Burning Issue

     How many times am I going to have to remind you that this is NOT a food blog?  This is a blog about the world of laughter and imagination, as seen through postcards I’d like to sell so I can go on paying for stuff: a shameless cash grab which never quite gets around to telling you where to buy the things seen in the illustrations.  I just keep getting sidetracked by other matters on the old Interwebs, which exist solely for sucking you out of your day-to-day cares to confront life’s eternal questions.

     One of which, it turns out, is what I thought would be a simple Look-It-Up-and-Move-On sort of inquiry.  What is so burnt about French Burnt Peanuts.  This is that stubbly brown-red peanut candy I was addicted to as a young man, and still wouldn’t mind crunching in my spare time.  Of course, it was not that simple.  We fell into an international candy mix of Jordan almonds, Spanish peanuts, and Boston Baked Beans.

     Jordan almonds were produced in ancient Rome, although in those days they were simply almonds covered in honey, apparently meant to symbolize the contrast between the hard and soft, sweet and bitter, of married life, and used as wedding favors.  They started being coated with sugar during the Renaissance, and gradually became best known as wedding reception decorations, edible only if the rest of the food at the reception was slow in getting to you.  I ALWAYS felt kind of like that about Jordan almonds.  In the twentieth century, inventors in the U.S. came up with a coating system known as cold-panning, most famously used to produce M&Ms, but also used to produce Jordan almonds, French burnt peanuts, Boston Baked beans, certain sugar-coated pills, and those little metal balls you put on home-decorated Christmas cookies and absolutely classified by the FDA as inedible.  (My mother used to warn us not to put so many of those on the cookies for good reason.  They are considered edible elsewhere, but are, in fact, actually illegal now in California.)

     Jordan, by the way, is a reference to Verdun, where they were…no, it’s a corruption of the French word Jardin, or garden, which….no, it’s a reference to certain almonds grown along the Jordan River, which had…when the Interwebs doesn’t know the real answer to something, it lokes to give you every possible answer, so it has all bases covered.

     Anyway, if you take your cold-panning machine and toss in Spanish peanuts (which are from Brazil, but achieved their classic form of small nibbles with thin salty skins in Spain) and you are well on your way to M&Ms, Boston Baked Beans, and French burnt peanuts.  (We will not pause here to discuss their use in peanut clusters and peanut-caramel clusters sometimes called Turtles, although authentic turtles should involve cashews and/or almonds  These were invented by Chicago candy company De Met’s and called turtles because…did I say we weren’t pausing for this?  Let’s get back to candy in the shell…which turtles don’t…no.)

     Now, the Boston Baked Bean came AFTER the French Burnt Peanut, being introduced by a Chicago company in 1924.  (Why Boston?  Because they looked like beans, for which Boston was famous.  At last, an easy answer.)

     But about the French Burnt Peanut.  The answer offered by an online food etymologist (dannwoellertfoodetymologist) is that it descends from the German Burnt Almond.  Why didn’t YOU think of that?

     He finds these gems, billed as one of the oldest confections”, in a candy catalogue of 1918, along with the German Burnt Cinnamon Almond, which seems to have been much the same color as the French Burnt Peanut.  After World War I, he explains, Americans indulged the passion for Spanish peanuts and made them America’s main candy staple, starting with peanut clusters before World War I and developing into candy bars as years went by.  Taking the color of the Burnt Cinnamon Almond but not the cinnamon flavor, the almond and BURNT SUGAR coating were applied to the little peanuts and the nationality was changed either because of a)the War, b)a German reputation for pastry while the French were known for candy, or c)corporate feeling that it sounded more expensive.

     So there’s your answer.  French burnt peanuts are made with burnt sugar (used in a number of caramels) and are a German-Italian-Brazilian confection called French for marketing purposes.  And I guess that’s that, though I DID think the explanation might veer toward peanut brittle at some point.  (Hey, you want to know where THAT came from?  There’s an easy answer.  Nobody knows.  So there.)

Paws for a Laugh

     I think we should be able to return to our regular schedule of blogs.  It is Monday again, and that means another exploration of jokes which are considered so elderly that you should be able to come up with the answer in no time at all.  This chapter in my original book on the subject deals with Animals.  The people in these jokes are not always kind to animals, but I advise you to behave better than that.  Be kind to the animals you meet today.  Don’t tell them any of these jokes.

     As usual, the punchlines, which I knew you know and you know I know you know, are at the end of the column.

     J1.”I went riding today on a really polite horse.”

     “Polite?”

     “Oh, yes.  If we came to a fence I wanted him to jump but he didn’t want to, he (          ).”

J2.I have the finest hunting dog in the world.  I took him to town to get his shots, and as we were walking to the vet’s office, he went into a point.  All I could see was a man, his arms full of packages, waiting for the bus.  I said, “I beg your pardon, sir.  Do any of those packages contain game birds?”

     “Well, no,” he said.  “Just books.”

     “Hmm.  Were you out hunting recently and wear those pants or that jacket while cleaning your game?”

