Testing vintage Tribune Christmas recipes

My search for the grossest-sounding vintage Chicago Tribune Christmas recipe settled, fittingly enough, on something the color of the Grinch’s fur — a bizarre concoction touted in the Dec. 16, 1964, newspaper as “Hot Avocado Pie Yule Delight.”

Officially named Avocado Poinsettia Pie, the concoction of canned cream of celery soup and frozen peas mixed with two eggs reflects an era when refrigerator space was limited and fresh ingredients — especially those not in season — were difficult to find at the supermarket.

Its top layer made of avocado, which currently sells for 59 cents at a local Jewel, must have seemed exotic to a Midwestern family almost 60 years ago.

With a savory option secured, I set out to find a sweet one, too.

One word attracted me to the story titled “Your Molded Salad Can Carry Out Christmas Color Scheme” in the Dec. 22, 1953, edition of the Tribune: “simplest.” The recipe has just four ingredients — five if you count the maraschino cherries used as a garnish.

I chose the nearly 70-year-old Sea Foam Salad recipe because reporter Rosemary Fox described the shiny dessert with a midcentury hue as “a cream cheese, pear, and lime gelatin combination which presents an elegant appearance on the buffet table.”

And what says fun, old-fashioned family Christmas better than a Jell-O mold? At least, as long as it jiggles out cleanly.

These vintage Tribune recipes were easy to complete, even for a novice cook like me. It was harder to find some of the ingredients in the grocery store — who has pimento strips these days? — than it was to prep these dishes. A half-century later, nothing was lost in translation.

Thank Mary Meade. Chicago Tribune recipes were often attributed to the fictional culinary expert, which was the pen name used by five food editors of the newspaper from 1930 to 1974. Ruth Ellen Church was the longest tenured food editor, from 1936 to 1974, and was named the paper’s first wine columnist in 1962. She published recipes, books and booklets under her own name, too. When Church retired, so did Mary Meade.

Their recipes live on. I made them this week, and so can you.

The reviews

I prepared each recipe three times and shared them with three groups of taste-testers — my family, my neighbors and my colleague Louisa Chu, a Tribune food critic.

My family: “Surprisingly good,” my husband responded when I forced a still jiggly forkful of avocado pie on him. We both agreed, though, the pie needed to spend way more time in the oven than the 10 minutes the original recipe called for. My 7-year-old son, however, refused to take a bite.

The neighbors: Sharing a coffee table with a spinach, tomato and feta cheese pasta — whose recipe was inspired by a popular TikTok video — the avocado pie was a surprising hit with the adults assembled Sunday night to view a man dressed as Santa Claus, and pulled by a minivan, giving our Evanston block a rare, school-night opportunity to get together for some holiday cheer. Four members of one family gobbled up the hot dish and asked for the recipe. The kids preferred the Jell-O mold to the avocado pie, but were more interested in nibbling on the hot cocoa bar accoutrements. And, thankfully, no one got food poisoning from my efforts!

Chu’s review: “Tasting notes on a hot avocado Yule pie delight. Spoiler alert: It was not so delightful. Hot, or at least warmed through in the microwave, left the crust like a soft and chewy dog toy mouthed by a drooling puppy. A toaster oven would probably work better and be more historically correct. It’s surprisingly bready and the biscuit dough is so salty that it overwhelms any other flavor, unless you count the tang of chemical preservatives. The avocado never had a chance.

“Tasting notes on the Jell-O mold. Pale, creamy mint suggests Andes Candies, but the aroma hints at fruitiness. A little denser than expected — not necessarily a bad thing — with bits of pineapple, and canned pear? The maraschino cherry garnish offers a much needed textural contrast to the retirement home cafeteria line smoothness of it all. Makes me wish for an aggressively acidic key lime pie in a hand crushed graham cracker crust.”

So, are you brave enough to make and eat either of these vintage treats? Drop me a line — and a photo — if you do: krumore@chicagotribune.com. Happy holidays!

Sea Foam Salad

Prep time: 20 minutes

Yield: 8-10 servings using an 8-inch star-shaped cake pan

Ingredients:

15-ounce can of sliced pears

3-ounce package of lime gelatin

8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

Maraschino cherries for garnish

Directions:

Spray a metal pan with canola oil. (This will help release the mold after it has chilled.)

Drain juice from pears into a small saucepan and heat it until it boils.

In a bowl, pour pear juice over lime gelatin and stir until dissolved. Leave it to cool.

Mix cream cheese and two tablespoons whipping cream in another bowl until smooth.

Pour gelatin mixture into the bowl containing the cream cheese mixture and whisk or use an electric mixture to blend until smooth.

Place the bowl in the refrigerator for five minutes to chill until partially thickened.

Fold in well-drained, diced pears and 1 cup whipping cream.

Pour mixture into star-shaped mold and place back in the refrigerator to chill until firm.

To remove mold, delicately use a butter knife to loosen around the edges, then soak the bottom of the pan in hot water for five seconds. Place serving plate on top of pan and quickly flip both over. Gently jiggle pan to help mold release on to the plate.

Avocado Poinsettia Pie

Prep time: 20-30 minutes

Bake time: About 45 minutes

Yield: 8-10 servings

Ingredients:

16-ounce package of jumbo refrigerated biscuits

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

10.5-ounce can of cream of celery soup

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1 cup frozen green peas (thawed)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 avocado

1 lemon (original recipe called for lemon juice)

Pimento strips for garnish

Salt to taste

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Pat down six biscuits to cover the bottom of a 9-inch pie plate.

Slice remaining biscuits in half lengthwise to form skinnier rounds, then cut each round into two half-circles. Place each around the edges of the pie plate to form a scalloped shell.

Sprinkle one cup of cheese into shell.

Heat soup, basil, one tablespoon lemon juice and peas in a saucepan.

In a bowl, combine lightly beaten eggs with a dollop of the soup mixture to slowly incorporate. Then pour the egg mixture into saucepan with remaining soup mixture and stir. Cook about 3 minutes, and then add salt to taste.

Pour saucepan mixture into biscuit shell.

Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, or until the filling appears firm and the biscuits turn golden brown. (The original recipe said to cook for just 10 minutes, but that left the eggs uncooked and the biscuits raw.)

Meanwhile, cut the avocado into halves. Then, slice each half lengthwise into eighths.

Squirt avocado with lemon.

Place avocado pieces on top of pie in a pinwheel or poinsettia design.

Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese.

Return pie to oven for 2 minutes to melt cheese.

Garnish with pimento and serve hot.