicken cooking liquid for a minute or two, skimming off fat.

Raise heat and boil rapidly, reducing the liquid to about 2 ½ cups.

Add salt and pepper to taste, if necessary.

Remove from heat and discard bay leaf.

Prepare the sauce:

Blend butter and flour together into a smooth paste.

Beat paste into the hot liquid with a wire whip.

Bring to a simmer, stirring for a minute or two – the sauce should be thick enough to

cover a spoon lightly.

Finally:

Arrange chicken in the casserole, placing the mushrooms and onions around it.

Baste with the butter-flour sauce.

Shortly before serving, bring to simmer, basting the chicken with the sauce.

Cover and simmer slowly for 4-5 min. until chicken is heated through.

Serve from the casserole or arrange on a hot platter.

Decorate with sprigs or parsley.

20

3

Dipping into fond memories: Fondue in the 1970s

The air is filled with laughter and comforting aromas as guests converse around

an earthenware pot of bubbling cheese. The table is covered with platters of bread cubes,

chopped vegetables, and bite-size pieces of meat. Glasses of wine are as plentiful as the

friends who sip from them.

New wave music plays softly from the stereo in the corner. The women, bundled

in wool ski sweaters, wear their hair long and loose. The men also wear ski sweaters and

sport plenty of facial hair. Wall-to-wall shag carpeting matches the dark wood paneling,

and the kitchen, glimpsed through a swinging door, is full of avocado-hued appliances.

In 1974, this scene became typical in households across the country as fondue, the

latest culinary craze, took America by storm.

―Fondue takes me back to, let‘s see….the ‗70s? Yeah. It made for a nice social

evening with a bunch of people. That was nice,‖ recalls Jack LaFlamme, 63, of Weare,

N.H., over the phone.

He is the proud owner of two fondue pots from the decade when this meal was

seen as a party staple instead of a passing trend. Cookbooks and magazines of the time

predicted that fondue was here to stay.

―The pots remained sitting on a shelf for years,‖ says LaFlamme. ―Then, when I

got back from visiting my daughter in Santa Fe where she served fondue for dinner, I

recalled the fun we had and took the set back out.‖

Judy Petrie, a 53-year-old avid cook from Fairfield, Conn., also has warm memories

centering on this communal meal.

21

―My family had it when I was growing up,‖ she said in a recent conversation.

With a father in the military, Petrie‘s childhood and teen years were spent moving

around the United States, Europe, Japan and Germany. Though she sampled an array of

international cuisine at a young age, her mother‘s fondue still holds a special place in her

memory:

―When I was a kid, Mom heated oil in the pot with a Sterno can. Then, we‘d put

cubes of meat on skewers, put it in the oil, and the meat would cook. Then we‘d take the

meat off the fork and put it on a little plate. Mom would make a hollandaise sauce and

we‘d dip the meat in that. It was so yummy!‖

The March 1974 issue of The Saturday Evening Post featured an article called

―Fondue on the Menu‖ by Beverly Kees and Donnie Flora. It insisted that the dish

―occupies a prominent place in the entertaining plans of American hostesses.‖

The meal, however, wasn‘t originated with the party scene in mind. Fondue,

whose name is derived from the French verb fondre, meaning ―to melt,‖ can be traced

back to the Swiss shepherds who resided high in the Alps.

―Legend had it that [one shepherd was] weary of his monotonous winter fare of

hard bread, cheese, and wine,‖ wrote Kees and Flora. ―Perhaps it was by accident that he

lit a fire under his iron pot, tossed in the cheese, added some wine and dipped the bread

into the bubbling cheese mixture. If so, it was a happy accident!‖

Whether it was accidental or created as a means of surviving the frigid Alpine

winters, fondue eventually found its way onto the menus of the hospitable inns

throughout Switzerland. Fondue became a Swiss cuisine trademark long before it

22

crossed the Atlantic and found a home in ski lodges and dinner tables across the United

States.

There is considerable speculation as to when the dish was first introduced to the

American palate. One thing‘s for sure, though: fondue changed the face of home

entertaining in the 1970s.

