{"id":81681,"date":"2021-11-29T11:43:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T16:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=81681"},"modified":"2021-11-29T11:44:15","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T16:44:15","slug":"goodbye-turkey-surprise-in-a-box-of-vintage-recipe-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/goodbye-turkey-surprise-in-a-box-of-vintage-recipe-cards.html","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Turkey: Surprise in a Box of Vintage Recipe Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to find recipes to use up that leftover holiday turkey. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I recently bought a box of vintage recipe cards, and the first one that I saw reminded me of a feeling most of us experience at the end of the Thanksgiving holiday \u2013 after we\u2019ve had our fill of turkey sandwiches and turkey soup day after day.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: roast turkey. Credit: Moonsun1981; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That feeling we get when we can\u2019t stand to eat another meal made up of Thanksgiving leftovers!<\/p>\n

Goodbye Turkey<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: handwritten turkey recipe card. Photo credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I started laughing when I saw this recipe card in the collection I bought \u2013 but then I wondered if the woman who penned it was the originator of this casserole with a sense of humor about leftovers, or if it was a more well-known recipe.<\/p>\n

My purchased collection actually includes two cards with this recipe name: one handwritten and one typed. The typed recipe card version provides directions for 6 and 24 servings. The handwritten recipe does differ in some ingredients from the typed recipe \u2013 which made me assume, at first, that there was some sort of mistake. (Don\u2019t ever assume!)<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: typed turkey recipe card. Photo credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Goodbye Turkey, Hello Newspapers<\/strong><\/p>\n

I decided to see if I could find this recipe in old newspapers. To find out, I turned to GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> for the answer.<\/p>\n

This would help me ascertain when this recipe was published and\/or popular. I simply searched on the phrase \u201cGoodbye Turkey\u201d in the \u201cInclude Keywords\u201d box on the GenealogyBank search form. I didn\u2019t search using anything else. I knew that if the results were too numerous, I could try to narrow them down by a location or time period.<\/p>\n

I received 100 results in the historical newspaper collection: more than 50% were relevant to this recipe.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s the history of \u201cGoodbye Turkey\u201d? It\u2019s a recipe from the makers of Minute Rice (General Foods). Food companies employ home economists who invent recipes that use their products in new ways to increase sales. These recipes are published in newspapers and magazines as well as recipe booklets. It makes sense that one issue home cooks have is what to do with leftover turkey, and this recipe provided one solution.<\/p>\n

My typed version of this recipe for 6 or 24 servings appeared in old newspapers in 1960.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Chicago Daily News (Chicago, Illinois), 3 December 1960, page 81<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Look closely at this recipe.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Chicago Daily News (Chicago, Illinois), 3 December 1960, page 81<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can see that the typed recipe card in my collection mimics the newspaper recipe. I like that the newspaper recipe makes the humble leftover seem like something grander than just an everyday leftover. Consider the description:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis long-grain rice puffs up bright and light with good turkey flavor, blends seasonings, cheese and asparagus into a taste that makes guests say \u2018um-m-m wonderful.\u2019 Or make it for the family \u2013 they\u2019ll think it\u2019s a party!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So that explains that typed recipe card. But what about the handwritten recipe card? By Thanksgiving 1963 there was an updated \u201cGoodbye Turkey\u201d recipe that includes condensed soup and some of the ingredients we find in the 1960 recipe: Minute Rice and asparagus. The soup substitutes for the cheese and flour found in the previous version of the recipe.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 17 November 1963, page 169<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This new recipe feeds 4-6 people instead of the possible 24 servings of the previously published recipe.<\/p>\n

One Day You\u2019ll Be Ready to Say Goodbye Turkey!<\/strong><\/p>\n

This 1960s solution to turkey leftovers lives on like many age-old ideas for how to get rid of holiday leftovers. Online I found modern-day versions that referred to it as a 1970s or 1980s casserole, but it\u2019s really 1960s. Newspapers continued to post the recipe in columns, sans the marketing, such as this 1983 recipe swap column from South Dakota. It calls for a casserole in which the first layer combines rice (notice it doesn\u2019t call for Minute Rice), cheese, and turkey. Over that is a gravy with the addition of either asparagus or peas.<\/p>\n

That original 1960s marketing recipe evolved over time as different cooks modified it, then the new versions of the recipe were published in the newspaper.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Aberdeen Daily News (Aberdeen, South Dakota), 16 November 1983, page 18<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2005 a California newspaper reprinted that original 1960 recipe and a story from the reader who shared it. She remarked that in 1961 she opened the Denver Post<\/em> and found the recipe. It became a family favorite that she had to retype because of how often that newspaper clipping got used.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Record Searchlight (Redding, California), 23 November 2005, page 23<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Goodbye to You, Turkey!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you used the \u201cGoodbye Turkey\u201d recipe in your leftover meals? How do you get rid of your holiday leftovers? Let me know in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to find recipes to use up that leftover holiday turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":81709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12427],"tags":[19013,2020,2701],"class_list":["post-81681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-recipes","tag-food-and-recipes","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-turkey"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/photo-1129-2021-featured-graphic-roast-turkey.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81681"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81713,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81681\/revisions\/81713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}