     “I’m not a hunter.  Golf’s my game.”

     “Well,” I said, “I do apologize for my dog’s behavior.  My name’s Crawford,” by the way.

     “How do you do?  My name is (          ).”

J3.Kate went to the basement of her apartment building to find the janitor, and discovered him playing checkers with his dog.  “Wow!” she said, “That’s one smart dog!”

     “Not so smart,” said the janitor.  “(          )”

J4.Tim went down to the basement of his apartment building to find the maintenance engineer and discovered him playing poker with his dog.  “Wow!” he said, “That is one truly intelligent dog!”

     “Not so intelligent,” said the maintenance engineer, “(          )”

J5.”I just cut off my dog’s nose.”

     “How will he smell?”

     “(          )”

J6.”I had to shoot my dog yesterday.”

     “Was he mad?”

     “Well, (          )”

J7.Two hikers were trapped in the snow on the mountainside, without any idea where they were or how to survive.  One of them spotted a St. Bernard headed toward them, a cask around its neck.  “We’re saved!” he cried.  “Here comes man’s best friend!”

     “Yes,” said his companion, “And (          )”

J8.”Do you like my new police dog?”

     “Police dog?  That doesn’t look like a police dog!”

     “Of coursed not. (          )”

J9.Two dogs met in the park.  “Meow,” said the first dog.

     The second dog jumped.  “Did you just say meow?”

     “Yeah,” the first dog replied, “(          )”

J10.”When you sold me this cat, you said she was great for mice.  Well, she won’;t even go near ‘em!”

     “Well, (          )”

          I suppose your smart aleck dog has already told you all these ANSWERS.  He is SUCH a wag.

A1.He tossed me for it.

A2.Partridge

A3.I’ve beaten him six games out of ten.

A4.Every time he gets a good hand, he wags his tail

A5.As bad as ever

A6.He wasn’t any too pleased about it

A7.look at the big dog carrying it

A8.He’s undercover

A9.I’m studying a foreign language

A10.Isn’t that great for mice?

One Man’s War

     Computer difficulties yesterday kept me out of my picture files, so I could not prepare historical tidbits regarding the images our ancestors mailed to each other.    But the blog must go on.  So I have torn a piece out of one of my much applauded lecture series.  (These are lectures which are applauded because something always prevents me from actually delivering them.  The world may NEVER hear my work on Victorian Applications of New Communications Technology.)

     This excerpt comes from the story of Dave, a Civil War soldier about whom I did some research in the days before the Interwebs, when I had to beg a ride to a couple of different libraries where his story could be found.  Dave was inspired to a military career by the start of the Civil War.  Rejected on his first attempt to enlist (the Army simply wasn’t ready for the hundreds of thousands of enlistees, having used up its stock of weapons and unforms in the first few weeks) he was inspired to go out and recruit 99 other men, who could form their own company and fight together as a unit (the Army allowed that in those days.)  He was elected a Lieutenant by the company and went through training.  In their first major encounter with the enemy, Dave was wounded just badly enough to get him sent to an Army hospital while his company went on without him.  We will pick up his story at that point.

     His bad luck did not inspire Dave to say “Well, so that’s war.  I guess I’ve my share.”  No, he was one of those young men who tells the coach, “Hey, I’m okay!  Put me in!  Come on!  Look, I’m fine!”  At length, tired of his nagging, the Army doctors released him to rejoin Company C.

     By the time he caught up with them, however, there was no Company C to rejoin.  The laughter of the gods of war, the Hand of God, or the Fickle Finger of Fate had decreed that he should try to rejoin his buddies on the evening of the first day of the Battle of Shiloh.  This encounter had set up early on to be a catastrophe for the Union.  Confederate forces would have swept through unhindered had not several Union companies taken up a position in a roadway sunk below the surrounding countryside.  Hunkering here, they kept up such a withering barrage of gunfire that the spot is known to this day as The Hornet’s Nest.  The Confederate advance halted as every gun, large and small, was directed toward the men in the Hornet’s Nest.  You can start a nice fight at any gathering of Civil War experts by asking whether the Union troops finally had to withdraw because of the heavy guns pointed at them by the Southern troops, or because they just ran out of bullets.

     One company was able to make it back to Union lines.  The rest were caught in a swarm of Confederate soldiers, and except for a few men, were killed or captured.  Dave’s Company C was among those.  When he arrived in the camp, only eight of the men he had recruited were there to welcome him back.

     He reported to his commanding officer, who seemed remarkably glad to see him, and took him to see the next officer above him on staff, who was also glad to see Dave.  Any old soldier will tell you all this enthusiasm is a cause for great suspicion.  He may have been hauled all the way to the tent of the general commanding the Northern troops.

     Every textbook Ulysses S. Grant had ever seen on tactics said that at this point in a battle, the general in his position should take advantage of the lull to get as far away from the enemy as possible.  Grant had decided instead to attack the Confederate forces at dawn, throwing everything he had at them.  The trouble was that everything he had wasn’;t quite ready.  There were eight men left out of Company C, and six men from another company, and twelve men from that company, and seven men from another…all fit and prepared to do battle.  But not a single one of their officers had made it into camp.  They could form a unit in the morning’s battle, but who was going to lead them?