―It gives the hostess an easy time, both from the cooking angle and from the

entertaining one,‖ noted Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker in their 1974

edition of the ―Joy of Cooking.‖

―It was a fun party food,‖ agreed Petrie. ―Everyone could have what they wanted.

You could talk while doing it.‖

―The fondue party is easy; it‘s convivial; it‘s different; and it allows the hostess

to be a partygoer, too,‖ Kees and Flora wrote.

This was a big step in home-entertainment, branching mainly from the Women‘s

Rights Movement of the 1970s. Women were no longer housewives who devoted their

days to cooking elaborate meals. Instead, ―a new trend developed; women not only had

jobs, they pursued careers,‖ notes Bruce J. Schulman in his book ―The Seventies.‖

Additionally, ―the revival of feminism in the mid-1970s was about the workplace,

and home cooking was viewed as part of the housework problem,‖ mentions ―The

American History Cookbook‖ by Mark H. Zanger.

Fondue was the perfect entertaining solution for the new working woman who no

longer wanted to be associated with the kitchen. The meal could be put together in little

to no time, involved hardly any preparation, and the hostess could mingle with her guests

instead of being secluded in the kitchen with an apron on.

23

―It was a way to have everyone do their own work, in terms of serving a meal,‖

said Michael Stern in our interview.

As easy as it was to prepare, however, there was still essential cookware that was

needed in order to have successful results.

―Without a fondue pot, you can‘t have a fondue party,‖ noted Kees and Flora.

An earthenware pot, called a caquelon, is favored by fondue enthusiasts because it

withstands and distributes heat evenly. The most popular method of heating the caquelon

is by a lighting a can of Sterno – the brand name for small cans of flammable gel – and

placing it under the pot.

―When we had people over, we usually had one pot for hot oil, one pot for

chocolate and one pot for cheese,‖ LaFlamme says, noting the three basic types of

fondue.

The traditional Swiss recipe ―combines hard cheese like Emmenthaler and

Gruyere with a dry white wine and a splash of kirsch, the cherry liqueur,‖ wrote Dena

Kleiman in her article ―Fondue, Refreshed, Re-emerges‖ in the March 7, 1990, edition of

The New York Times.

These ingredients are placed in the pot and heated over the low flame. Once it

reaches a smooth consistency, guests spear cubes of sourdough French bread with long

forks and dip them into the melted cheese. It is usually accompanied by wine and

conversation.

―There‘s something charming about it,‖ reflected Stern with a smile. ―The whole

process of eating fondue is more sensuous than, you know, cutting something with a

24

knife and fork. It‘s more hands-on. I think that all has to do with the ‗70s; I think people

were craving to be other than square - and fondue was really not.‖

One of the ways that makes fondue stand apart from more traditional meals, is

that everyone eats from the same pot.

―In most typical meals, there‘s a serving platter, and you put something on your

plate from the serving platter. But with fondue, there‘s all that interaction – you can feed

it to your friend. There‘s that whole social element to it that‘s expanding the nature of

the traditional family dinner table to a less nuclear way of getting together with people

and sharing food,‖ said Stern.

As a result of all that sharing, the act of dipping comes with its own etiquette.

Double-dipping is an obvious no-no, but then there‘s the curious tradition surrounding

what happens when a piece of bread drops into the cheese.

―If a man loses his bread cube in the cheese during dunking, he can choose a girl

to kiss. If a girl loses her bread cube, she has to kiss all the men,‖ Kees and Flora pointed

out. An alternate custom suggested the loser buy the next round of drinks.

Whoever manages not to drop any bread is rewarded with the crust that forms at

the bottom of the pot. This hardened cheese, known as la religieuse - French for ―the

nun‖ – is considered a delicacy.

The manners and preparation are similar for meat fondue, where guests dip cubes

of beef into hot oil or butter instead of cheese. The 1974 ―Joy of Cooking‖ instructs

diners to ―impale the beef on long forks [and] worry it about in the butter until it is done

to your liking. Arrange the sauces on your plate like oils on a palette, [then] dip the hot

browned meat in the sauce of your choice.‖

25

Dessert fondue, the perfect finish to an evening of social wining and dining, is

consumed by dunking fresh fruit and bits of cake into melted chocolate. Unlike the

cheese and meat fondues, this latter version has its roots in America. It was ―invented in

the early ‗60s by a New York publicity agent (named Beverly Allen), trying to promote

the use of Tobler chocolates,‖ Kleiman said.

