the good old days

From Page 114 of Junior Home Economics, ca. 1933.

From Page 151 of Junior Home Economics, ca. 1933.

The Hoosier Journal of Inanity, in addition to having a good blog title, has been posting screenshots from various Harryhausen movies for the last few days.

You may not recognize the name, but you’ve almost certainly seen at least one of his movies. Ray Harryhausen was responsible for the truly great stop-motion animations of his time — or really any time. Jason and the Argonauts, any of the Sinbad movies, First Men in the Moon, The Lost Valley… all were Harryhausen. CGI has nothin ‘ on this guy. Not only were his models creative and believable, they moved realistically.

It’s not a monster movie until a dragon and a cyclops fight each other. Aw yeah.

A fun YouTube compilation of Harryhausen animations:

To prove their cigarettes were longer lasting, Camel created a scientifically calibrated smoking machine to test their own product against the competition.

When I first saw the picture, I was expecting to think of all the fun test equipment I’ve seen in my life, either in person as an engineer, or in commercials. But actually, this machine reminds me most of a distant relative I encountered once at a funeral as a child. I don’t know how old she was (at the age of 10, everybody above 20 was simply ancient), but she must have been up there; she was in a wheelchair and incredibly unresponsive to the world around her. Some distant family member was in charge of ensuring a lit cigarette was constantly in her hand. Cousin would take a puff every minute; her caretaker would wander up to knock the ash of now and then, or swap a butt for a fresh cigarette. At one point, he wasn’t paying attention and let the filter start burning. Cousin didn’t notice, she was just sucking away at the thing in her hands. Well-calibrated smoking machine…

It did leave me with quite an impression; in fact, it totally freaked me out. I don’t remember her name, what the exact family relationship was, or even who that funeral was for — just a vacant person with nothing left to do but smoke. Incredibly creepy. Plus I reeked of smoke after being stuck in a corner near her for a few hours… blargh.

When first browsing for vintage desserts (to make up for the fiasco that was the Jellied Bouillon From Hell), I thought this one said “Orange Velveeta Pie.” Ewww. Luckily, it actually says “Orange Velvet Pie.”

The recipe, posted to Flicr by Cowtools, is a suggested use of your OSTERIZER. (We’ll pretend my KRUPS blender is actually an OSTERIZER.)

Now, according to the recipe illustration, this is supposed to make a septagonal pie.

I’m not kidding, count the sides. I thought I was too tired, because it sure LOOKED like an octagon but I just couldn’t get the edges to add up. And for extra trippy goodness, it’s got five triangles radiating from the middle, making easy serving implausible. Since I believe that pi and pie are intricately linked, I instead approximated the pie as a circle. Reverse calculus! (Buzz tried to discuss theorems about the constructability of polygons at this point, which is when I realized we should probably just apologize for the mathiness and return you to your regularly scheduled retro recipe…)

The crust and chocolate garnish are pretty straightforward. The orange velvet part requires some overly complicated instructions.

3/4 cup whipping cream
3 eggs, separated
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup hot water
3/4 cup sugar
6 oz. can orange concentrate
1/2 slice lemon, peeled
Dash of salt
2 tbsp. sugar for egg whites
9″ chocolate wafer pieshell

Method: Prepare your favorite chocolate wafer pie shell and set aside. Soften gelatin in cold water. Dissolve in hot water. Put the cream in the OSTERIZER container. Cover and mix at Lo Speed until thick. Spoon into a cup. Put egg yolks in glass container with any of the cream that adheres to the blades. Cover and run at Lo Speed until lemon colored. With the OSTERIZER running, add gelatin, sugar, salt, lemon, and orange concentrate, through the feeder cap opening in the cover. Turn to Hi Speed and mix until smooth. Beat egg whites with a rotary beater until foamy. Gradually add 2 tablespoons sugar. Fold the orange mixture into the egg whites. Fold in the whipped cream. Pour into chocolate wafer crust. Chill until set. Garnish with chocolate bits.

Yield: 9-inch pie

You’ll notice all those emphasized bits are cleverly interwoven descriptions of the wonderful feature of your lovely OSTERIZER blender. It has two speeds and an opening in the cover. You’ll also notice the speeds are named “Hi” and “Lo” — don’t want to confuse the fragile housewife brain with too many complicated letters…

I digress. When everything is dumped into the blender and blended at whatever speed it needs, it’s poured into my favorite chocolate wafer pie shell and chilled. Really not that hard.

However, I will note: don’t use your blender to make whipped cream. I thought it would be easy, but it turned out that a top layer was perfectly whipped, a middle layer which was partially solidified but mostly liquid, and a bottom layer (most in contact with the blades) was thoroughly curdled. The partially-whipped cream would have been fine, but chunks of fat are extremely disgusting in whipped cream; I had to whip up more with my mixer to replace it, before folding everything together.

I added some chocolate curls to the top. (Eight of them. Take that, assymetry.)

The taste and consistency is exactly what you’d expect from orange juice, whipped cream, egg whites, and a bit of gelatin. But the amount of ingredients and work required for is crazy, considering that you would get the same result with orange Jell-O whipped and folded with whipped cream — which has the additional advantage of no raw eggs for the egg-wary.

It’s also really a Yellow Velvet Pie; a few drops of red food coloring would have helped.

If you’ve got time on your hands and an OSTERIZER that’s gathering dust, this might be worth trying. It certainly tasted fine However, the recipe certainly was created by an appliance company trying to oversell its product. Blenders are great for a few things, but not everything.

If it wasn’t a picture from the 30’s, I might think this guy had one of those fiberoptic light balls from the 80’s on his head (which, come to think of it, I’ve still seen for sale quite recently… urg.)

But, in reality… it’s a fireman with a portable sprinkler on his head to keep him cool (and safer).

I asked my brother, who’s in training to be a volunteer firefighter, whether he thought this would work; I couldn’t really understand the answer since he was laughing so hard.

Naphtha is a fairly nasty chemical if you’re exposed to excessive quantities.

Chronic toxicity testing has not been conducted on this product. However, the following effects have been reported on one of the product’s components. Stoddard solvent: Repeated or prolonged exposure to high concentrations has resulted in upper respiratory tract irritation, central and peripheral nervous system effects, and possibly hematopoetic, liver and kidney effects.
–Fels-Naphtha MSDS, via Wikipedia, which incidentally misspells the product’s name, but what do you expect, it’s Wikipedia

Of course, this was never mentioned in vintage Fels-Naphtha advertisements; they were more concerned with shaming housewives who didn’t get their husband’s shirts blindingly white. (You also weren’t terribly likely to eat the shirts, anyway, so I doubt there was a very serious risk.) BUT, the chemistry angle adds an interesting spin to a Fels-Naphtha advertisement recently posted by Millie Motts…

Exchanging mild soap for a more potent bar was just the beginning. Maltida and Susan would continue escalating their “we’re just being considerate” crime spree, culminating in the murder binge immortalized in Arsenic and Old Lace.

Step 1: Look at the photo.

Step 2: Write a science fiction story based on it.*
Step 3: See what the photo actually is. There’s even a chance reality is weirder than your imagination.

* I’m not your teacher. You don’t have to actually write this. Just imagine something in your head.