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30 Disgusting Vintage Recipes That Prove The Dishes Of The Past Were Really Bizarre
Interview With Owner
Whoever said you can't time travel clearly has not stumbled upon Jess's Instagram page, "Weird Old Food." With a hefty collection of vintage cookbooks at her fingertips, Jess takes us way back, serving up photos of rather interesting recipes that might make you go, "Wait, people actually ate that?"
The charm of "Weird Old Food" lies in the mystery, with Jess sharing just enough to keep her followers intrigued and staying tuned for more. Each post reveals a scanned snapshot of a dish from the vintage cookbooks she owns, and the bare essentials—just the name of the dish, the year, and the cookbook it's pulled from. However, looking past all that, this page isn't just about the food itself, rather it’s a collection of the strange and quirky culinary trends of the past.
Also, don't forget to scroll down and check out an interview with Jess, the owner of the 'Weird Old Food' page!
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Shrimp Cucumber Aspic (Southern Living 1983 Annual Recipes)
Bored Panda reached out to Jess, the curator of the "Weird Old Food" Instagram page. As you might've guessed, Jess's unique hobby involves exploring vintage cookbooks and sharing particularly unusual or intriguing recipes with her audience.
When asked about how her interest in vintage cookbooks began, Jess shared, "I have always loved paging through cookbooks. I was very interested in vintage illustrations and I began collecting vintage cookbooks that had beautiful mid-century line illustrations. Now I collect any books from 1990 or earlier." The oldest books in her collection date back to the late 1800s.
Salmon In Bladder Of Pork (Loving French Cuisine, 1995)
Early footballs were made from inflated pigs bladder. Why you would want to cook your dinner in one I have no idea.
Preservation and ease of transportation. It's the same reason why Scottish haggis was prepared in a sheep's stomach. The natural animal "bags" of bladder/stomach were somewhat waterproof and made the food more easily transportable. It was somewhat more hygienic than carrying food around in a VERY porous cloth bag.
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" Chef Patrick Henriroux combines one of the wonderful Bresse chickens, with wine, Port, cognac, and truffle juice in a pork bladder, seals it, and lets it poach. The bladder inflates, and this puffed balloon-like presentation is garnished with a blanched leek and brought to the table on a tray on a bed of tourneed vegetables sauced with cream. The bladder is pricked carefully before the diners to release the pressure and juices, then the chicken is removed and sliced." You don't eat the bladder you eejit !
The great French chef Paul Bocuse served a similar dish in his restaurant. It was delicious!
Load More Replies... by the way : WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU EAT WHEN YOU'RE HAVING HOT DOGS AND OTHER SAUSAGES ? "Natural casings have been used to make sausages for around 6,000 years. And, despite the invention of artificial sausage casings, they are still around. Natural sausage casings, as you can probably guess, are made from animal intestines " .( Loving 'murican ignorance . )
I start to understand why people were slimmer 'back in the days' now. 😂
Who in the heck had a pig bladder laying around just waiting to be used in a recipe....?
Rocky Mountain oysters or mountain oysters, is a dish made of bull testicles. In Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, they are often called calf fries. A few other terms, such as "cowboy caviar", "Montana tendergroins", "dusted nuts", "swinging beef", or simply "mountain oysters" may be used.
Testicles from other animals can also be used in similar dishes. The most common is lamb fries made with testicles from castrated sheep. Another dish found on occasion is turkey fries made from turkey testes. These are sometimes known as "short fries". emoji-6482...ea9648.png 
I don't care that it's a pork bladder; what's in it just looks disgusting!
I think I just vomited in my mouth a little and I come from the country that invented haggis.
A LOT of French cuisine is disgusting. Lots of organ meats and weird body parts.
"Rocky Mountain oysters or mountain oysters, is a dish made of bull testicles. In Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, they are often called calf fries. A few other terms, such as "cowboy caviar", "Montana tendergroins", "dusted nuts", "swinging beef", or simply "mountain oysters" may be used. Testicles from other animals can also be used in similar dishes. The most common is lamb fries made with testicles from castrated sheep. Another dish found on occasion is turkey fries made from turkey testes. These are sometimes known as "short fries".
Load More Replies...Ham Buffet Mold (Campbell’s Great Restaurant Cookbook, U.s.a.)
Regarding a recipe that genuinely surprised her, she revealed a peculiar one, 'Salmon in Bladder of Pork' (also mentioned in the post) from the book 'Loving French Cuisine, 1995'. She commented, "It’s from the nineties, which is very modern for my collection, but the photography is horrifying. It looks so anatomical."