The Swiss thought the idea was crazy, but it caught on so quickly in the United

States that Domino sugar issued boxes of dark brown sugar with recipes for chocolate

fondue printed on the back.

Dessert fondue remains the most popular of the three varieties. Recipes for it are

most often seen in conjunction with romantic Valentine‘s Day-themed meals. This is

why chocolate fondue remained a favorite even when the savory kinds fell out of favor in

the 1980s.

Fondue‘s decline in popularity during the ‗80s is apparent in the lack of archival

articles from this decade.

―I think people started to prefer sit-down meals and buffets at dinner parties -

more substantial meals,‖ suggested Petrie.

Stern thinks the cultural saturation of the food eventually had an adverse reaction

on its popularity. Sipping from a mug of tea, he summed up fondue‘s downfall:

―I think what happened is that it‘s one of those dishes that get very popular and,

as sophisticated as they are, there‘s sort of a bad trickle-down effect. The same thing

happened with quiche in the ‗80s. I‘m not sure about this, but I think fondue became

over-exposed. You have to think about the kind of person who would be interested in

fondue. Generally speaking, it‘s the kind of person who wants to seem at the edge of

26

trends. Once fondue became really popular, it was sort of ‗Oh, yeah. They‘re serving

fondue again.‘ You don‘t want people to be saying that. You want to be serving

something that people haven‘t had a lot of. Sophisticated things become overly popular

and they lose their sophisticated charm.‖

Today, the dish is enjoying a rebirth of sorts with Cuisinart‘s new line of

dishwasher-safe, electric fondue pots.

―I think the revival is great, though it‘s not on the same popularity level that it

was in the ‗70s,‖ reflects LaFlamme. He laughs when recalling a recent fondue party at a

friend‘s house where the host used an electric pot. ―We never had that. It used to just be

canned heat, Sterno.‖

The cookware may have changed with the times, but the attraction to this retro

culinary classic remains the same.

―The fun of fondue has made it a favorite with young people, and the choice of

the wise hostess who knows that entertainment starts at the table,‖ observed Kees and

Flora in 1974. It‘s a statement that may prove true once again, as the electric fondue set

finds its way onto the holiday wish lists of both college students and foodie trend setters.

―That‘s how I characterize it: a fun food. People are in good spirits,‖ says

LaFlamme in response to gatherings around the communal hot pot. There is a pause on

the other end of the line as he takes a moment to reminisce. His smile is almost audible

over the phone.

When he returns from his thoughts, LaFlamme‘s voice is filled with nostalgia:

―All my fondue memories are fond memories.‖

27

Joy of Cooking Cheese Fondue

(Serves 4)

1 lb. Emmenthaler or ½ lb. Emmenthaler and ½ lb. Gruyere cheese

1 clove garlic

2 cups dry white wine

3 Tbs. kirsch

1 tsp. cornstarch

Nutmeg, white pepper or paprika

Loaf of crusty French or Italian bread cut into 1 inch cubes

Grate the cheese and set aside.

Rub a heavy sauce pan with garlic clove.

Pour wine into pan, heat uncovered over moderately-high heat.

Pour kirsch into a cup and add cornstarch; stir until dissolved.

When wine surface is almost covered with foamy bubbles, but is not yet boiling, add

grated cheese gradually, stirring constantly.

Keep heat high, but do not boil.

Continue adding cheese until a slight resistance to the spoon can be felt.

Still stirring vigorously, add kirsch and cornstarch mixture.

Cook until fondue begins to thicken.

Add spices to taste.

Quickly transfer fondue to a heat-proof heavy pan which can be placed over a Sterno can.

Guests can then spear bread cubes with long heatproof-handled forks and dip into hot

fondue.

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4

Quiche vs. America‘s Real Men: the 1980s

Duran Duran plays on the cassette player in the corner. Couples move down the

line at the buffet table, selecting small portions of food from the smorgasbord of dishes

brought by different friends. Women with teased hair and shoulder-pads, help themselves

to salad and slices of quiche. The men in their geometrically-patterned sweaters largely

ignore the quiche. Instead, they show their masculinity by dishing themselves extra large

helpings of meat and potatoes. When their plates are full, the guests take a seat at the

table to eat, excusing themselves only to get more food from the buffet.

