Meat: Selection - Preparation and Many Ways to Serve

by Department of Food Economics - Armour and Company 1934

This booklet is, as it says on the cover, "a souvenir of your visit to the Armour building". It includes, as well as recipes, a description of what meat is made up of, its place in your diet and all the major cuts. Of course many of these cuts have been renamed and renamed again since 1934. There is a "centerfold" of the many products that Armour produced at the time which include not just meat products, but eggs, butter, and my favorite "pure lard!"

I went to the store a couple of days ago intending to purchase some "pure lard". I was unable to find any. I know I saw some on one of my previous visits (in a handy lard bucket), but it seems that if they carried it before, they no longer do. Too bad. I understand nothing is better for pie crust.
(Lard bucket, lard bucket, lard bucket! Sounds so funny to me. Sorry, I'm a big weirdo.)

First recipe...

Broiled Porterhouse Steak

Select a porterhouse steak from 1 to 2 inches thick. Trim off excess fat, wipe with a damp cloth. Grease heated broiling rack and lay steak on it. Place under heat unit with the temperature set at broil. If gas is used, do not close broiling oven door. (???) When seared on both sides,  lower pan in broiling oven to permit a greater air space between heat unit and meat. Turn occasionally until cooked to the desired doneness. A one to two inch steak requires from 18 to 25 minutes to cook medium rare under the flame of a gas oven. When done season with salt and pepper and spread with Cloverbloom (Armour Brand) Butter. 

My observations: I was unable to find a steak that thick. Maybe I could have asked the butcher to produce one cut just for me, but the steak was expensive enough as it was. It was maybe 3/4" thick. Good enough. 
This is certainly easy enough to prepare. Obviously, I didn't have it in the oven anywhere near 18-25 minutes. After the initial searing I only had to cook it a few minutes per side (flipping it only once). It was done very nicely, very tender. The only thing (for me) that was unusual was putting butter on it. It tasted very rich, but was an awfully big piece of meat for one person to eat. Way too big!

Next on the menu:

Portuguese Toast

Skin 1 cold cooked Star Pure Pork Sausage Link and cut into slices 1/8 inch thick. Put 3 Tbsp tomato sauce into small pan with 1 Tbsp cold cooked rice and season to taste. Heat. Arrange slices of sausage on pieces of finger shaped toast, let them slightly overlap each other. Spread the sauce over them, heat in the oven for a few minutes and serve at once.

Okay. This one is kinda weird, thus my selection. I was unable to find the brand listed, but I purchased some Italian sausages that I figured would do the job. I had some difficulty slicing the sausage that thin, but I tried. The recipe was super easy and in fact, though strange, it was quite tasty. I will definitely make this again... because it was good, fairly low in calories, and well... because I have to use up the rest of the can of tomato sauce. Whether this is genuinely Portuguese is certainly up for debate.