Do you ever drive past houses and wonder what the people in them are up to?  I like to think that all the people behind the curtains in my neighborhood are doing cool and interesting things, but the boring truth is that they're probably just watching American Idol. 

We, on the other hand, are weirdoes.  Nobody in my house has ever even seen an episode of American Idol.  In fact, we have become those annoying people who have cancelled their cable and bore everybody at dinner parties by talking about how much they don't miss regular TV.  It could be worse - we could be the couple who look down their noses at you and make sure you know they wouldn't even dream of having a TV in the house at all.  (We have to have a TV because otherwise the furniture would all point in the wrong direction.)  Instead, we signed up for the 7-at-a-time Netflix plan and hooked up a computer to our TV set so we can watch Jack Benny and Jimmy Durante online in comfort and style.

So recently we were watching The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (excuse me, the Carnation Evaporated Milk George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Brought to You by Carnation Evaporated Milk - From Contented Cows!  And now a word from our sponsor, Carnation Evaporated Milk!) and, as usual, the show stops right in the middle to make sure you know all about what you could be doing right this minute with Carnation Evaporated Milk!  The action of the show comes to a halt while Gracie takes a tray of custard cups out of the oven to show you this amazing custard she made with the recipe in this week's Life magazine!  (It's the one with Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower on the cover!  Go tear it out right now and buy some Carnation Evaporated Milk!)  By the time they were done eating the stuff, they'd made us want the custard so much I agreed to use the bound Periodicals collection to find the recipe and make it.

Click the title of this post to find out how I found the recipe and how it turned out!
Gracie made absolutely sure I saw what the cover looked like, of course.  (Wouldn't want to miss our chance to buy some Carnation Evaporated Milk, would we?)  I didn't know what year I was looking for, but I knew the cover photo was Dwight Eisenhower's wedding picture.  Did you know that even though Life is dead and gone, you can still go on their Web site and search photos?  I just went to life.com and typed "Dwight Eisenhower" into the big photo search bar at the top of the page.  There are a lot of Ike photos, but it was easy to narrow them down to just the ones including both Dwight and Mamie using the sidebar links.  The one I was looking for is the cover for April 28, 1952.  (By the way, Mamie was quite the hottie on her wedding day, and Ike wasn't so bad either.)

Now, I happen to know that in Periodicals we have Life archived as bound volumes.  We like to have magazines like that bound rather than microfilmed when possible, because the color pictures and advertisements are so important.  Unfortunately, the quality of the paper stock they used in these magazines combined with their age means that they tend to be fragile, so be careful if you come to take a look at them!  All I had to do was find the April 1952 volume and flip through the pages until I found the recipe I was looking for. 

Aha!



The housewife in the upper left is dismayed and distraught because her custard is gross and ugly.  She should be ashamed of herself.  She didn't make it with Carnation Evaporated Milk like Mrs. Perfect, her neighbor, whose husband loves her and whose children don't want to kill her for being an incompetant custardess.  Who would you rather be?

I apologize, by the way, that my cooking photographs didn't come out.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

For six medium custards (I'm assuming my ramekins are "medium", but with an old recipe who knows?) we're going to need 4 eggs, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 2/3 cups of Carnation Evaporated Milk, which I measured out to still be one large can (normally I'd buy store brand, but I think an uncontented cow would probably come rampaging through my kitchen if I did that) and 2/3 cup water. 

That's evaporated milk, by the way, not condensed milk.  Half of you are wondering who on earth would be stupid enough to use the wrong one.  The other half have done it before and are underlining the word "evaporated" on their shopping lists.

The ingredients and technique seem pretty standard, which is a relief.  I was afraid any 50's recipe was contractually required to feature either Cream of Soup or some sort of congealed gelatin substance.  I've never known a time when you couldn't go down to the grocery store and pick up some goat cheese and sundried tomatoes, so I'm a little wary of any midcentury recipe that doesn't come from Julia Child.  This seems pretty safe, though, so let's give it a go.

(Lest you think me too cautious, let me tell you that in the same volume there are ads that have recipes for "Thrifty Drumstick Surprise," wherein the surprise is that they aren't drumsticks, and "Frankfurter Casserole," which is hot dogs swimming in canned tomato sauce with sliced bell peppers on top, not waving but drowning.)

Here's how it goes: you beat the eggs, sugar and salt together, and then beat the rest of the stuff in too.  Even Gracie could handle this level of complexity.  Then you pour it into your custard cups or ramekins or whatever you've got that's oven safe and put the cups in a pan.  Sprinkle some nutmeg on the top. I added bourbon to half of them, too, because everybody loves bourbon.  I hear it comes from contented corn.

Pour some hot water in the pan (if you're playing along at home, this is called a bain marie if you're a 50's housewife and haven't had the chance to read Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which doesn't come out for ten more years.)  Carefully put the whole thing in a 350 degree oven, which the recipe forgot to tell you to preheat, and bake 40 to 45 minutes or "until a silver knife comes out clean." 

I don't have a silver knife, so we'll have to trust the prognosticative properties of stainless steel.  I also don't own a frilly apron and my pearls are off to be restrung, so I suppose I failed before we even began.

At 45 minutes, mine were still... not set.  In fact, they look just as liquid as they were when they went in there.  Uh-oh.

At 55 minutes, I thought they seemed a little more solid.  Maybe.  I was really starting to worry about them at this point.

An hour and five in the oven and hope is taking the last train out of town.  Ol' Stainless and I had to just decide that they were as done as they were going to get - the knife came out almost clean, and the custards didn't jiggle.  We waited for them to cool and regarded them with a certain amount of trepidation, since they were in the oven almost twice as long as directed.

And they were.... really good!  Not good enough to stop George and Gracie with special guest Jack Benny in their tracks, mind you.  I think we could have just gone on with the show.  But good!  They're very light, and we liked the not-too-sweet eggy flavor.  It's insanely easy, and it feels kind of special.  I'd say it all came out all right in the end.  (The bourbon ones are absolutely dreamy, but the texture was a little grainier - keep them for yourself and serve the guests the ones without!)

I looked online to see if Carnation had a similar modern recipe to compare, and they do.  In fact, it's almost exactly the same, except there's more sugar in it.  I recommend the 1952 version - it's has a more authentic custardy taste and doesn't need to be any sweeter.

Well, Carnation is probably happy - it's been 57 years and they still got a sale out of their ad.  And I think I'll make it again, albeit with milk from bitter, mean old cows instead.  I have no idea why it took so long, but I'm happy with the result.

To make a long story short, this is what some of us are doing behind the curtains when you drive by in the evening.  Weren't you happier before you knew?

If you'd like to take a look at some of the great magazines we have in our bound collection, drop by Periodicals in the Main Library!