During the 1980s, home entertaining returned to a more formal sit-down affair.

Once again, homemade casseroles and one-dish meals became the stars of dinner parties

across America. These dishes also gained popularity due to the busy schedules of the 9-5

working women, as well as the surge in popularity of the buffet-style meal.

―I started making quiche, probably when my daughter was born, around 1982,‖

said Paulette Munce, from Redding, Conn. ―I used to prepare it for parties and for myself

and my brother when I went to visit him in Vermont.‖

The 56-year-old dental assistant made many a quiche for her guests whenever she

threw parties for friends and family.

―A quiche is simply a custard plus morsels of meat, fish, poultry, or vegetables

and/or grated cheese baked in a tart shell, usually made of short pastry,‖ defines Peter

Kump, in his 1982 cookbook, ―Quiche & Pate.‖

Quiche is an extremely versatile dish. Probably the most well known varieties are

basic cheese quiche and Quiche Lorraine, which includes bacon and mushrooms.

29

However, any number of fillings can be paired with cheese to make a different delectable

pie every time.

―The one I made the most often was crab quiche,‖ recalled Munce. ―but I also

made plain cheese, spinach, broccoli – I think I even made an asparagus quiche once.

You can add bacon, too, but I never did that.‖

The dish is so simple to prepare that it enabled Munce and multitudes of other

busy women to rely on this dish as a party staple. Just by changing the filler ingredients,

a whole new meal could be made in a short amount of time that was sure to impress

guests.

―I would make them for holiday parties and housewarmings. Events, even, like

when my daughter was baptized I brought quiche to that,‖ Munce said. ―The guests

thought it was really good. I always gave the recipe out to a lot of people when I served

quiche. They asked me how to make it, so I shared my recipe with them on little cards.‖

With quiche, the hostess also had the option of making the pie as a simple, no-

fuss main course served along side a green salad. It could also be prepared as bite-size

miniatures for an appetizer or hors d‘oeurve to serve before a more complex meal.

―Quiches are excellent for last-minute execution if you have a quiche shell ready-

baked and frozen,‖ wrote Kump.

Instead of worrying over the temperature and consistency of homemade dough,

the prebaked, store-bought crusts that were becoming a more easily accessible item in the

grocery store, freed up enormous amounts of time for busy hostesses. Suddenly, this

fancy French dish could be prepared impromptu after work, without sacrificing flavor.

The days of slaving in the kitchen seemed to truly be fading into the past.

30

―I enjoyed making it; it‘s easy to make,‖ Munce said. ―First you get a store-

bought pie shell. Then you put your cheese in there, usually at the bottom. Then, you

mix your eggs and milk and cream – whatever the recipe says. Then you put in whatever

you want on the bottom - you can put crab or bacon or broccoli – and your liquid on top.

Then you put it in the oven.‖

The kinds of filling Munce suggested are known as savory quiches. In ―Quiche &

Pate,‖ Kump includes numerous dessert versions as well, including rum-and-cheese

quiche and apple cinnamon quiche. However, these sweeter variations never quite caught

on in America. In France, quiche‘s homeland, dessert pies and savory pies as equally

favored.

―Historically, the dish was a favorite of the French. When it was introduced to

Americans in the late 1970s, restaurants began to openly experiment with the pie, adding

mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus, and broccoli to the egg mixture, making it a delicate

vegetarian dish,‖ claim Bob Batchelor and Scott Stoddart, in their book ―The 1980s.‖

Kump adds in his cookbook that, ―quiche, or kiche (this spelling you sometimes

see in France) reputedly originated in the Lorraine area. There are several types of

quiches in France. Each region of Lorraine and Alsace has its own and of course feels

that is the true quiche.‖

Wherever the true quiche was born, it certainly found a home in America.

