The worst recipe I have ever read

I collect cookbooks, great and terrible. The terrible ones are usually sociologically interesting, and sometimes when my middle-American-1960s roots get the better of me, I even secretly like some of the heavily processed, high-fat glop that passed for food while I was growing up.

But this recipe, in a book I got yesterday, is ... Well, I have no words, at least not coherent ones, just onomatopoeia related to puking sounds.

I reproduce it here exactly as it appears in the cookbook.

DIRT CAKE
30 Oreo cookies
8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
12 ounces Cool Whip, or whipped cream
1 small package vanilla instant pudding
1/2 cup butter
1 and 1/2 cups milk

Crush cookies fine (will resemble top soil.) Mix cream cheese, butter, and sugar; set aside. Beat pudding and milk; stir in cheese mixture; fold in Cool Whip. Layer cookies with mixture, ending with cookies on top. Chill and serve with an artificial flower in pot.

It still sounds better then the suburban tradition of pukedom: Ambrosia Salad. Also those amber jellos with the fruit in them are pretty unappealing for that matter.

I like dirt cake. Ambrosia salad is brutal.

I've eaten that. The secret is to add gummy- worms, and feed it to Midwestern schoolchildren.

Most jello-fruit combos are pretty brutal, but my granny made one that was orange Jello with mandarin orange slices in it that was fairly tasty.

I've never had Dirt Cake, doesn't actually sound that bad to me. :)

My great-aunties used to make a cherry jello with cool whip and cherries in it. That was yummy.

I can handle jello with fruit lumps, but grated carrots and jello is a terrible combination that I was served at many a church supper when I was a kid.

The worst jello combo, however (I've almost certainly mentioned it here before) was a favorite of my dad's, so my mom used to make it fairly often: lime gelatin mixed with mayonnaise for the liquid, and with lumps of cream cheese, walnuts, and onions.

I wouldn't be surprised if the cream cheese was supposed to be smoothly incorporated, not lumpy, and my mother just made it the wrong way. The cream cheese lumps were the worst, as they had no taste at all when surrounded by the harsher flavors of artificial lime plus mayo. It was like feasting on cellulite.

Now that sounds truly awful.

Egad, what was the name of that concotion - Abomination Unto the Lord??

I'm guessing offering the OP some kitty litter cake is right out, then?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Hatshepsut

...lime gelatin mixed with mayonnaise for the liquid, and with lumps of cream cheese, walnuts, and onions....

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I remember having that now and again (without the onions, praise be) at church picnics in the Seventies. It was often brought by little old ladies. As a kid I kinda liked it, but my mom never made it, and I certainly never asked her to!

Here's a site that offers several disturbing lime jello recipes. Check out the asparagus lime jello recipe if you dare.

http://www.yummly.com/recipes/lime-jello-mayonnaise