     And who should come trotting into camp, fresh as a daisy from sick leave, but Lieutenant Dave?  At dawn, Captain Dave rode at the head of the Union brigade, a fancy name for a company of leftovers.  I could not find the Union Brigade mentioned in a discussion of the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, which means they didn’t capture the enemy general and they didn’t turn around and run away, either.  A bunch of guys from the Midwest, they simply went out and did their job, and the surprised Confederate troops pulled back.  Captain Dave continued to command the Union Brigade for a week or two, until another encounter with the enemy found him wounded again.

     One of the military technological breakthroughs at this time was a round lead shot which was rifled, that is, had a spiral groove cut into it.  Invented by a French inventor named Minie.  American troops, having no taste for foreign pronunciation, dubbed it the mini ball.  One of these caught Dave in the webbing between the big toe and the second toe, and came out just above the ankle bone on the opposite side of the foot.  He kept that spent bullet for the rest of his life, describing it at the time in a letter to his cousin “a more used-up mini ball you never saw.”

     They cut the foot off, of course.  There wasn’t time or technology for anything else.  And after active service amounting to perhaps a month, Captain Dave was sent home.

     In a well-run world, assuming there ARE wars in a well-run world, this would have been the end of Dave’s service.  But the war went on, and both sides, once embarrassed by the number of enlistees, started to suffer a lack of soldiers.  One expedient the military resorts to in such cases is to take able-bodied soldiers holding down desk jobs and send them to the front, giving administrative posts to men who could handle papers even if they couldn’t handle combat.  And captain Dave, barring the lack of a foot, had stayed in pretty good shape.

     So one day in 1864, Colonel Dave rode at the head of soldiers again, this time to assume command of a captured city on the border between north and south.  It had been a Confederate city, but was captured by the Union.  And then was recaptured by the Confederacy and re-recaptured by the Union.  It had changed hands so often and under violent circumstances that Colonel Dave, writing home, said it was “like a little piece of Hell.”  But its heart was still grey, as he learned when  he took his troops down the main street of town and was stopped by an old man who blocked their progress while giving them a lecture on how they weren’t wanted, and they would all die as soon as the Confederacy returned.

     Dave, I have not mentioned, was known for his hair trigger temper.  He was a nice fellow, the sort who would join a fight in a bar and knock you down four times and then help you back up and buy you a drink.  It was that initial explosion you had to watch out for.  But even if he’d had the sunniest temper in the world, he was in this city not only as a representative of the U.S. Army bur also of the U.S. Government, and he had orders not to take this kind of talk from an insurgent.  He had the man arrested and carted off in irons, and when he learned this was the richest man in town, and owner of the largest undamaged house in the district, he commandeered the man’s house as his headquarters, and gave the man’s family two hours to vacate.

     In the morning, he was setting up his office in the old man’s study when an orderly knocked at the door and said, “Begging the Colonel’s pardon, but there’s someone here wants to see you.”

     “Who is he?” Dave demanded.

     “Begging the Colonel’s pardon,” said the orderly, “But it’s not a he.  It’s a she.”

     Dave sighed.  “What does SHE want?”

     “Begging the Colonel’s pardon, but she says it’s a private matter for the Colonel’s ears alone.”

     “Well, stop begging the Colonel’s pardon and show her in!  But…stay within call.”

     He understood the orderly’s awkwardness when the man showed in the town’s equivalent of Scarlett O’Hara.  I have also not mentioned that Dave was a man with a keen eye for the ladies.  That eye told him that anything a man wanted was right here in one charming package.  Dave was engaged to be married, but his fiancée was three states away from town.  So he showed the lady to a seat and, after the orderly had stepped outside, inquired what business had brought her to brighten his office.

     The lady was all business.  Basically, she had fallen madly in love with the young Colonel and wanted to marry him.

     Dave had an eye for the ladies but he had a brain, too.  He asked her at what point during his short stay in town had caused her to fall madly in love with a stranger.

     She was completely businesslike about this as well.  She had simply adored the way he had handled her father in the street.

     Dave’s military brain recognized some problems with the layout of the engagement.  But, still charmed, he replied, kindly “You realize how difficult it would be, in a town so imbued with Confederate sympathy, to marry a Union officer.  You’d be hated by all your neighbors.”

     “It doesn’t matter,” she assured him, “As long as you are by my side.”

     Dave regrouped.  “I am an officer, and this is wartime.  At any moment I might be ordered to some new assignment, and, of course, I could not take you along.  This would leave you alone in a hostile town.”

     “That doesn’t matter either,” she told him.  “As long as I know you are fighting to return to me, my heart will be glad and full.”

     Being a gentleman was getting him nowhere.  He decided on a more brutal attack.  “Soldiers being what they are,” he told her, “I’m more likely to go through a fake marriage, make use of you while I’m here, and then go off without another thought.”