According to Jane and Michael Stern in their book ―American Gourmet‖:

―Quiche made its first notable appearance in America at the Cheese Cellar of New

York World‘s Fair in 1939; and it was popularized at swank cocktail parties, particularly

those catered by James Beard‘s Hors d‘Oeuvre, Inc.‖

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Beard, a popular chef from the 1950s and ‗60s, later claimed, ―‗I am convinced

that I am the one who introduced quiche to America‘‖ in the 1980s. Whether or not his

claim is true, quiche became the ultimate go-to hors d‘oeuvre or meal of dinner parties in

the 1980s. The dish fit in nicely with the vegetable-and-cheese based vegetarian diets

many people had been following since the previous decade. It also found itself the butt

of a whole new gender-based joke.

―Real Men Don‘t Eat Quiche‖ by Bruce Feirstein was a book published in 1982

that claimed itself to be ―a guidebook to all that is truly masculine.‖ Feirstein uses quiche

as the symbol of all things wimpy, i.e. feminine.

In the chapter titled ―The Real Man‘s Nutritional Guide,‖ Feirstein insists that ―as

a general rule, Real Men won‘t eat anything that is poached, sautéed, minced, blended,

glazed, curried, flambéed, stir-fried, or en brochette. Real Men don‘t eat brie; they prefer

presliced, individually wrapped American singles.‖

Ironically, parts of this book were originally published in Playboy magazine. The

very magazine that prided itself on catering to sophisticated, French-cuisine eating males

only two decades previous. Now that the products of the Women‘s Rights Movement of

the ‗70s were working women who boldly wore shoulder-padded power suits and

threatened to topple man‘s long-standing masculinity, men in the ‗80s felt the need to

reclaim their manhood by denying themselves quiche.

Nevertheless, ―the book sold millions of copies, becoming an overnight bestseller

on the New York Times list and steering sensitive men toward the path of rugged

individualism,‖ mention Batchelor and Stoddart in their book. The authors add that the

jokes in Feirstein‘s book ―paint a seriously skewed impression of the 1980s – a time

32

when a simple dish like a quiche caused an entire gender to think twice about what they

ordered at a restaurant.‖

Feirstein‘s book is perhaps the beginning of quiche‘s downfall. By the end of the

decade, quiche had become more of a joke than a quick, classy way to impress friends at

a dinner party.

―Quiche used to be considered a very sophisticated French dish,‖ admitted

Michael Stern in our interview. ―but then it got kind of overly popular and then it

became too easy as a symbol of sophistication.‖

Another likely reason for quiche‘s diminished popularity is that the country

became increasingly aware of health concerns, such as obesity. As the decade wore on,

diet and exercise became a part of the average American‘s daily lifestyle more than ever

before.

―Maybe people thought quiche had too many calories with all that cheese and

milk,‖ suggested Munce. ―I think there are people who still like quiche, but I think

people just want to try new things.‖

With the explosion of Mexican and Thai cuisine in the 1990s, it‘s easy to see how

quiche‘s decline could simply be a cultural change of taste.

Whatever the reason, Munce is sure that this ‗80s favorite will never completely

vanish from American entertaining, because, as she was quick to quip, ―Everyone likes

cheese!‖

33

Paulette’s Crab Quiche

1 pie shell, unbaked

Crabmeat

1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

2 scallions, chopped

1 cup light cream

¼ tsp. dry mustard

Salt, pepper

3 eggs slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 425º F

Sprinkle cheese evenly over bottom of pie shell.

Sprinkle crabmeat over cheese, followed by scallions.

In small bowl, combine cream, dry mustard, eggs, salt, and pepper.

Pour cream mixture over crab and cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes, then turn oven down to 325º F and back for 35 minutes – done

when inserted knife comes out clean.

Let stand a few minutes before serving.

34

5

South-of-the-Border Crunch: Nachos in the 1990s

The sound of cheering fills the air. Men and women perch on the edge of the

couch and La-Z-Boy recliners as they gather around the TV armoire. Their eyes are

glued to the football game on the screen. Every so often, the men, wearing jeans and

Starter brand graphic sweatshirts with their favorite team‘s logo on the front, stand and

whoop an excited cry for their team of choice. The women, in their jeans and turtleneck-

sweater combinations, cheer too, as they pause to refill the bowls of snack food.

