Why I decided to cook Crusty Savory Veal Casserole

"Veal, one of the tenderest of meats, is handy for the busy housewife and business woman; preparation is simple, cooking time is short."

So begins the veal chapter in the Best Recipes from the Weekly cookbook, published in a time before they included dates in publications, but I'm guessing around 1981.

I found this cookbook at Mum and Dad's house the other day and had a whale of a time looking through it. Boy oh boy have things changed since the 1980s. For example, food styling. The cover picture is the most tasteful of them all, the rest are nasty close-ups of glistening casseroles and crumbed fried things.
Ew.
Check out these tasty seafood pancakes:

Or this hot avocado with crab and cheese:



Disgusting!
Needless to say, the recipes themselves are slightly odd. They have few herbs and spices and very little seasoning. They seem either bland or gross due to masses of cream or masses of butter. Amusing commentary aside, this book did not inspire me to cook out of FOMOODT at all.

Nevertheless, I had a very enjoyable time flipping through it thinking How gross! and These people have no clue!. That is, until the guilt started to creep in. This is something that often happens if I am exposed to objects from the near past that have clearly gone out of style (read: if I spend too much time at my parents house or an op shop). I roll my eyes at how daggy everything is and then feel really guilty for being so dismissive of these objects simply because they are not to my taste. Perhaps the recipes in this book are delicious! I started to think. Perhaps they have hidden charms that my 21st century tastebuds can't imagine?

Obviously I would have to try one to find out, and because it would be so fun thing to talk about on Miss Soft Crab (we're having fun, right guys??). Some sort of casserole was the preferred option, because nothing says delicious 1980s cuisine like the casserole. Happily, 1981 was a good year for casserole recipes and I had many to choose from. I settled on the crusty savoury veal casserole because of its terrible, terrible name. And because I like what they have to say about veal.
Here it is in the bottom left of this picture. It's the one that looks like shepherds pie in front of the glazed turkey:

Originally, I planned to tell you all about how it went in this post, but have since decided that it really needs its own. That's why this post is called Why I decided to cook Crusty Savory Veal Casserole. See you tomorrow for a full description.