‘Hearty’ Food for Valentine’s Day.

Some of you, perhaps many of you, are thinking about what to cook on Valentine’s Day in two days’ time. I don’t know what the food columnists in current newspapers and magazines are planning, but it was all hearts and flowers in the Los Angeles Times February 13, 1933 - with an aside to a jellied salad. I don’t “get” jellied salads, but some of you may do, so I have included this as well.

Heart’s Salad.

Use eighth-inch thick slices of calavo-avocado pear and of jellied cranberry.

 With a cookie cutter shape hearts from cranberry and calavo slices. Then using a much smaller vegetable cutter of heart shape, cut out centers in each slice, and interchange hearts. The small cut-out calavo and cranberry hearts may also serve as colorful appetisers on whole-wheat wafers.

Open Heart Sandwiches.

Toast bread on one side and cut with a small heart-shaped cutter. Spread untoasted side with sandwich spread and decorate with a small strip of pimiento. Chill and serve on a plate covered with heart-shaped paper doilies. Serve as an accompaniment to tomato juice.

Daisy Plate.

Like most foods, the better eggs look the better they taste. So here is a new way to serve them attractively:

One-fourth cupful uncooked rice (makes one cupful cooked rice) four eggs, scrambled or poached, salt and pepper.

On a large plate or on individual plates arrange five or six tablespoonsfuls of cooked rice in the shape of daisy petals. In the center place scrambled or poached egg to resemble the golden heart of the flower. this makes four generous servings.

Molded Valentine Salad.

Soak one and one-half tablespoonfuls plain gelatin in one-third cupful cold water fro ten minutes. Heat to the boiling point two cupfuls tomato juice, one onion sliced, one stalk celery, three sprigs parsly, two tablespoonfuls pure vinegar, four cloves, one-half teaspoonful salt and one-quarter teaspoonful pepper sauce. Strain and pour over gelatin, stirring until dissolved. Cool and add chopped clery, cabbage, and olive or any other desired vegetables, using about one-cupful of the vegetables. Pour into a pan, having it about three fourths inch thick. Cut with a heart cutter and serve in deep cuts of crisp lettuce, garnishing with sweet gherkins, celery curls, and mayonnaise salad dressing.

I am not sure who would cook these dishes, or for whom they are intended. They seem a bit trivial and girly. No oysters? No red-blooded steak? No chocolate? And I still don’t like jellied salads.