Wednesday 11 January 2012

Retro & Weird Food & Lifestyle Round Up

We all know I adore a good retro recipe. I was browsing t'interweb for one recently and discovered a fantastic site for all you retro recipe-heads out there. Ghost Traveller walks the tightrope between hilarious, weird and intriguing in a way which sums up the appeal of American Gothic (in the popular sense). Hell, it even links to Sacho's Pictures of The Unexplained (Sancho appears to be a dog with an Afro). Reviews of haunted hotels around the USA, retro recipes  (sorted into the merely antiquated and the truly bizarre) and of course trailer park cooking. They even have Jello Hell-o, where the retro love of jellifying all foods is celebrated. Brilliant. I will be trying some of the recipes; some, but not all. To be honest, I might stick with the trailer park ones, as they seem to involve cheese and Doritos, and not steeping sour milk through a cheesecloth.



Meat Man Would Feel Right At Home
Additionally, if vintage beauty is more your thing, try their Feelin' Pretty site. It's like Eddie and Patsy on acid. I urge you to read it, because nothing is prettier than a face full of laughter, attached to a body which is rolling about on the floor with a stitch.

Right, and now some more hilarious recipe sites (many of which are mentioned on Ghost Traveller too):


  • The Vintage Cookbook Trials - does exactly what it says on the tin: tries out old recipes. It's kept very up-to-date and there are usable recipes on here.
  • The Hungover Gourmet - a true celebration of retro recipes with the wonders of Spam, hotdogs and so forth. Superb links page, for any foodie modern or retro.
  • A Flikr of a selection of vintage cookbook images.
  • The Gallery Of Regrettable Food - those 'cookbooks' which were actually adverts, stuffed full on unwise ingredient combinations.
  • Retro-Foods - The advantage here is that the recipes are tested, sorting the ridiculous from those which were merely terrifyingly photographed.
  • Retro Recipe Attempts - Again, these are tested. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. The photos are great.
  • Twisted Candy - a nice compendium of old recipes, with its own selection of links.
What aspects of vintage or retro lifestyle do you enjoy? Or indeed find bemusing..?

12 comments:

  1. Oh my!!! New Zealand lamb guy IS Bill Bailey, surely???

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  2. I'll have to try this out sometime! =)

    pinkchampagnefashion.blogspot.com

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  3. ok I will be going through these instead of working! Sounds just up my street, I've got a great victorian cookbook with recipes for Lark Pie with aspic jelly and the like.

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  4. Thanks for the shout-out! Very flattered to be mentioned on such a swish and witty blog.

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  5. I'm loving all the retro cookbook images!

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  6. I adorar retro cook boos but always forget I own a few. you had me at Sacho dog with afro and haunted hotels.
    besios

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  7. I love just about anything retro or vintage but could never eat spam or hotdogs. I tend to prefer simple and rustic modern eating where food hasn't been messed about with too much, although I do love cheese and pinapple on a stick now and then and the occasional prawn cocktail!

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  8. Hi there-I have some of my mums vintage cookbooks, I really should use them more often xx

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  9. Ah, just realised you're going to the #zomgbloggersbash with Rockalily lipstick.. i'll see you there :) x

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  10. Thanks for the Ghost Traveller tip off which I hadn't heard of before. Enjoyed your post. x

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Let me know what you think!