[phoebe]

A friend of mine just sent me this web link. Yikes! Take a tour of some disturbing Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974. Unfortunately they don't include the actual recipes, but the pictures are rather, um, illustrative of another time and place (and dimension )

http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html

[Pete]

I think my favorite is the "Fluffy Mackerel Pudding"!!!

[phatch]

I remember the terror of the times when these card sets were the rage.

Sign up, and new sets would follow every month.

Do it now and you get this giant green card catalog box for storing them on your kitchen counter.

Cancel at any time with no obligation. And the box is your gift to keep.

Theses schemes must have been the brainchild of some sad sales and marketing rep tasked to rid the manufacturer of a bad product sales.

"Johnson, we've got 20,000 of them darn oversized card boxes. "

"We'll give them away.The catch is you sign up for, um, recipes. Yeah! recipes" We'll print them cheap. Gimmick is you're buying recipes and the card box is a gift!"




I hate advertising.

Phil

[nattychef]

frankfurter spectacular that is truely priceless, I'm slipping that into my menu submissions for this year just to see my bosses face!!

[CampChef]

I have a cookbook called "Regrettable Food". It is all the food ads and promos from the forties and fifties. My lord did they get inventive!

[kuan]

I like the celery log. With food like that who needs to diet?

[shroomgirl]

twisted, jellied mushrooms/bean thingy with threatening shroomy parents....how could they

[tuboe]

And to think I was in my early twenties when these cards came out. We've come a long way baby, now we have purple hair.

BTW I had several sets like these, long gone by now.

[chefboy2160]

phoebe, way cool! I was given some of these classics from friends who had relatives pass away!There motivation was " hey your a chef, these will probably help you out".
OK, another late night dumpster contribution! When we cook as home chefs or pros well we just cook!
Not to diss recipes but the true chef will taste and change to make it the way they like it.
These card and index files were the rage for a short time I hope but who knows with adverstising?Doug......................

[tuboe]

At least Wally World still has a version of these cards, smaller in size, and strategically placed on a rack near the fruit and vegetables or various meats. They consist of a discription of the pictured item and on the back, either a recipe or cooking instructions. I've seen them in other grocery stores, as well. For the recipe sets that was popular in the late 70's I had a set that was from a club where they would send them to you each month. You paid for them and then they would send you more. It didn't last vary long, I canceled my subscription early. I packed that thing from one duty station to the next. Finally got rid of it twenty years ago.

[Dominique]

Those were great! They brought me to tears, I laughed so hard.

[Mezzaluna]

Man, were these hysterically funny!

The first exposure I had to Weight Watchers was when my mom joined in the late '60s. That was some ratty food! Lots of cabbage, canned tuna and tomato juice were key foods. Guess what Mom did a lot of....

When I joined (for the first time) it was 1976. Things were only slightly better than the cards show. I do remember eating canned mackerel; I also ate cottage cheese mixed with cinnamon and sweetener, smeared on toast, then broiled. I also ate liver twice a week and tuna fish at least 5 times a week. Oh, brother (and I don't mean my brother who's a chef).

The second time I joined WW it was in the early '80s. Things were better, but because I didn't stay with it very long, I forgot what delicacies I ate except for tuna fish. From the third stint in the mid-'90s I remember some kind of fakey pumpkin muffins.

They are eating real food nowadays. No more molten liver artifacts!

[Chef Heather]

Originally Posted by kuan

I like the celery log. With food like that who needs to diet?

The word "log" should never be used in conjunction with food.

[chefboy2160]

Do not say that to loudly in the northwestern US as log is a big word there!People kinda like to log there I think! Doug................