Petoskey — We all love midcentury nostalgia. The clothes. The cars. The futuristic design. The optimism. The future was on the horizon, and it was bright. Some of the most iconic photos that dwell deep in the collective unconsciousness of America are photos from the middle of the 20th century. Yet, what about the food? Where is our nostalgia for the culinary delights of the era? 

In our fracturing world, it seems that we all want to “retvrn” to somewhere. But none of us want to retvrn to the world of midcentury American cuisine. But are we being too harsh? Who among us has tasted those old delights? Are we merely judging a book by its cover? Casting stones in ignorance? 

I decided that we should find out. I went to the library and found a local cookbook called, “Heirlooms from Our Families II.” A cookbook of family recipes from the not-so-distant past. I selected a few that looked promising and representative and spent a day in the kitchen, resurrecting the taste of the 20th century.

5 Cup Salad

1 cup pineapple tidbits

1 cup mandarin oranges

1 cup marshmallows

1 cup coconut

1 cup sour cream

Drain fruit. Toss all ingredients together with sour cream. Chill and serve.

The taste is strange, the balance hard to understand. The tart flavor of the pineapple and mandarin orange are dulled by the sour cream. The coconut is practically undetectable. Imagine taking a fruit cup and then turning down the contrast. What results is a dull, semi-sweet fruity flavor. It’s almost like a parfait, but the sour cream derails the flavor down some unintelligible path. The marshmallows are hard to get your head around. They blend in with the sour cream, soft pillows hidden among the mass. I still struggle to understand their purpose.

Baked Corn

1 can whole kernel corn

1 can creamed corn

1 box Jiffy cornbread mix

1 stick margarine (melted)

1 cup sour cream

Mix all ingredients together and bake in 350F oven for 45 min. (or until done)

Baked corn is a Frankenstein creation. Part bread, part corn. The Jiffy cornbread mix really makes an impact on both the texture and the taste. Every bite is a little confusing. Little kernels of corn hidden among a solid bread-like texture. It’s a heavy dish and hard to imagine eating more than one helping. We can only handle so much corn and so much bread. While it appears quite unappetizing when being made, it gets a little better once cooked. It may not be ideal, but it is edible in small doses.

Sweet Hawaiian Crock-Pot Chicken

1 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup soy sauce

2 lbs. chicken breast tenderloins

Mix all ingredients in crock-pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

The Sweet Hawaiian Chicken is unoffensive but underwhelming. The crock-pot is supposed to make our life easier. We set it and forget it. And I suppose it did make the preparation of this dish easier to some extent, but the result wasn’t that great. The lemon juice, brown sugar and soy sauce don’t really make much of a positive impact on the taste. The texture is quite unappealing. Better to cook on the stove or bake in the oven with a glaze. Serving over rice with soy sauce and sriracha drizzled on top elevated the dish, but it still 3/10. Underwhelming, but edible.

Peas and Peanut Salad

1 pkg. frozen peas

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped onions

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

Dash salt

6 ounces of unsalted peanuts

Thaw peas, add celery and onions. Blend sour cream, mayonnaise and salt. Fold in with peas, celery and onions. Add peanuts just before serving.

This is one of those dishes that embodies the 20th century in pure, unadulterated form. Making Peas and Peanut Salad feels like traveling to a foreign dimension. It is truly a dish from another time. It should stay there.

It’s difficult to appreciate this dish in our era. I must say that I found it inedible. My taste buds are simply too formed by our time to appreciate the nuance. The use of both sour cream and mayonnaise is perplexing. The color is fascinating. The dark peas, the light green celery, and the off-white onion do create a unique mélange. Yet the sound of stirring all that mayonnaise and sour cream together sent a shiver up my spine, knowing what it was that was being mixed. Finally, the peanuts complete this intriguing cacophony. A small tasteless crunch added to every other bite.

This dish truly separates the boys from the men. Do you have what it takes?

Slush

7 cups of water

3 cups of whiskey

3/4 cup sugar

12 oz. can orange juice

12 oz. can lemonade

2 cups of water with 4 tea bags steeped

Mix well and freeze. Then mix half and half with Sprite or 7-Up. Makes enough for large Tupperware canister. 1/2 shot of whiskey per drink.

These days, we like to drink nice beer, wine, and straight liquor, but back in the day, they were into elaborate mixed drinks and strange punches made just for entertaining. They had a lot of parties back then. Netflix and iPhones hadn’t turned them into hermits.

Slush is quite good. It’s sweet, easy to drink, and freezing overnight creates a refreshing slushy texture. It’s a flexible formula, and I can imagine a version with two cans of lemonade and vodka instead of orange juice and whiskey. Slush is great because it feels so clearly 20th century, but it tastes good as well. You don’t have to sacrifice for the nostalgia.

Is Slush a daily drink? Probably not. But you can imagine a housewife preparing it Thursday after the kids go to school, then putting it in the freezer for it to chill before the party Friday night.

Our tastes change, individually and then generationally. When we are little kids, we like everything sweet. When we are older, we like less things sweet. When we had less access to the global market, we liked simpler food. Now, we like exotic food. In olden days, they developed strange dishes comprised of fascinating combinations. They used lots of canned food, a bunch of sour cream, and inordinate amounts of margarine. Now, we like whole foods.

These dishes aren’t exactly our idea of gourmet cooking. Some are barely edible. But someone loved them, and they fed many mouths over the years. Maybe there’s some mysterious correlation between the strength of those old generations and their fortitude in the face of such ghastly cuisine. Maybe we now know why they were thinner back then. 

It’s fun to joke about that old food, and it’s all in good fun. But the truth is that we look back at these dishes in joking horror knowing full well that one day, a few generations down the line, they may look at our dishes with a similar quizzical shock. We—and our food—are products of our time.

O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X @NecktieSalvage.