Slate isn’t exactly breaking news by celebrating Vincent Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes from the sixties, but we get the enthusiasm. The campy horror-movie actor, who was also a well-known gourmand, produced the tome — and it is, as Slate says, “a shockingly (terrifyingly?) good example of 1960s cuisine.” Consider the recipe for Hotel Hana-Maui’s Hanaho rum punch: “A mix of lime juice, pineapple juice, crushed ice, and dark rum, topped with a maraschino cherry, it’s to be served in zombie glasses.” Then there is Banana Pancake Flambé Stonehenge, for which you “wrap sautéed bananas into crêpes, vigorously stab strips of bacon atop them, and flambé it all in banana liqueur.” Next time you feel like complaining about the excesses of food culture in the aughts, remember just how lucky you really are.