Rice And Salmon Mould (Gelatine Home Cooking Secrets, 1975)
Ducklings Afloat On A Pond Cake (The Wilton Way Of Cake Decorating, 1979)
The most challenging dishes in her collection, she explained, come from classic French cuisine. She mentioned recipes such as "Galantine of Duck" from "Classic French Cooking, 1971", and "Chicken in Chaud-Froid Sauce" from "The Creative Cooking Course, 1975", admitting, "As a home chef I wouldn’t ever attempt those... I don’t see myself ever attempting chaud-froid sauce."
Molded Egg Salad (Betty Crocker’s Smart Cook, 1988)
Spaghetti Ring Florentine (Better Homes And Gardens 1988 Best-Recipes Yearbook)
Discussing her process for selecting which recipe to feature next on "Weird Old Food", Jess noted, "My process is very casual. When I’m looking through my collection and I see something odd or interesting I take a photo of it... My photo library looks wild- old cookbook pictures, cat pictures, and pictures of my niece and nephew. It’s mostly food pics though." She picks something that amuses her at that moment, demonstrating a light-hearted and spontaneous approach to her unique hobby.
Chutney Aspic (Trader Vic’s Pacific Island Cookbook, 1968)
Shrimps In Aspic (Grand Diplome Cooking Course, Volume 8, 1972)
Soup On The Rocks (Campbell’s Soup Ad, 1956)
Sugar Cube Castle (Holiday Cookies, Sweets, Appetizers And Meals, 1986)
That'd be fun. How many battalions do you intend to serve with that?
Frankfurter Crown With Kraut (34 Selected Recipes For Delicious Dishes And Dinners With Kraut)
Stuffed Flank-Steak Roll (Time Life Illustrated Library Of Cooking: Appetizers, Beef, Breads And Rolls, Breakfast Quick Breads, 1969)
I had a nightmare, where I was being chased (very slowly) by one of these.
Piped Clown (The Wilton Way Of Cake Decorating, 1979)
Lemon Dill Shrimp Mold (Wilton Entertaining Appetizers To Desserts, 1994)
Lobster Salad Heligoland (Gourmet’s Old Vienna Cookbook, 1959)
We're gonna need a banana here, people. Either those are teeny tiny lobsters or the rest of the meal is gigantic!
Shrimp Tree With Curry Sauce (Great Recipes Of The World)
Whole Fish In Aspic (Gelatine Home Cooking Secrets, 1975)
Lettuce-Wrapped And Stuffed Fillets Of Fish (Victory Garden Cookbook, 1982)
Fruit-Salad Linguine (Better Homes And Gardens Pasta, 1983)
Rag Doll Cake (The Wilton Yearbook Of Cake Decorating, 1978)
Sea Dream (Joys Of Jello, 1963)
Brain Salad With Cream Dressing (The Good Cook Salads, 1980)
My mum actually like boiled cow brains. Nothing like coming back from school and see a brain in a pyrex bowl in the fridge. No wonder old horror movies never scared me.
Golden Gate Saucy Burgers With Spaghetti Topping (Family Circle Illustrated Library Of Cooking Volume 3, 1972)
Cold Glazed Salmon (Gourmet Magazine, 1964)
Hard Sauce Clowns (How To Have The Most Fun With Cake Mixes)
Summer Day Salad (Holiday Cooking For Kids, 1982)
Noodle Ring (The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, 1980)
Fun At The Fair Cake (Wilton Yearbook 1977 Cake Decorating)
Why were these cake people so obsessed with clowns? I get serious Gacy vibes from these cakes.
Clown Cake (1989 Wilton Yearbook Cake Decorating!)
Note: this post originally had 99 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Agreed, The cakes are fugly but wouldn't taste bad. Now the fish/jello pairings on the other hand.. 🤢
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Most of these aren't bad at all, just unusual (from a modern perspective). In fact, we've probably eaten something like the shown foods when we were kids (I know for sure we had quite a few jelly-based desserts at home). I'd love to sample many of these dishes.
Yes. And gelatine or aspic is great thing for your hair, nails, skin and joints. That reminds me that I should get some pork skins and make something amazing once again.
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Yeah we get it - anything with aspic or gelatin is vile and clowns and dolls on cakes are creepy.
These are great bc I'm trying not to eat after 7PM. This totally killed my appetite.
Sandwich cakes don't really belong on this list. Still popular at least in Finland and Sweden, and if you haven't been able to taste one, something is missing in your life. Most of the decorations on the cakes were perhaps a bit outdated, but apart from the clowns, they were really cute and skillfully made. Those gelatin monsters do make me nauseous...
Smörgåstårta is one of the best things I've eaten in my life!
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This... let's see... without trying to be too negative; good idea poorly executed? Aspic is still popular in some eastern European countries so while most of us may recoil at the idea it's not revolting as a general concept. Nothing wrong with the cakes except maybe demonstrating that OP has a fear of clowns. The JELLO ones are tried and true for the "old gross dishes" trope... but unfortunately, all we had were pictures and titles. It would have been nice to have some sort of short description, in the OPs own words... (not just listed recipe) to make this feel more engaging.
