Impossible Chesseburger Pie

I’ve been reading a great book by Laura Shapiro called, Something from the Oven; Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. The main focus of the book is how major food corporations steered American women towards convenience foods and baking supplements. This wasn’t an easy task early on because most women felt that using these mixes and pre-prepared foods would be cheating. I’ve been thinking about my own cooking habits and the recipes I choose, and I realize that all the clever promotional work those companies did over 40 years ago is showing up in my own kitchen. I routinely pour Campbell’s, Cream of Celery soup over chicken, make a tasty dip by mixing dried onion soup mix into sour cream, and how else would you make Tuna Noodle Casserole if you didn’t use Cream of Mushroom soup?
Of course, not all the promotional recipes given out during the 50s and 60s stood the taste test of time. Shapiro relates that “Harriet Hepplewhite, the Happy Housewife” gave a recipe for, “a new salad made with marshmallows, cherries, nuts, figs, dates, apples, mayonnaise, candied orange peel, chopped eggs, and whipped cream…”
I often use the recipes found on the labels of cans and the back of pasta boxes. Last night I made Incredible Cheeseburger Pie from a recipe that I got off the back of a Bisquick box, and while everyone ate it, I could tell by the way they picked through it that they thought it looked scary. Hey, snap out of it, I wanted to say. Just be glad I’m not servin-ya slices of Spam glazed with orange marmalade and flambeed peas!