"Refrigerate For At Least A Week Before Eating..."

I didn't set out to collect bad cookbooks, it just sort of happened. Maybe it's all the bizarre "homestyle" cooking I was exposed to in farm kitchens as a child; maybe I was just born this way. Whatever it is, nothing gets me going like really terrible pictures of really terrible food, accompanied by instructions to help you actually make said food. I found today's selection on sale at a thrift store for one dollar. It's brought me at least five times that much enjoyment already.

There are no pictures in Recipes From Peggy's Cove, which was published "in aid of the Peggy's Cove Preservation Society". Well, no pictures of food anyway. There are a few gritty b&w photos of the Cove itself, which purports to be a grim little fishing hamlet somewhere in Nova Scotia. Even the color photos I've found online are in b&w -- you actually have to photoshop Peggy's Cove to make the colors show up. I found

After a hard day of scraping out lobster traps, nothing warms the knuckles like a helping of "Lasagna Salad", chased with a handful of "Savory Gems". Or perhaps you'd prefer a "Clam Whiffle" appetizer followed by the evocatively named "Smothered Rabbit". If it's dinner for one, you may elect to make "Hobo Dinner" and then fall asleep in front of the TV with a half-eaten "Almost As Good As Poundcake" in your lap.

I'm not just picking on the names. In most cases the ingredients or directions are just as discouraging, such as the recipe for "Cherried Cranberries", which contains no actual cherries. If you're going to use "cherry" as a verb (and I beg you to refrain), then the person, place or thing you are cherrying deserves the real thing.

Meanwhile, here is the second half of the recipe for making "Solomon Gundy":

"...In medium size mason jars, put alternate layers of herring and onion rings. Cover with cooled vinegar solution and seal. Refrigerate for at least a week before eating."

If you want more, you'll have to get your own copy.

I think that by now most people know that trends in folk cuisine, such being able to make a meal with literally any part of an animal, are born out of necessity. Hardworking, isolated people have to do the best with whatever they've got handy, and if that means eating "Salmon Luncheon Roll" and "Family Dessert" three nights a week, then by Dagon, that's what they'll do! People cling to familiar tastes, even as generations go by and fortunes improve. No one these days eats "Livers Paprikash" because it tastes wonderful, they do it because it's traditional.

If you're currently struggling, the Five of Coins urges you refrain from confusing your current station in life with who you actually are and what you really want. You can (and will) do better, it says. All the Five-cards in the Tarot represent that "it's always darkest before the dawn" period that precedes the restoration of harmony and balance. If you accept your present hardship as your lot in life, you may cling to it reflexively and fail to grab at whatever is meant to take its place. We are all transforming, and what we are now is not necessarily what we will be.

I shouldn't pick on Peggy's Cove too much, its wiki page claims that tourism is its primary source of income. Nor do I think that a town is incomplete without a four-star restaurant. But if it's fund-raising assistance the town needs, the town might have been better off avoiding cook-books and bake sales. Better stick to car-washes in the future, just to be safe...

Previously On Arcanaloge: Five Of Coins