     “Well, that’s fine, too,” she told him.  “When can we start?”

     Dabe called the orderly to escort the lady out of his office and gave orders that she was not to be admitted again.  He wrote his cousin “This was not the easiest battle of the war for me.”

Streets and San

     It was never one of the top ten wishes of my life, but as a boy I kind of wondered whether I wouldn’t like to drive the street sweeper.  This was a tanklike one-person vehicle with a spinning brush underneath, which went along the street sweeping the dust so that…well, I don’t know what, exactly, the purpose was of swirling the dust from here to there.  This is why I never sweep my apartment floor,.  But to be the monarch of the road, sweeping along at a slow, relentless speed…in winter, of course, it would have to be a snowplow, but that didn’t have a brush.  If we ever do get flying cars, as promised for years in science fiction, I shall be very disappointed if they do not have brushes on the bottom.

     My mind drifted in this direction as I was going through a stack of horse postcards.  Some of these were horse portraits, while others dealt with horses in the wild, but the majority showed the horse working for human beings.  And I noticed that the theme of street cleaning was a constant.

     I am a little puzzled by the number of “I’m on the wagon” postcards.  If the phrase is too antique for you, it means a person who has sworn off alcoholic beverages: it took over from the phrase “I’ve taken the pledge”, which meant the same thing but was more of a nineteenth century phrase.  (The pledge was an actual document you signed, but not everyone who spoke of taking it had gone to the trouble of signing it.)  The expression has been ascribed to a number of unlikely inspirations (the tumbril which carried the condemned to the gallows, a wagon the police used to pick up drunks on Sunday morning) but it evidently derives from the custom of sending a wagon through the streets of our cities to sprinkle water on the pavement.  This was to keep down the dust, and perhaps dilute some of the less innocent liquids found in a city’s thoroughfares.

     The person credited with first using the phrase in literature is, of all people, Alice Hegan Rice, whose bestseller Mrs. Wiggs of Cabbage Patch was a phenomenon for about fifty years after its appearance in 1904.  You don’t see it much on reading lists now.  But whether she originated the phrase (she wrote “water cart”) or just reported it, it swept the nation.  (It was a humorous novel, and maybe the jokes haven’t aged well.  The joke in the postcard above, with the sender writing “Spring” above the word “Water”, is only understandabale if you look at the back of the card and see it was mailed from Springwater, New York.)

     What I don’t understand is why you would send people a card announcing your current opinion of booze.  Most of these date from not long after Mrs. Wiggs made her appearance, and even by then, the most common use of the phrase was referring to somebody falling OFF the wagon, meaning they had let their thirst get the better of them.

     Of course, as you knew the moment I connected horses and street cleaning, there is another connection, seen more often in cards from midcentury.  This is because our ancestors lived closer to horses than we do, and horses have a major role on humorous postcards.

     I do not know when our ancestors started hiring people to get the horse pollution off the streets, nor do I know why it waits until the 1930s and 1940s to make it onto postcards.  You will see the theme in a number of classic animated cartoons of the same era.  Maybe it was a touch of nostalgia, as the days of horse traffic were drawing to a close.

     In fact, a number of the postcards have to specify that the scene is set in a place where horses can astill expect to be found in large numbers.  There was the cavalry, of course.

     And, of course, the racetrack.  This location gave the cartoonist a chance to use the “following the horses” gag as well as the one about “cleaning up”.  (Translation for the ridiculously young: “betting regularly and scientifically on horse races” and “making a lot of money”.)

     Though, as time goes by, the man with the broom was moved to the other side of the fence, thus, in a way, cleaning up the joke.

     But the joke went on ion its original form, I suspect, because it allowed the sender to comment on his job.  (Speaking of which, you do know the ancient joke about the man who cleaned up after the elephants in the circus?  I’;ll repeat it anyway.  See, he hated it: the stench, the humiliation of such an occupation, and complained bitterly about it to his friends until one asked, “So why don’t you quit?” 

     “What?” he demanded.  “And give up show business?”)

Country Matters

     Ah, Monday: the day when I fill your cup with jokes you can use at work through the week.  Telling really old jokes is a way to impress your co-workers.  Use one of these, and the first thought that will strike your listener is “Wow!  I’m listening to a real historian!”

     Take the first few jokes below, for example.  These come from what I am told is the oldest known American comedy routine, starting somewhere in the depths of the early nineteenth century.  It involved a farmer sitting on a fence, playing a bit of “Arkansas Traveler” on his fiddle when a lost city fellow came walking by.

J1.”Hey, Rube!  Is this the way to town?”

“How’d you know my name was Rube, stranger?”

“I guessed it.”

“Well, (         ).”

     J2.”Does this road go to town?”

     “This road, stranger?  (          )”

J3.”What I mean is, can I take this road to town?”

“Well, stranger, (         ).”

     J4.”Tell me, Rube, have you lived here all your life?”

     “(          ).”

J5.”So you don’t know if this is the road to town, you don’t know how far it is to town, and I’d bet, in fact, you don’t even know what a town is.  You don’t know much at all.”

