Retro Find: The 1971 Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library

Last week at a thrift store I spotted a red box that, when opened, revealed itself to be a time capsule of 1971. Preserved inside was a collection of Betty Crocker recipe cards for dishes that are both mesmerizing and a little horrifying. What were Americans eating in the early '70s? You might not want to know.

Because the collection was released by Betty Crocker, many of the recipes include packaged Betty Crocker brand ingredients rather than from-scratch instructions. The Cheeseburger Pie recipe, for example, starts with "1 stick or ½ packet of our pie crust mix." Of course, it then goes on to fill said crust with one pound of cooked ground beef and half a pound of cheese, so the packaged crust may be the least of eaters' worries.

Similarly, the towering pink pile that is Crusty Salmon Shortcakes uses Bisquick biscuits and a can of the ubiquitous condensed cream of mushroom soup mixed with a can of salmon. I've included the recipe below, should you want to try it. Please send pictures if you do.

Vegetables in Betty Crocker's world in 1971 were inevitably frozen or canned, seasoned with only a little instant chicken bouillon, salt, or the reserved water from another canned vegetable. And boiled, always boiled.

Dessert remains the least changed. Lemon chiffon cakes and black-bottom pies look as good today as they did 40 years ago. I hope to age as gracefully as a key lime pie. Instead of, say, the Ladies' Seafood Thermidor.

Believe it or not, I won't be keeping this treasure trove. Instead, it will be a belated wedding gift to my friend Annie Shannon, who has been veganizing the Betty Crocker cookbook for the past couple years on her blog Meet the Shannons. No word yet on her progress in making a vegan version of Pizza with a Hamburger Crust.

Have you ever stumbled onto fascinating recipes from the past?

(Images: The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library)

Comments (23)

Not so fast: Betty Crocker Website still has all the good stuff ready to bake :)
http://www.bettycrocker.com/search/searchresults?sr=2&st=7&term=Cheeseburger%20Pie#/?term=Cheeseburger%2BPie&pi=1&mr=10

OK, I couldn't find the Crusty Salmon Shortcakes, I guess that one was against FDA regulations now :)

This makes me incredibly thankful not to have lived through the '70s.

1970s food photos can be extremely unappetizing. That being said, I am guessing that most of the Betty Crocker recipes are no worse (nutritionally) than the twenty-first century equivalents like Hungry Man dinners or the Burger King drive-through, which have the benefits of Photoshop to make them look appetizing in commercials and on packaging.

My mom has these old Betty Crocker cookbooks and I reference them all the time! Not for recipes like crusty salmon towers though.

I was given a cookbook put together by my grandmother's church 25 plus years ago. There aren't any photos, but that's okay cause the recipes sound disgusting enough.

And yet we're still fatter today than we were back then...very Twilight Zone

Wow...this reminds me of James Lileks's "Gallery of Regrettable Food" page.

My mom used to make that cheeseburger pie, and it was delicious. Then again I was > 10.

Yes! I have a cookbook from my grandmother, called "The I Hate to Cook Book" there is only one recipe I use for a delicious chocolate cake, but the rest are just so much fun to explore! And so funny!

Blogkitten, that gallery is exactly what I thought of!

Believe it or not, that Cheeseburger Pie was delicious. If you take a pound of ground beef (lean) and a half pound of cheddar and divide by 6 (pieces of pie), you do not end up with a huge amount of food per piece. I used a store-bought pie crust too. I don't eat meat any more though *sigh*

Wow, this brings back some memories-- when I was a kid, my grandmother passed along a box full of these things to my mom, to see if she could use any of the recipes. I remember flipping through them and thinking they ate really weird stuff back then!

@Keritha

If you can get yourself to a Whole Foods (or equivalent) you can get Quorn grounds. It's just as tasty as ground beef, and cooks up quite well in dishes like this. I use it to make chili. Good stuff!

Get yourself the "I hate to Cook Book" for some good giggles!!!

I have the Australian equivalent, thanks to my Mum, and in the original collectors box!

If you think those recipes look bad, you have see these:
http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html

She reviews WW recipes from 1974 and it's HILARIOUS. She uses the F bomb a time or two, just a warning.

Ah, yes, this is the food I grew up with (well, not the salmon stuff--that would have been to exotic for my mother!) When I was a child, I thought that all main dish recipes started off with you browning a pound of ground beef with a chopped onion and a chopped green pepper.

Needless to say, I am a self-taught cook.

BambiJo- those cards were the first thing I thought of when I saw this post. Made me laugh til I cried

I just got my very own set of these! Inherited from my Nanny who just passed. I'm not sure I'll use them, but they are fun to look at!

I have a Betty Crocker "Dinner for Two" cookbook that I've been working through. I usually can't bring myself to actually use as much butter as the recipes suggest. And it's never "flour" that's suggested, but "Gold Metal flour."

Dude, cheeseburger pie is the BOMB! Don't hate.

My sister and I agree that some of the things we had back then are disgusting and will never be cooked in our households...we remember Golden Nugget Pie, which was a seasoned hamburger crust filled with canned corn and some other seasoning, among other supposedly tasty treats, and have learned to cook real food instead, like sandwiches and toaster waffles.

Every cook needs a recipe card box
in their kitchen to hold their secret family recipes that have been passed down through the generations.