So much work put into these. Some are great but other's are definitely not.
A few of those do look tasty, and there's à lot of effort in decoration. Too much jelly is yucky, but I don't discard aspics altogether. The French " œuf en gelée", à poached egg in à small oval mould with a bit of ham and à slice of tomato, is very tasty.
I never ate any of this in the 50s and 60s, in the magazines but most women never cooked these.
I love this. It's reminds me of childhood holiday potlucks and all of the guessing games you would have to do just to decide what a dish was.
Bless the Mormon congregation members who brought our family food after my step-dad died; they were trying. But that period of my life left me with severe post traumatic jello disorder. When we got to the point where we were sick of eating it, we had 22 various jellos left in the fridge. Every couple of years, I try a jello-something to see if I can handle it, but more than 30 yrs later, I still can't handle jiggly gelatin.
Gasp all you want, but it ALL beats whole, stinky dead fish, bones and all, on a pizza. Back in the 1980s, half of all pizza had whole, salted-not-cooked, disintegrating, stinky, long-dead, bone-filled fish on them. Nobody ate them, but everyone always ordered them, so if you weren't bright and early to the church basement, your pizza would be covered in what may as well have been walrus vomit.
Jelly/jello came in different flavors then, it wasn't all sweet or fruit. Like celery flavor for a 'salad mold jello'.
Several years ago, a guy did a video of himself making and eating a bunch of the "just put everything in aspic" recipes, and it was freaking hysterical.
I loved my mum's Wilton cake book from the 80s growing up. Everything in it looked so magical. No she never made anything in the book lol.
Agreed, The cakes are fugly but wouldn't taste bad. Now the fish/jello pairings on the other hand.. 🤢
Load More Replies... Most of these aren't bad at all, just unusual (from a modern perspective). In fact, we've probably eaten something like the shown foods when we were kids (I know for sure we had quite a few jelly-based desserts at home). I'd love to sample many of these dishes.
Yes. And gelatine or aspic is great thing for your hair, nails, skin and joints. That reminds me that I should get some pork skins and make something amazing once again.
Load More Replies... Yeah we get it - anything with aspic or gelatin is vile and clowns and dolls on cakes are creepy.
These are great bc I'm trying not to eat after 7PM. This totally killed my appetite.
Sandwich cakes don't really belong on this list. Still popular at least in Finland and Sweden, and if you haven't been able to taste one, something is missing in your life. Most of the decorations on the cakes were perhaps a bit outdated, but apart from the clowns, they were really cute and skillfully made. Those gelatin monsters do make me nauseous...
Smörgåstårta is one of the best things I've eaten in my life!
Load More Replies... This... let's see... without trying to be too negative; good idea poorly executed? Aspic is still popular in some eastern European countries so while most of us may recoil at the idea it's not revolting as a general concept. Nothing wrong with the cakes except maybe demonstrating that OP has a fear of clowns. The JELLO ones are tried and true for the "old gross dishes" trope... but unfortunately, all we had were pictures and titles. It would have been nice to have some sort of short description, in the OPs own words... (not just listed recipe) to make this feel more engaging.
So much work put into these. Some are great but other's are definitely not.
A few of those do look tasty, and there's à lot of effort in decoration. Too much jelly is yucky, but I don't discard aspics altogether. The French " œuf en gelée", à poached egg in à small oval mould with a bit of ham and à slice of tomato, is very tasty.
I never ate any of this in the 50s and 60s, in the magazines but most women never cooked these.
I love this. It's reminds me of childhood holiday potlucks and all of the guessing games you would have to do just to decide what a dish was.
Bless the Mormon congregation members who brought our family food after my step-dad died; they were trying. But that period of my life left me with severe post traumatic jello disorder. When we got to the point where we were sick of eating it, we had 22 various jellos left in the fridge. Every couple of years, I try a jello-something to see if I can handle it, but more than 30 yrs later, I still can't handle jiggly gelatin.
Gasp all you want, but it ALL beats whole, stinky dead fish, bones and all, on a pizza. Back in the 1980s, half of all pizza had whole, salted-not-cooked, disintegrating, stinky, long-dead, bone-filled fish on them. Nobody ate them, but everyone always ordered them, so if you weren't bright and early to the church basement, your pizza would be covered in what may as well have been walrus vomit.
Jelly/jello came in different flavors then, it wasn't all sweet or fruit. Like celery flavor for a 'salad mold jello'.
Several years ago, a guy did a video of himself making and eating a bunch of the "just put everything in aspic" recipes, and it was freaking hysterical.
I loved my mum's Wilton cake book from the 80s growing up. Everything in it looked so magical. No she never made anything in the book lol.