     “Well, (          ).”

J6.The farm community doesn’t usually get the better of these gags, since in the days of variety shows on stage, most audiences were either city folk, or at least liked people to think they were.  This led to the “My home town is so small that” jokes.  For example, Needleburg is so small that on the back of the sign that says “You Are Now Entering Needleburg” (          ).

     J7.Needleburg is full of quiet folk.  They had a curfew bell ring at 9 o’clock each night, but they dropped that.  (          )

        J8.”My dad’s trying to decide whether to spend the profit from the harvest on a new bicycle or another cow.”

     “He’ll look pretty silly riding a cow.”

     “Yeah!  He’ll (         ).”

J9,It would be wrong, of course, to ignore that travelling salesman who turns up in so many joke books.  There was one who was stuck in the country and had to spend the night at a farm where there was no teenaged daughter.  He didn’t get much sleep, though, because it rained, and the roof leaked so much in the spare bedroom that he couldn’t find a dry spot anywhere.  “Why don’t you fix that roof?” he demanded, next morning.

     “Kind of dangerous to be up patching the roof in a thunderstorm,” said the farmer.

     “I can see that.  But you can do your patching when the sun shines.”

     “Well, (          ).”

J10.”How far is it to the next town?”

“About a mile, as the crow flies.”

“(          ).”

     J11.That travelling salesman finally got to town, and found his way to the railroad station.  “I need to be in Chicago by one this afternoon,” he told the station manager.  “Is the noon train on time?”

     “Yes, sir,” said the old man.  “Always on time.”

     It got to be 11:45, and the salesman fretted about seeing no signs of any action.  “You’re sure the noon train is on time?” he asked,.

     “I set my watch by the train, Mister,” said the manager.

     Noon came and went, and then 12:30.  “I thought you said the noon train was always on time!” roared the salesman.

     The manager looked him over.  “Mister,” he said, “(          ).”

J12.The salesman finally got on the train, and enjoyed finally getting a ride.  He glanced out the window and said to no one in particular, “I wonder how many cows are in that field.”

     A stranger across from him glanced out the window.  “I’d say two hundred and ninety-six.”

     Another man leaned over the seat behind them.  “Say, mister, it just so happens I own that farm, and I know there are exactly two hundred ninety-six cattle in that field.  How’d you come up with the right number so quick?”

     The stranger shrugged.  “There is a trick to it.  (          ).”

Like the gentleman fiddling on the fence, I assume you already know all the ANSWERS.

     A1.Guess the way to town

     A2.It don’t go nowhere; just sets there.

     A3.If you can pick it up, you can take it anywhere you like

     A4.Not yet.

     A5.I ain’t lost.

     A6.It says “You Are Now Leaving Needleburg”

     A7.It was waking people up.

     A8.look sillier trying to milk a bicycle

     A9.it ain’t leaking then.

     A10.How far is it if the crow has to walk and carry an empty gasoline can?

     A11/I ain’t paid to sit here and knock the railroad.

     A12.I count the legs and divide by four.

Promoting Your Lunch Special

     Now, as we have had occasion to mention, this is NOT a food blog.  This is a blog wherein I discuss cultural matters, usually involving some of the postcards I have for sale (which none of you have rushed to buy yet.  I know I have not yet optimized your blog-reading experience by making it possible for you to buy them from this very site, bit I feel that this hampers our mutual pleasure in each other’s company, since I’d always have to be telling people “Naw, that one sold within five minutes of posting the blog, but at least you get to look at it”.  Nor have I told you WHERE you can find these postcards for sale.  This is an interactive project, crawfish meringue, and you have to make more effort than that.  In a world of social media, in which one can find books signed by people who died before the book was published or authentic souvenirs from fictional events I should think a person could just twiddle their apps a while and find…where were we?)

     In any case, this is a blog about culture, and my peculiar fixation on unimportant facets of it, which SOMETIMES strays in the direction of food.  So today I thought we’d look at postcards issued by diners, drive-ins, and dumps, and the world of self-advertisement

     In love, literature, and promotion, one is always mystified by what some people choose.  I GUESS I can understand why some people would show off the exterior of their restaurant.  If a person comes looking for it, they can recognize it and pull into the parking lot, right?    Knowing absolutely nothing else about Sollie’s than that it had its picture on a postcard, you’d drop in here for a pizza.

     Though you could, of course, simply rely on the big sign outdoors.  (Remember, this was in the days before GPS.)

     In the end, though, all you’re really advertising is your architect.

     No matter how enticing the exterior of your fabulous eating establishment, what does this tell a prospective diner?

     Maybe this chap had the right idea.  Don’t just show them the exciting exterior.  Show them the luxurious dining room furniture.

     That’s the ticket.  Nothing makes you want to eat somewhere like a palatial backdrop.

     Some interiors just scream out, “If you want a really great dining experience, you’ve found the place!”

     Some of us, though, want a little more.  Why not hint to us about the food?  Show us your gorgeous buffet.

