Taking the Bull by the Horns, Part 4

I’ve made it through both the Sandwiches and the Vegetables sections now, and it has been an experience.

Of course, so is getting hit in the head by a line drive.

Admittedly reading Bull Cook is a lot more fun than being on the losing end of a well-hit baseball, but the side effects are not all that different – confusion, disorientation, and a general sense that something has happened but you’re not sure whether you should be glad about it or not. It depends on whether the first baseman caught the ball on the deflection, I suppose.

The Sandwich section is where this really goes off the rails, in part I suspect because there’s just not that much else to do there. Honestly, how many times can you say “Get a roll and put stuff in it” – occasionally varied by “and then fry it” – before you snap? And then you get to the Vegetable section and, well. Yeah.

Just to get a flavor of what a George Herter recipe is like, I want to reproduce one in its entirety here. This one is called Spinach Mother of Christ, and according to the one friend I have who actually knew about this book before I started this project (Hi Karen!) it makes a great dramatic reading at social gatherings. It has pretty much everything you could ask for in a George Herter recipe – unfounded confidence, random opinions, unwarranted familiarity with a historical figure, a story that isn’t even remotely plausible in either its general outlines or its remarkably specific details but has enough correct details that you can’t quite dismiss it out of hand, and a recipe that is simple enough that you kind of wonder what all the fuss is about. I am not sure if the Pope knows about this particular recipe or not, but just in to be sure, the next time I visit Italy I am going to drop a copy in the suggestion box at St. Peter’s Basilica. I’m sure there is one somewhere there. It’s probably right next to Michelangelo’s Pietà.

Aside from its theological implications, this is a pretty typical example of what you will find in Bull Cook.

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Spinach Mother of Christ

The Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ, was very fond of spinach. This is as well a well known fact in Nazareth today as it was 19 centuries ago. Her favorite music was that of the crude bagpipes of the time, and this also is a well known fact.

Her recipe for preparing spinach spread with Christianity throughout Europe. On the eve of Christ’s birth in the cave that was called a stable, Her only meal was spinach.

The early European immigrants from Germany, France, and Italy nearly all brought this recipe with them. This is a recipe for people who like a mild garlic flavor, it definitely is not for people who do not like some garlic.

This recipe cannot be made from canned spinach. Canned spinach in no way resembles fresh or frozen spinach and in my opinion is fit for neither man or beast.

Take six quarts of fresh spinach and carefully remove the heavy stems. If you use frozen spinach take two boxes. Boil the fresh spinach five minutes – no more. If you boil spinach too much it completely loses all of its original taste. If you use frozen spinach place it in boiling water. With a fork break up the frozen blocks as soon as possible. After the blocks are broken up and the spinach loose boil it for 1 or two minutes – no more or it is worthless. Take and put three heaping teaspoons of butter in a frying pan and melt it. Chop up four cloves of garlic and put them into the melted butter. Fry them with medium or low heat until slightly brown. Frying the garlic in butter entirely changes its odor and flavor making it quite mild. Take the drained spinach and mix in the butter and fried garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Originally the spinach was then pestled to make a puree. Today take your food mill and pass the spinach through it making it into a puree. Serve as a main dish with bread and butter or as a vegetable with a regular meal.

Today in Belgium and Germany a little nutmeg is sprinkled over the top of the puree. This however was not in the original recipe.


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Don’t you feel better knowing this? I know I will never go to a Christmas Eve church service again without thinking of Popeye the Sailor Man.

Along with this, I have also learned the following:

1. “Cheese on bread should never be fried until melted.” Oh, no. No, no, no. Shots fired. Has this man never heard of a grilled cheese sandwich? This cannot stand.

2. Did you know that the name “New Orleans” was meant as a homophobic joke? Now you do. “Nouvelle Orleans was named for Louis Philippe duc d’Orleans the French regent at the time [of settlement]. The duke was well hated in France and the name Nouvelle was used as a pointed jab, the word Nouvelle in French is a feminine word and not used with a masculine name, made him out as a complete fairy.” Do you think George actually understood what goes on in New Orleans? Or France? It does raise some questions.

3. On the other hand he notes rather pointedly that Hernando Cortez and the other conquistadores were “murderers” whose behavior toward the Aztecs was unacceptable, so there is that.

4. George’s admiration for the Aztecs does take him to some strange places, though. “At this time the Aztecs were killing about 20,000 people a year as sacrifices to their gods. They were also eating the victims. Do not frown upon this, as the French, Hollanders, Danes, and Germans not too many centuries back were also cannibals all along their coastal areas. Meat was scarce and they ate each other to vary a tiresome menu of fish and mollusks.” I will admit that the “boredom” theory of cannibalism is new to me. Also, I’m now a bit more suspicious as to the provenance of some of the meat recipes from earlier in the book than I was before.

5. One of the first recipes in the Sandwich section is called Sandwich Dora Hand, named after an Old West singer. It takes George slightly more than three full pages of text to get to what is essentially a fried fish sandwich with pickles and onions, but it’s an entertaining ride. The opening sentence of the recipe says, in its entirety, “I do not wish the people who made and are making American so called ‘historical movies’ for television and theaters any bad luck but if they would all drop dead it would be better for everyone.” George is not a fan of Hollywood, as he has made clear on many occasions before this, so you the reader will glance over this sentence with familiarity and resignation before realizing that he’s only just warming up here. Once he climbs down from that particular tree you get a history of Dodge City, KS as both a cattle town and food mecca – it apparently had a number of the finest restaurants in the Old West, all of which served ice cold beer – and then half a page on the history of gunfighting in the 19th century interspersed with commentary on the exact ethnic heritage of the British Isles (“The Picts were the only true British people, like the Indians are the only true Americans”) and a few words of practical advice on the best way to win a gunfight should you find yourself in one (remember: accuracy, not speed). A half page on the life of Dora Hand herself comes next – her ancestry, biography, singing skills, and tragic love life – followed by her dastardly murder by one James W. (“Spike”) Kennedy, who was then hunted down and killed by pretty much everyone who mattered in the Old West all at the same time. Only then do you get the actual recipe for the sandwich, followed by a plea to remember poor Dora. “She was a fine woman.”

