The centerpiece of the 1939 New York World's Fair was a pair of structures known as the Trylon and Perisphere. Even today, they look very futuristic.
It occurred to some that the structures looked a bit like a scoop of ice cream and an upside-down cone. This inspired ice-cream parlors throughout America to offer what they called the "World's Fair Sundae" or the "Sundae of Tomorrow".
Hagerstown Daily Mail - July 21, 1939
It's a nice looking sundae. I'd get one if they were offered today. Though now the reference would be lost on most people.
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.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Feb 18, 2021 -
Comments (7)
Category: Food, 1940s
Rev. Jensen evidently thought Mrs. Grote's sandwich tasted pretty good. His wife, however, was not amused.
Mrs. Jennie Jensen, in her court action, charged her husband with "taking several bites from Mrs. Grote's sandwich at a picnic party while refusing to take even one from hers."
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.
1929: Evangelist G.W. James, who preached against "barbecue sandwiches, cigarets, high-heeled shoes, short skirts, bobbed hair and other modern ideas," announced he was discontinuing his services due to low attendance. If the folks of Normalville wanted to hear him preach, he said, they would need to "indicate a desire for him to resume".
We've previously posted about "cheese candy", which was the invention of Wisconsin lumberman Stuart Stebbings. Another of his inventions was cheese-filtered cigarettes. He was, apparently, a man driven to find new uses for cheese.
Lab tests demonstrated that a cheese filter could remove 90 percent of the tar in cigarettes. A hard cheese worked best, such as Parmesan, Romano, or Swiss. Although an aged cheddar could also be used. Or even a blend of cheeses.
In 1966, Stebbings was granted Patent No. 3,234,948. But as far as I know, his cheese-filtered cigarettes never made it to market.
The Pickle Peace Plan was championed by the Picklers Planetary Unity Party which, in turn, was a creation of the Pickle Packers International, an industry association. It had two main planks:
Instead of a red telephone or bomb button, heads of governments should have a jar of pickles handy. At the first sign of hostility, they would send pickles to each other instead of missiles.
If war did break out, all politicians would be required to don uniforms and do the fighting while everyone else watched it on television.
William R. Moore, executive vice president of the Pickle Packers International, noted, "We picklers think that with such a peace plan, both sides would either come to a quick armistice or talk themselves to death. Either way, we the public would benefit by such action."
While preparing veggies for Christmas dinner, Shaunagh Roberts was surprised to see the face of Jesus staring back at her from a Brussels sprout. Though she admits it might also be Johnny Depp. (I think it looks a bit like Einstein.)
She says, "I didn't have the heart to cook him so I left the sprout in a corner cupboard and he just sat up there for a little while. After he stopped looking like Jesus he got put in the green recycling bin."
Imagine the insults suffered by the dweeb forced by well-meaning parents to carry this lunch pail to school.
The objects children take to school can communicate messages. In the 1970s, the U.S. government encouraged more general use of the metric units of weight and measure, units that had been adopted in almost all other nations. To teach children about metric units, some parents purchased this lunch box.
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.