14 Awesomely Disturbing Community Cookbook Recipes

Musty spiral-bound community cookbooks are portals though time and across regions. They reflect what a certain type of person—the kind of woman who’d join the Junior League in Mt. Horeb or mother who’d join a parent group in Pasadena—cooked and ate in a specific era. You realize that some recipes become dated in a few decades, while others remain beloved and relevant today, even while our tastes and standards change.

Flipping through a community cookbook is a little like scrounging through a shipwreck; you’ll find some treasures, some trash. You also are bound to run across some horrifying entries that will make you scratch your head, at the very least. These, to me, are the real treasures. Here’s a clutch of them gleaned from of community cookbooks published all over the country, dating between 1949 and 1989.

Sara Bir is Paste’s food editor, and the author of The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook.

Cookbook shelf photo by CC BY

1 of 14 Soybean Loaf : Because every nutrient-packed food needs to be prepared in the least appealing manner possible. Ohio State Grange Cook Book, 22nd edition, Columbus, OH, 1968

2 of 14 Bul: I'm having a hard time visualizing this. Coke and grape juice, served with a small fork? Laredo Air Force Base Treasure of Personal Recipes, Laredo, TX, 1963

3 of 14 Fried Snipe: Those prank snipe hunts you hear about? Turns out snipe is a real thing—it's a game bird. Once you bag a dozen, apparently it's time to get yourself a quart of orange juice. Gullah Cooking by Oscar Vick, Charleston, SC, 1989

4 of 14 German Cookies: Now you're cooking with ammonia! (Note: don't freak out, because baking ammonia is actually a legitimate thing, a leavener of bygone times. Kinda makes you appreciate baking powder.) Our Favorite Recipes, Free Evangelical Lutheran Cross Church, Fresno, CA, 1979

5 of 14 Pioneer Rabbit Stew: How did the step of luring the tame rabbit away from the hutch in your neighbor's yard get omitted? The Betsey Mills Club Cookbook, Marietta, OH, 1985

6 of 14 Brown Rim Cookies: Sometimes a terrible name can wreck a recipe that's otherwise probably pretty decent. Cooking Favorites of Richmond, Richmond Junior Women's Club, Richmond, CA, date unknown

7 of 14 Burning Bush: If this is an Old Testament reference, the links between cream cheese canapés and Yahweh appearing to Moses are lost to us. Uh, maybe the shredded dried beef makes these look like the popular landscaping shrub of the same name? In any case, you should know that the recipe for Burning Bush appears under recipes for "Green Balls" and "Celery Balls." The Good Shepard Cook Book, Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Good Shepard, Brooklyn, NY, 1949

8 of 14 "Stuff": Once again, it's all in the name. The Betsey Mills Club Cookbook, Marietta, OH, 1985

9 of 14 Blueberry Boy Bait: I've been making this and leaving it all over the yard just like that witch in the gingerbread cottage told me to, and I have yet to trap a single plump and delicious little boy. Cooking Favorites of Richmond, Richmond Junior Women's Club, Richmond, CA, date unknown

10 of 14 Tunaking: "Honey, what's for dinner tonight?" "Oh, nothing much…nothing much except TUNAKING!" The Good Shepard Cook Book, Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Good Shepard, Brooklyn, NY, 1949