Perfection is in the eye of the beholder…

This week's pathetic attempt at housework involves sorting through the five bookshelves of cookbooks (plus the piles on top and stacks on the floor) trying to figure out if I can get rid of any of them. I was going strong until I got to the retro ones, you know, the ones with the pictures that are so awful they are great. At that point the train came off the housework tracks and I found myself totally engrossed in the food of my ancestors, the boomers. Case in point, "Perfection Salad" from Better Homes and Gardens, Jiffy Cooking, c. 1967.

At first glance, it doesn't look too scary. Until you read the recipe that is…

Yes, that's lemon jell-o with sauerkraut, green onions, and pimento. Give it a minute to sink in. Yep, jell-0 with sauerkraut. WTF were they smoking in the BHG test kitchens when they came up with that one. Was it some kind of sick revenge fantasy for housewives to get back at their oppressor husbands and children? A cunning communist plot? We may never know.

But what we do know is, using kitchen shears to snip the sauerkraut into bite-sized pieces in the can is a handy time saver.