Then there’s the Weight Watchers Recipe Cards
Note that this was a Weight Watchers dish, so even for back then it was punishment food. Personally, I would pour vodka over it and drink it as the world’s worst bloody mary.
That’s a fancy term for lard, right? I can’t defend those icky pudding things, but back then, did they have alternatives to lard? Was vegetable oil marketed much at that time?
I have not made any of these dishes, but I did once make chicken in aspic (basically chicken jello) as an experiment. It tasted fine, but the texture was just unpalatable. It felt like I was eating wiggly chicken fat.
If we took the fat out, it wouldn’t be wiggly, would it?
#4 Perfection Salad
“Dave! Its the CO2…! Use…The…CO2, Dave… The CO2!!!”
#6 Lobster Relish
Oh. Dear. Og. No. Wasn’t that the Ceiling Barnacle in Half-Life!?
Still, I can see why someone might be strangely drawn to it.
But we’ve agreed never to speak of it again.
Regards,
Shodan
Lard is pig fat.
You know, I was just saying last night that I like jello. As jello. Not as tuna pie. Jesus. What a way to give jello a bad name!
Yep. Lard is rendered pork fat, suet is rendered beef fat. Schmaltz is the term for chicken fat.
Truly awful haute-cuisine 60’s and 70’s style
Don’t you mean Hate-cuisine? 
Props where due, I’m sure the tuna is none too thrilled either… 
The stuffed salmon recipe sounds perfectly fine, apart from the fact that the baking time seems way too long. I think people are just freaked out by the presentation.
I really wish it was easy to find any beef suet (or tallow, for that matter) these days. At least lard is still relatively easy to come by, although that varies a bit by location.
I actually own the cookbook in which that recipe appears. My mom got it for wedding gift in 1955 and gave it to me when I moved out on my own. It does have some interesting recipes, but sadly few pictures.
Actually, not quite. Suet is unrendered beef fat. Tallow is rendered.
I grew up back then and never saw anything like any of those dishes. My mother used to make a halibut dish with mayo smeared all over it. I never ate any of it. I seem to recall some sort of jello with shredded carrots in it that may have been topped with Miracle Whip. But that could just have been a childhood nightmare.
What? No one has mentioned the The Gallery of Regrettable Food yet? (Well, except for posts 2 and 17 that is.)
The OP’s BuzzFeed link rivals The Gallery’s pictures, but not its captions. (A murder movie? What the hell is that?) James Lileks has a wicked wry sense of humor.
I’m deeply confused by their definition of “salad.”
This definition persists in the Midwest, particularly in church socials and buffets. Not to this level, though. #21 looks like someone’s spackle has gone bad.
#20, on the other hand, looks pretty damned good. A bit fussy, a bit stay-at-home-wife-with-no-life, but all of the flavors are there and everything would work in terms of the meal itself.
And, yes, #8, with the suet, is probably from the 1920s or 1930s. The style is pretty different from everything else.
That would be a dildon’t. Also, ‘dildo’ is a mass noun now?
Born in 1950. Why yes, I do remember molded jello food. Only in fruit salads, as I recall. But still…