The coffee table between the couch and the TV is covered with bowls of peanuts,

chips and dip, and of course, a platter of hot nachos. The guests eat off paper hors

d‘oeuvre plates and use paper napkins and plastic cups full of beer and soda that are color

coordinated with to match their team‘s colors.

When the nachos run out before the end of the game, making a new platter is as

easy as throwing some cheese and toppings on some corn chips and broiling them in the

oven for a few minutes. There‘s more eats on the table before the commercials are over.

Southwestern-inspired cuisine became the ultimate party favorite of the 1990s.

After a decade of sit-down dinners and buffets, entertaining meals returned to communal

gatherings around a single dish. Though there was a sudden rise in the consumption of

tacos, fajitas, and quesadillas, nothing said ‗90s like nachos.

―I started making nachos…I wanna say around ‘98, ‘99,‖ said Celine Boucher, 58,

of Penacook, N.H. ―I used to do tacos in the ‗80s, but, you know, the shells always

broke. The kids were young then. It was a pain because the filling always fell out of the

35

damn things, so I decided to use chips. Now that I‘m on my own, I do things

differently.‖

Boucher is manager of the Radiology Imaging Center at Concord Hospital. She is

known by her friends and family to have a passion for entertaining with Southwestern

and Mexican food.

―It‘s a come-together kind of meal,‖ she said. ―People like chips, saltiness, and

spiciness – I know I do. Most of the people I invite really like it. I would say about 99

percent of people.‖

Women‘s magazines from the time are filled with ads for products, such as Old El

Paso salsa, Chi-Chi‘s refried beans and Tostitos tortilla chips. Advertisements for these

foods were virtually unheard of before this decade. What was once available only south

of the border or in few-and-far-between Mexican restaurants, could now be made at

home.

―When you can‘t get to the restaurant, get to the store. Chi-Chi‘s products give

you everything you need to create your own distinctive, authentic Mexican foods at home

– like restaurant style salsa, seasoning mix, and refried beans. They‘re all available on

your grocer‘s shelf. So get going – and get cooking,‖ proclaimed an ad for Chi-Chi‘s in

the July 1995 issue of McCall‘s magazine.

Even though women‘s magazines were the natural magnet for tortilla-inspired

recipes, nachos are not a dish that has stereotypical gender roles surrounding its

preparation, as was the case with much of the cooking from earlier decades.

36

―Although this situation has been changing in recent decades, millions of people

continue to assume that men should eat heavy, spicy foods or risk being considered

‗sissies,‘‖ notes Sherrie A. Inness in her book, ―Dinner Roles.‖

Nachos don‘t need a woman‘s delicate touch – multitudes of toppings in

excessive amounts can simply be tossed on top of a platter of corn chips - no measuring

or specific order of ingredients is necessary.

―Nachos are a mess,‖ Stern laughed, in his explanation of why this dish appeals to

men. ―Jell-O is very pretty and elegant with pastel colors, but nachos are bolder colors.‖

The thrown-together, instant-party method of preparing nachos lent itself well to

the relaxed atmosphere of the 1990s. According to legend, the first nachos were made

with the same idea in mind, 65 years ago in Mexico, in a pinch to please some American

customers.

―Ignacio ‗Nacho‘ Anaya is credited with creating the snack food at a restaurant in

Piedras Negras, Mexico, just across the border from Texas along the Rio Grande,‖ claims

NPR in their Web site news article ―Nachos Celebrate 65 Years as a Tasty Snack‖ from

Oct. 21, 2008. ―As the story goes, some Americans stopped in the restaurant just when

the chef had stepped out. Maitre d' Nacho Anaya threw together some chips and cheese,

stuck them under the broiler and added a jalapeno — and nachos were served.‖

Then, in the late ‗50s, a waitress named Carmen Rocha introduced nachos to the

glamorous metropolis of Los Angeles.

―Rocha started working at El Cholo Mexican restaurant in 1959,‖ writes NPR in

their news article ‗Waitress who Introduced L.A. to Nachos Dies‘ from their Web site on

Oct. 17, 2008. ―She brought a special treat from Texas: tortilla wedges, shredded

37

cheddar cheese and slices of jalapeno pepper. One cookbook writer told the Los Angeles

Times, ‗If they were called 'Carmens,' not nachos, her name would be remembered

forever.‘‖

Although nachos have been around since WWII, they didn‘t become a trendy

food until the 1990s. This transformation has much to do with the increasing popularity

of the fast-food franchise, Taco Bell.

