I accept that there are famous chicken, beef, and pork meals. There are famous fish meals as well (such as fish and chips). But famous sardine meals? Even after looking through the recipe book below (available via archive.org), I'm not convinced there are any.
Also, the book only lists 38 recipes. Either the authors didn't think anyone would actually count, or the archived copy has pages missing. The pages aren't numbered, so hard to know which is the case.
Sardines in the blazer
Sardines on brown bread toast
Sardines with anchovy sauce
Sardine canape
Sardines a la steensan
Creamed sardines
Sardines fried in batter
Grilled sardines
Sardine snacks
Sardine and asparagus timbales
Hot sardine rolls
Mystery sandwiches
Sartuna sandwich
Sardine kedgerel
Sardines "my own"
Fried sardines
Stuffed tomatoes
Pilchered eggs
Sardines lyonnaise
Virginian sardine sandwiches
Sardine salad en mayonnaise
Hot sardine sandwich
Broiled sardines
Sardine relish
Curried sardines
Sardine croquettes
Baked sardines
Broiled sardines
Sardine salad
Sardine and olive sandwiches
Sardine cocktail
French toasted sardines
Devilled sardines
Japanese salad
Pickled sardines
Mayonnaise dressing
Thousand island dressing
Sour cream dressing
Note: my wife says that 'sardines on toast' is quite famous in Britain. So my lack of sardine awareness probably represents an American bias.
Another odd cookbook: Cat-food maker Fancy Feast has released a book of recipes for humans. As explained in the book's introduction:
each of the recipes in this cookbook gives a nod to the dishes you'll be serving your cat, yet made for humans. Using palate-pleasing ingredients like chicken, salmon, and whitefish, these dishes complement Fancy Feast's entrée options so you can have what they're having—an elegant and delicious meal.
We recently posted about the American Airlines Wine Club, which allows people to enjoy wines served inflight at home. Turns out that in 1994 the company did something similar with its airline food, publishing a recipe book so that people could "prepare their inflight favorites at home". It was titled A Taste of Something Special.
During World War II, as the country faced meat rationing, the U.S. Government decided to promote rabbit meat as an alternative to beef and chicken. As part of this effort, the Department of the Interior released a pamphlet, "Recipes for Cooking Domestic Rabbit Meat". It included recipes such as "Rabbit Chop Suey," "Vagabond Stew," and "Wartime Rabbit Casserole". The pamphlet noted:
The growing scarcity of meat due to war conditions and the necessity of feeding our armed forces and our Allies makes it imperative that new sources of supply be developed. The domestic rabbit—easy to raise—is rapidly solving the meat problem in many American homes, and thus is playing an important part in the Food for Freedom program. Rabbit meat is not rationed.
Entrepreneur Martin French of Los Angeles must have had visions of the rabbit-meat market taking off. In 1940, he received trademark protection for "Bunnyburger" — his ground rabbit meat business.
I'd like to think that, in some alternative reality, the government's plan worked and it's possible to go into a McDonald's and order a McBunny with Cheese.
That sounds like an interesting challenge. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the book doesn't tell you how to eat the entire tree. Instead, it's mostly about using the needles and bark in recipes.
But some searching on YouTube produced a video that delves into how to eat the entire tree. The catch is that to do so you'll need to pulp the wood and transform it into cellulose powder. Which is probably beyond the means of most people. But the video notes that cellulose powder derived from spruce trees is in many products, including parmesan cheese, pasta sauce, and ice cream. So almost everyone has eaten (highly processed) Christmas trees already.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.