     With its overflowing stacks of food, all set to serve hundreds of hungry diners.

     Okay, then there’s the world of food photography.  This takes skill, and the number of postcards out there which focus on a plate of steamed vegetables and a limp slice of meat are legendary.  Better if you show off one specialty.  (This one, by the way, was actually mailed, and has a note on the back about how the sender felt this pie had way too much meringue.)

     That’s what you need to do, licorice bolognese: push the food.  Let people know what they’ll get to eat, and they’ll beat a path to your door.

         ****footnotes

     For those interested in minutiae, here are the details on the locations of these eating places, most of which are no longer there.

            1The Beaver Club in Montreal gave you a cartoon, even if it DID reflect on the kitchen

            2.Sollie’s offered pasta in Pittsburgh

            3.Amazing how many restaurants and motels were inspired by the TV show: this manifestation was in Fort Lauderdale

            4.Kent’s had a good spot in Atlantic City AND nice lettering on the sign

            5.This is near Sequoyah Park in Tennessee

            6.Simms’ Restaurant in Ocean City, New Jersey, was open only from May to November

            7.Wolfie’s was such a fixture in Miami that PanAm had it cater the inflight meals between there from New York

            8.Why they had a place called Baltimore Lunch in Spokane is not noted on the card.

9.This was the buffet at The Escape, also in Fort Lauderdale

10.The buffet at the Far Hills Inn in Sommerville, New Jersey was only available Wednesday nights and Thursday lunches

11.I hope Lulu and Vernon’s sold as many pieces of this pie to people in Mobile as there are copies of this card for sale all over the Interwebs.

12.And we’re in Fort Lauderdale again.  A friend of mine ate there, she says, and found the advertising acutely accurate

13.L’Armorique, in New York City, gloried in authentic food cooked in the style of Brittany, and decided a good-looking girl dressed in Breton fashions was the way to go. 

Doctor, Doctor II

     I ordinarily wouldn’t give you two joke quizzes in a row (knowing you need to rest up from the excitement of the usual Monday installment) but I am trying to post a quick blog for Wednesday, as I will be busy having what I am told is extremely minor surgery.  (Yeah, if they were doing it to YOU, I”D call it minor surgery.)  And I note that in the original book of joke quizzes, I moved directly from the psychology jokes to the doctor jokes, all of them just as old and generally including a cry of “Hey, Doc!”

     I suppose in the aftermath of the operation I shall be quite ashamed of myself for loafing to this extent, but until then, I will just claim it was doctor’s orders.  The punchlines to these elderly bits of humor come at the end, as usual.

     J1.”Let’s discuss your family, to begin with.  Are any of them troubled with insanity?”

     “No, Doc, (          ).”

     J2.I was meeting a friend at her therapist’s office, but I wasn’t sure of the time; I knew we were supposed to meet when her session was finished.  She was in the waiting room when I got there, and I asked, “Are you coming or going?”

     She looked at me and said, “(          )

     J3.”Do you have trouble making decisions>”

     “Well, Doc, (          )”
     J4.”Doc, it’s such a relief to be cured of my kleptomania.  How can I thank you enough?”

     “You’ve paid your bill, and I don’t really require more than that.  However, (          ).”

     J5.Two therapists left the clinic at the end of the day, and Dr./ DeFroid looked aty Dr. DeKink and said, “I don’t see how you can come out looking so fresh after listening to people’s problems all day long.”

     Dr. DeKink shrugged and replied, “(          )”

      J6.Joe stepped up to the office of the surgeon, where he read “Dr. Krankheit, 12 to 3.”

     “Let’s go home, Matilda,” he said, “(          )”

     J7.”Did you consult anyone else about this condition before coming to my office?”

     “Just my pharmacist.”

     “And what stupid advice did he give you?”

     “(          )”

     J8.”You have to help me, Doc.  Every time I eat my ears ring and my eyes bug out.”

     “I see,.  Have you ever had this before?”

     “Yes, Doc.”

     “Well, (          )”

     J9.”Will you guarantee this treatment will make my skin clear up?”

     “No, Ma’am.  (          )“

     J10.”I’m worried about the diagnosis of liver trouble, Doctor.  My uncle went to Dr. Fillmore for liver trouble and died of a heart attack.”

     “Don’t worry.  (          )”

     J11.”You have to help me, Doc.  I just bit myself really hard on the forehead.”

     “How could you bite yourself on the forehead?”

     “Easy.  (          )”

     J12.”Doc, I’ve been seeing these ads for a new drug to treat persistent logorrhea, and I’m sure I need it.”

     “You shouldn’t pay attention to those commercials.  A person with logorrhea suffers no discomfort and shows no symptoms.”

     “Really? (          )”    

    Of course, any good doctor has all the ANSWERS

A1.They enjoy it

A2.If I knew that I wouldn’t be here

A3.Yes and no

A4.if you have a relapse, I could use a toaster

A5.Who listens?

A6.I don’t like the odds

A7.He told me to see you

A8.You’ve got it again

A9.I don’t make rash promises

A10.When I treat someone for liver problems, they die of liver problems

A11.I stood on a chair

A12.That’s exactly what I’ve got!