―That‘s probably so,‖ agreed Boucher, in regards to the chain‘s influence.

―That was the generation of going to fast-food places.‖

It was during the early ‗90s that Taco Bell introduced its Nacho Supreme – a

cardboard container of chips smothered in seasoned ground beef, tomatoes, jalapeno

pepper slices and gobs of processed yellow ―nacho‖ cheese. The TV commercial for

Taco Bell‘s latest offering featured the legendary Johnny Cash crooning about the value

of the franchise‘s food.

In tandem with a familiar singer in their advertisements, the company also

launched its own brand of taco and nacho fixings.

―Taco Bell, for instance, took to selling its own brands of hot sauce and taco

shells in major American supermarkets. These products were immediate successes, due

to brand familiarity. Consumers knew exactly what they were getting when they

purchased a bottle of Taco Bell brand sauce,‖ notes Marc Oxoby in his book ―The

1990s.‖

Stern agrees that it is America‘s never ending quest for the fastest food possible

that linked our interest in nachos with Taco Bell:

38

―There‘s a strange craving people have for food that provides instant gratification.

Nachos aren‘t really a one-dish meal, but it‘s a no-fuss meal, in a sense. And I think

that‘s what people crave. The same with fast-food restaurants - it‘s fast, it‘s easy.‖

The simplicity and easy preparation of nachos is also what appeals to cooks of all

skill levels. In fact, going out to eat is the main source future party fare ideas for

Boucher.

―I learned to prepare nachos by trying to mimic the flair from restaurants,‖ she

said, adding that one restaurant in Concord, N.H., called Hermanos Cocina Mexicana, has

inspired her signature nacho recipe. ―Chicken Garlic Nachos, that‘s what I call ‗em.‖

Her recipe calls for cheese, cubed baked chicken, garlic and broccoli on top of

whole grain tortilla chips. Boucher‘s recipe is certainly different than what most people

think of when they hear the term ―nachos,‖ but that‘s because, like Jell-O and quiche, the

nachos concept is open to interpretation and calls forth the food preparer‘s unlimited

creativity.

―I think there will always be nachos,‖ Stern said, wistfully. ―It‘s such a great bar

food and such a great Super Bowl food and a great way to entertain, given the variety.‖

Nachos can be as simple as the originals of cheese, chips, and a few jalapeño

slices or ―loaded‖ with everything from seasoned beef, refried beans, cheese, olives and

salsa. Stern even mentioned the possibility of nachos topped with Southwestern short

ribs.

Boucher, who recently prepared all the food for a party she threw for 70 of her

friends, incorporated her most creative nachos into the menu. Foods like nachos were

especially appealing to her mingling guests.

39

―It‘s a festive finger food, not formal with place settings,‖ Boucher said, her voice

bubbling with enthusiasm. ―It‘s casual and easy to talk and hang out because people feel

relaxed. With Nachos it‘s easy, it‘s tasty, it‘s spicy, it‘s fun…but of course, you have to

have a good margarita, too!‖

Celine’s Chicken Garlic Nachos

1 can refried beans

Multi-grain tortilla chips

Plum tomatoes, chopped

Garlic, chopped and mixed with tomatoes

Pre-shredded 4 cheese blend

Chicken, baked or stir fried in olive oil, cut into cubes

Broccoli, steamed

Preheat oven to 350º F

Spread refried beans on cookie sheet.

Top with layer of chips.

Sprinkle tomato and garlic mixture over chips, then sprinkle with cheese.

Top with another layer of chips.

Sprinkle broccoli over chips, then sprinkle with more cheese.

Bake in oven until cheese starts to melt – watch it to make sure it doesn‘t burn!

40

Works Cited

Becker, Arlene. Telephone interview. 1 Dec. 2008.

Becker, Marion Rombauer, and Irma S. Rombauer. The Joy of Cooking. Indianapolis:

Bobbs-Merrill, 1952 ed. and 1974 ed.

Boucher, Celine. Telephone interview. 20 Oct. 2008.

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