Stop that sport coat before it kills again

Sorry about the big blurry gutter on this image; I was afraid I'd crack the glass on my scanner if I mashed the book down any harder.

But:

If you ever, in a fit of misinformed nostalgia, wished you were a teenager in the 50's, look at this picture, and repent. That poor, poor young man. I wonder if he ever recovered from this photo shoot. "Wider!" says the photographer. "Wider! No, keep the hamburger in front of the jacket. It cuts the glare."

The little electric grill makes me laugh, too--have you ever cooked something greasy on one of those old electric grills with the exposed element? Remember the horrible metallic pinging and evil hiss every time a drop of grease hit the hot wire? Remember the smell? Now imagine trying that with 1950's ground beef, which must have been close to 40% fat. If that grill were actually plugged in, every one of these kids would be hidden in an enormous cloud of smoke.

Also, those hamburger buns. Sometimes you read in recipes to "butter the hamburger buns," but I never assumed that meant to butter them on the outside. Yet that appears to be what they've done here. Honestly, those things positively glow.

As you can tell, I've been rummaging amongst the Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks series in preparation for our Father's Day extravaganze next week. This is from 1963's Birthdays and Family Celebrations--yes, I know, 1963 isn't the 50's, but I suspect many of the recipes and pictures are recycled from earlier BHG texts--they reused stuff frequently from book to book, to stretch out the product line.