The 1970s Cheese & Bran Drink That Bewildered Alex Guarnaschelli

Some foods are timeless. French onion soup, Carbonara, and paella have been enjoyed for generations and continue to grace menus today. Some foods, however, have gone the way of the penny dreadful, the petticoat, and the Edsel. And that's where they should stay. 

Consider the A1 Tuna Fish Mold. As WGN9 shares, this advertisement and recipe declare this dish to be "real cool" despite mixing together gelatin, tomato soup, cream cheese, mayo, A1 sauce, tuna, and a few other things before cramming them into a fish-shaped mold. Would it not be easier to simply prepare a real fish that is already fish-shaped? So obsessed were the folks of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s with eating oddly-shaped foods, that they turned to making molds using Jell-O. 

Cookbooks were so focused on Jell-O that the Washington Post says Jell-O actually released how-to books to help their customers create jiggly masterpieces. For example, home cooks learned which fruits would plummet to the bottom of the mold and which ones floated. And even when cooks moved away from odd shapes, strange flavor combinations abounded. This tweet by 70s Dinner Party shows a McCall's recipe for Ham and Bananas Hollandaise. After all, who hasn't dreamt of wrapping this elongated fruit in ham and smothering it with a sauce made of egg yolks, butter, and lemon juice? 

And just when you thought you've seen the worst of old-school recipes, celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli uncovered a gem that really is better left forgotten. 

When Alex Guarnaschelli retweeted 70s Dinner Party's epic find — a drink consisting of tomato, cottage cheese, and bran — the Twitterverse was floored. While Guarnaschelli declared, "Trying to wrap my head around this. I'll be back in five days," she was far from the only one that was puzzled. Or, quite frankly, astonished. One commenter declared she'd stick with water; one said her colon was whimpering; while another confessed to reading "bran" as "brain" (which makes an already gross drink sound even grosser). One clever respondent typed, "Prune toddy, bran drink.....is this a constipation cookbook?" And, finally, one reply summed it up best by declaring, "Wrapping your head around it is much better than drinking it." No arguments here. 

Perhaps, this beverage paired perfectly with other vintage treats that should never come back like Spam 'n' Lima beans, a glazed potato salad loaf, and a meatloaf igloo (via BuzzFeed). To the modern viewer, these recipes may look like food spoofs from Mad magazine, but in their day, they made mouths water in anticipation. If you ever find yourself wondering what to make for your hungry brood, perhaps you can summon your inner 1960s housewife and reach for a box of Jell-O. After all, isn't food always better when it jiggles?