Reader beware!(Brief Article)

What you're about to read may shock you. Prepare yourself for a graphic, no-holds-barred, true-life account of what it was like to cook in the 1960s. Now's the time to throw out the stereotype of apron-clad housewives serving up dishes such as macaroni and cheese and meatloaf with mashed potatoes. As it turns out, the hausfrau of yesteryear was not the meek and gentle sort; she was a cleaver-wielding, iron-stomached kitchen maenad. She makes the chefs of today look like preschoolers pretending to cook on plastic stoves. So a word of caution: If you're enjoying your lunch while reading this, I suggest that, like swimming, you should wait a few hours after eating before finishing the article.

The source of this astonishing information is a cookbook that belonged to my grandmother. It's a hardcover, a sort of soft aqua blue that today is oh-so-retro, and it has over 800 pages of pure recipes. When I first received it, I didn't think I'd ever use it. After all, food trends have certainly changed over the years and I was sure there wouldn't be a single reference to pesto or goat cheese or Chilean sea bass (although surely it would have a dozen ways of making beef stew and Jell-O salad with marshmallows). I kept the book, though, figuring it would make for an interesting social commentary of the time. I clearly had no idea what I was in for. Yes, there were those recipes that I expected: lemonade for 100 (that would necessitate a mighty large punch bowl, I would assume); aspic (thankfully, now an extinct food); tuna and potato chip loaf (no comment) and eight versions of chiffon pie. But nothing--I mean nothing--could have prepared me for what I found in the meat section.

I should have gotten my first clue while reading the chapter on hors d'oeuvres. There, a recipe for steak tartare was also referred to as "Cannibal Mound." Hmmm.

So what could be so shocking in a mainstream cookbook, one that certainly most women at the time had? Well, for beginners, there's the section simply titled, "About Brains." I'm no food prude; I realize that people all over the world eat all sorts of things. But never before has it been spelled out this graphically ... and I quote,

"To prepare [brains], give them a preliminary soaking of about three hours in cold water.... After skinning, [skinning?!] soak them in lukewarm water to free them from all traces of blood. Then, as ...