Doctor, Doctor

     Well, here it is Monday again, and time for another installment from my quizbook on old jokes.  I have finally reached the Psychology chapter, in which I suggested, all those years ago, that someone should just do a whole book of the “Doc!  My wife thinks she’s a…..) jokes.  I assume someone has done that now, but in case you haven’t read one, the answers to these are found at the end.

     J1.I’m seeing a therapist to find out what makes me tick.  And also (     )

     J2.”My wife sent me here, Doc, because I like pancakes”

     “That’s not so strange.  I like pancakes myself.
     “Really, Doc?  you must come over  I have (          )”

       J3.”Doctor!  My son is always eating grapes!”

     “That’s not so bad.”

     “(          )”

     J4.”My husband sent me to you because I love cotton socks.”

     “What’s wrong with that?  I like cotton socks.”

     “Really?  (          )”

     J5.”Doc, I need your help.  My wife thinks she’s a chicken.”

     “How long has this been going on?”

     “Eight and a half years.”

     “Heavens!  Why didn’t you come to me before this?”

     “Well, frankly , Doc, we (          )”

     J6.”Doctor, I’M desperate.  My husband thinks he’s a refrigerator!”

     “That sounds pretty harmless.”

     “You don’t understand.  He (          )”

     J7.”You must help us, Doctor.  My husband thinks he’s a dog.”

     “How long has this been going on?”

     “Ever since (          ).”

     H8.”Your wife tells me you believe you’re a dog.  Lie down on the couch and we’ll talk about this.”

     “I can’t do that, Doc.  (          ).”

     J0.”Yes, until I met Dr. DeKink, I was convinced I was a dog.”

     “Are you better now?”

     “Am I?  (          ).”

     J10.I’m seeing a therapist about my insomnia.  It’s gotten so bad (          ).

     J11.My insomnia’s so bad that last night when I finally got to sleep (          ).

     J12.”Was Dr. DeKink able to cure your insomnia?”

     “It’s all cured now.  Sometimes (          ).”

     J13.”Doc, I think my memory’s going.”

     “How long has this been going on?”

     “(          )”

     H14.”Doc, sometimes I feel so insignificant I think no one even notices me.”

     “(          )”

     J15.”Dr. DeKink has really helped me.  I used to get so tense sometimes that I’d rip off all my clothes and start sucking my toes,.  It was so embarrassing.”

     “And he helped you stop?”

     “(          )/”

     Your therapist should have told you that you already know all the ANSWERS.

A1.what makes me chime the hour and the half hour

A2.I have boxes and boxes of them.

A3.Pdd the wallpaper

A4.With butter and salt, or do you add ketchup?

A5.We needed the eggs

A6.He sleeps with his mouth open and the little light keeps me awake

A7.he was a puppy

A8.I’m noy allowed on the furniture

A9.Feel my nose

A10.I can’t even sleep when it’s time to get up

A11.I dreamt I was awake

A12.I lie awake all night thinking how badly I used to suffer from it

A13.How long has what been going on?

A15.Next!

A15.No, but I’m not embarrassed about it any more.

No Place for Duckies

     I had some thoughts about considering the role of pie un postcards of yore and easing into a discussion of my mother’s pie recipes.  But pies serve only one real purpose in postcards (they are made to be stolen) and I must remind you that this is NOT a food blog.  (The articles on hash browns and macaroni and cheese were just side…okay, let’s move on.)

     And I recalled that in our discussion of indoor bathrooms, I mentioned that bathtubs have their own role to play on postcards, not related to the potty, and though we could take a look at that.  (There are also separate jokes about chamberpots, but I’ll reserve those for some day when I’m scraping the bottom of the…I am just not having luck with these parenthetical notes today.)

          The bathtub has a minor repertoire, too, really.  It is a place where people can suffer an accident.

          This young lady was especially accident prone.  Or just prone.

          By bathtub we include the wash tub or wash basin for baby, which generally served as a place for Baby to be cute.

     The fact that bathtubs came in different sizes, back in the day, was something that could be used to comic effect.

     But if we’re going to be honest, the bathtub, as you might guess from several examples already given,  was MAINLY a postcard excuse for people to be caught in the buff.

     Like George Gobel, people frequently bathe in the nude, which makes them vulnerable…sometimes to criticism.

     Of course, there are those people who are confident enough that they don’t really mind the occasional visitor.

     Or more.

    Nudity can be used for a variety of purposes in and of itself: the bather could pronounce some basic principle.

     Or use it for infant logic with adult considerations.

     Kids could be counted on to enjoy their bath and their nudity in carefree manner.

     Too carefree for some people.

     The gag in many cases depends on implied nudity, the idea that YOU know what’s below the level of the tub.  To reinforce the point, you DO remember this sultry soaker.  (Her invitation would certainly have gotten you into how wa…I’ll stop now.)