6. Never one to shy away from controversy, George enters the linguistic quagmire that is the origins of the quintessential American expression “OK,” with both arms swinging. He insists it comes from the French “Aux Quais,” which the good people of New Orleans used to signify anything arriving or departing properly from the docks. This is not the most far-fetched thing in this book, when you get down to it.

7. George was not a great fan of Disneyland, and after a paragraph complaining about it – for some reason included toward the end of a recipe for burritos – he rather quietly notes that “I am in favor of giving some land back to the Indians, they didn’t do such a bad job with it at all.” Take that, Walt.

8. Somewhere toward the end of a recipe for Sandwich Holy Night (chocolate and red currant jelly on bread) – a recipe which is devoted almost entirely to the history of the Christmas carol Silent Night and the sad treatment of the local priest who actually wrote it by his parishioners and the priests and bishops over him – George sneaks in the observation that “I have always said that Heaven will never be over crowded with Christians.” Looking around at the naked right-wing partisanship and performative cruelty of the people shouting loudest about their “Christian” faith here in the US these days, I can’t say I disagree.

9. When not questing for the Holy Grail, King Arthur was “one of the best pudding cooks of his time.” Maybe that’s what he needed the Grail for? To hold pudding? Who knows.

10. George provides a surprising number of recipes for toast.

11. Do not under any circumstances allow George Herter to serve you Caesar Salad, a recipe he is absolutely sure was invented by an Italian immigrant cook in Chicago IL in 1903 and certainly had nothing to do with anyone in Mexico. His version contains, among other things, croutons fried in beef fat, bacon, mustard, raw eggs, and Swiss (never Parmesan) cheese, and I was reading along thinking that this was strange but at least within hailing distance of acceptable boundaries until he got to the part about frying some of the lettuce. I have no idea what would possess an adult human to fry lettuce.

12. Along with his culinary expertise, George also considered himself an ethnographer and thus we come to the following in a recipe for boiled corn (a food that really doesn’t need a recipe and George therefore had to find something else to discuss to fill up the space allotted): “The Mohawk Indians are descended from the Celts and are cousins to the Irish, Scotch, Bretons, and Welsh. … The balance of Indians come from the Mongolians which makes them cousins to the Chinese.” I suspect this would come as a great surprise not only to the anthropological community but also to the Mohawks themselves.

13. Nobody in Europe likes popcorn.

14. While George was quite vocal about the evils of slavery – an ongoing problem in the world of 1960, he notes, and a general failing among the nations of the world (“There is not a nation in the world that is doing one thing to stop the ungodly slavery that is still going on”) – he nevertheless was a great fan of the Confederacy, in large part because Southerners were apparently very good at baking potatoes and that has to count for something. George has firm Opinions about potatoes. He is highly partial to red potatoes, the kind that were used by the Indians. “The white potatoes,” he says, “were promoted commercially by white men. They grow larger than the red skinned potatoes and hence are more profitable to grow. Some names for them are Russets, Idaho Bakers, etc. They have been promoted as a baking potato, mainly. Actually they are good for nothing. … Don’t let them fool you.” You have been warned.

15. Thomas Jefferson was a better cook than president.

16. Have you ever looked at a recipe and thought, “Oh, no. I am not going there.” This is why I am not going to be discussing the recipe for “Titty Sauce Yams” any further. You can look it up on page 204.

17. Despite being raised in Minnesota George is not a fan of the wild rice that is grown there. “It is a long grained dark brown rice that when cooked tastes exactly like cooked barley,” he complains. “Blind folded you cannot tell the difference between it and cooked barley. It is the poorest eating rice in existence. Actually to me it tastes like mud from a pond and barley mixed together. No one ever ate it. Not one settler or Indian ever bothered with it at all as they knew it was no good for eating.”

18. In a remarkable display of biological wishful thinking, George spends nearly a page explaining “how to make shallots from onions.” Basically this means planting and replanting the same onions for several years running in order to get a shallot in the end, which is a marvel of genetic engineering if you think about it.

19. If you ever get to San Francisco, don’t go to Fisherman’s Wharf on George’s account. Nobody fishes there and the boats don’t come in with fresh fish and the restaurants are all just “phony atmosphere.” In a caption under a photograph of a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf, with a seagull perched scenically in front of it, George observes “The sea gull would be better eating than some of the food served on the wharf.” He does make an exception for the sourdough bread, though.

20. When he says “French fry” something, George means “deep fry.” Once you figure that out a lot of things make a lot more sense. There is only one oil suitable for deep frying, however. Soybean oil is not it – it is good for mixing paints and making linoleum. Cottonseed oil is for making plastics. Corn oil is also good for plastics and also baking. Olive oil is fine on salads. Lard is okay if you render it yourself but store bought is just foul. Margarine is shameful and should not be used for anything. No, if you want to fry anything you need beef fat.

21. French fries are best when sprinkled with powdered mustard. You heard it here first.

22. George also has very firm Opinions on potato chips, particularly when they should and should not be served. “People like potato chips with a cold snack or a hot dog,” he says, “but not usually with a hot meal unless they are losing their mind.” As he would know.

Next: Desserts