Those fishballs have been in the water too long.

wow. that twentieth century really was something, wasn't it?

I was just discussing making a green bean-mushroom salad with my niece. She got her first picking from the garden today.

This recipe for Tuna Fish Jell-O is in the church cookbook from the 80s. Someday I'm gonna have to make it. But I think I'll add olives, just for a little extra kick.

I'm surprised, given those recipes, that I found losing weight so difficult in the 1970s.

Tuna Fish Jell-O
Quick, someone bring me a bucket!

The "Tacos" and "Enchiladas" don't look too bad.

I recall that a kid in high school who brought tuna jello in a thermos quite often for lunch.

This looks familiar. I think this exact image set was floating around on the pretty-early MeFi, like in 02 or 03.

My mom had one of these card sets in a big box, and every so often we'd get a new packet in the mail, kind of like trading cards for adults. They were all really bizarre recipes - I guess they had to be, because after all, what else would make you subscribe? I used to page through them as a little kid. I found them oddly fascinating and wondered why we never made any of them. I particularly liked a coconut cake in the shape of an igloo, with small Inuit people made of some kind of foodstuff gathered around.

I made a thing that I saw on the Frugal Gourmet one day. It involved tuna and eggs and immersing a log wrapped in cheesecloth into a hot water bath. I was with a new girlfriend at the time. When it was done it looked very much like a huge beige turd. You know something? It was delicious. Maybe the pictures are horrible, but the food might be... no I can't say it with a straight face. Nevermind.

Well, I'm happy to stand up for MExican shrimp-orange salad. Probably not bad. Snacks on a stick, if they're coffee pops which is what they look like, might also not be bad, though a little homely looking - I mean, Martha Stewart is all about homemade ice pops now.

I'm not down with anything mackerel, and definitely not the thing where the butterflied hot dogs create sort of a vase to hold pineapple greens and served over what appears to be a banana, carrot, and pineapple salad.

I'm really not sure why there was such an emphasis on mackerel as an ingredient in the Weight Watchers of the 70s. Was it the high meat prices thing? Were people thinking meat was fattening? (not so sure about that because it wasn't until the 80s that red meat became the devil). Or was it that people thought fish was "slenderizing," and mackeral (canned) was available nationwide?

Here's the source - I knew I'd seen it some time ago. Glad I looked - the captions on the original site are laugh-out-loud funny, and I mean that. For instance, for the Mexican shrimp one:

Um, I guess this is a salad best enjoyed at the house of that one scary lady down the street who never leaves the house and talks to her knicknacks.

I showed this card to a friend who said, "What the hell's in that bowl-- bong water?!"

"I'm not down with anything mackerel"

Me neither, at least not the canned stuff. I bought some in a can once and I was thoroughly disgusted, and not only do I come from a family of professional fishermen on my mother's side but I like just about every other fish and seafood preparation I have ever encountered. That stuff was fit only for a cat.

Oh god, Miko, that link is too much. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Something about the food photography makes everything from that era look unappealing. Does anyone know if that style has a name?

"Enchiladas"

heh. Scare quotes, indeed.

Oh, these are classic. I first saw them about ten years ago. And after seeing them you feel like you could never eat anything again. I once flipped their link to a co-worker who emailed back that she had been planning to get groceries that afternoon after work but now couldn't face the prospect.