More side issues

    A few years ago, I wasted considerable time trying to track down my mother’s recipe for macaroni and cheese.  This was not because I do not know the recipe.  I gave the recipe memorized, and for those of you who are interested in such things, I will discuss it farther along.  I just wanted to know where the recipe came from.

     As a child, I took macaroni and cheese for granted.  My mother occasionally apologized for it, but by the time I was old enough to notice this, I was old enough to know my mother frequently said things that didn’t make any sense.  (Like “How can you want something to eat?  You just had supper!”)  I believed, as children do, that what my mother cooked was what every mother cooked and every macaroni and cheese on earth was identical.

     I was five or six before I learned that other people had other kinds of macaroni and cheese, and some people didn’t eat macaroni and cheese at all.  (We will drop such people from our discussion right now.  I’m surprised I embarrassed them by mentioning them at all.)  As ioI grew and moved out into the world at large, I found even more types of macaroni and cheese, and even moved into those circles in which macaroni and cheese was a side dish, or even a salad.  My mother’s macaroni and cheese did not need some other entrée to support it.

     I also learned, as I got older, that she was ambivalent about it because it was not the kind of macaroni and cheese HER mother made.  Her mother, as I understand it, made a heavenly dish involving quantities of genuine cheddar so strong that my grandfather used to pour sorghum on his, just to cut the flavor of the overpowering cheese.  My mother did make this once or twice for us and it was not a hit.  (I still regard my mother’s cooking as first rate food, but I do sometimes wonder whether she listened all that well when her mother was showing how things were cooked.  One or two secrets seem to have dropped by the wayside.  On the other hand, I avoided developing a taste for sorghum.)

     I have had other macaroni and cheese which were very good, and some which I would not hand out to trick-or-treaters who had already egged the house.  I will not try to dictate on these matters except in one detail: if you have cooked your macaroni until it collapses under its own weight and becomes a limp morsel of soggy bread, you’re overdoing it.  If you like it that way. I will not blame you, buy don’t come running to me when you lie on your deathbed wishing you hadn’t led that kind of life.  (In fact, if people on their deathbeds would stop running to me completely, I would not whine.)

     Now, as to my mother’s recipe.  You take a pound of macaroni.  (Pasta had not been invented yet in the Midwest at mid-century.  There was spaghetti, noodles, and elbow macaroni.  Fancy restaurants had different types of macaroni, but our stores, in my memory, stocked only elbow macaroni until the 1960s.  Anybody cooking with macaroni, whether it was macaroni and cheese, goulash, pasta salad, or Christmas tree ornaments with macaroni dyed red and green and strung on fishline, used elbow macaroni.

     You boil this to the consistency you like.  (See previous note about limpness.)  The only change I have made in my mother’s recipe is that I do not at this point rinse the macaroni in cold water.  The sky did not fall in on me.

     Now you take about a third of a pound of Veklveeta.  (We will discuss at another point how to make a caterpillar catcher out of a Velveeta box.  We’re trying to stay focused here.)  You slice this with a Velveeta slicer, start it melting in the pot you cooked the macaroni in, plunk the macaroni on top of this, and slice in the rest of the Velveeta.  Some people, like my mother, adore the taste of Velveeta and want more, while others want just enough to glue the pasta together.  Experiment with this, if you like.  Stir until the Velveeta has completely melted into the Creamettes.  (This was the only brand of elbow macaroni available.  We were nmot, as a people, very experimental about macaroni in my boy days.)

     Now comes the most important part.  Remember to put a trivet on the table before you plump that pot on the dining room table.  Dole out portions to the smaller diners and invite the elders to help themselves.  It is about the simplest recipe in the world, this side of ice cubes.  Don’t overcook the Creamettes, and don’t burn the Velveeta, and you’re good.  No casserole dish and so long in the oven, no sprinkling of corn flakes, no nothing.  Just a pot of warm, golden ballast to keep your keel even.

     Now, as mentioned, I went to some trouble trying to track down the source of this recipe.  I was sure, once I ruled out divine inspiration, that it probably came from the side of the Creamettes box or the Velveeta box.  So I went to the Interwebs to find out where this mighty comfort food originated.

     Creamettes was no help at all.  Their website, of course, had dozens of recipes, including several for macaroni and cheese (or mac and cheese, as you young’uns call it.)_  These involved making a white sauce and adding various types of cheese, with salt, pepper, pimento, chili flakes, and who knows what all else.  I figured Creamettes perhaps did not wish to admit how much it owed to Velveeta.

     But lo!  The Velveeta website was just as bad.  THEIR macaroni and cheese recipe started with Velveeta, but you add milk, and at least one other kind of cheese, and….  It was too disheartening.  Maybe no one wants to own up to a recipe with just two ingredients.  It doesn’t seem to be the gourmet way  If a recipe doesn’t involve fifteen ingredients, and require you to buy a new kitchen tool, it just doesn’t fit.

     Or maybe my mother did think of it.  Have I mentioned her peach pie?  You take a….  Sorry, we’ve gone on too long, and I need to start boiling water.  Those Creamettes won’t cook themselves.