-I love how 1970's that photo is. Who want's to bet that the whipped cream is actually shaving cream?-
So a few weeks ago I was moderating a panel at BlogHer discussing the topic of vintage food, its value, and how to modernize it. Sounds nebulous, no? The best designers in the world can barely agree on whether a brass, claw footed lamp is, “Holy sh*t, that’s awesome!” or, “Holy sh*t, let’s burn it.” How then are food writers supposed to come to agreement on a jell-o salad? Cool or cliché? The term vintage is about to breathlessly collapse like a starving model due to running between every individual’s idea of what it is.
This isn’t to take into consideration the various aspects of vintage food that bloggers may want to consider: Does it affect SEO? Does blogging vintage food make you boring? Does tweaking or modernizing something make you a sellout or just creative? Do advertisers want to see retro or revamp?
It was a rather ornery beast to wrangle within 75 minutes and I’m not sure that I and the two distinguished panelists I got to work with were able to give a lot of answers except that there is intrinsic value in vintage.
Heck, we couldn’t really even agree on a definition of vintage due to the very subjective nature of the subject.
-Instagram, I gotta hand it to you on making vintage-style pics.-
When I went to China I met a woman in the Hutongs of Beijing. She was a darling girl and a Cultural Ambassador for the city. Her duties entailed meeting foreigners and discussing her personal history, her life in the Hutongs, enlightening us to the Beijing culture, and nourishing visitors with her own home cooking. I was lucky enough to taste one of these meals and detailed it online. In addition, I provided a greater context for Beijing-style cuisine, which is that it’s one of convenience and economy and that baking is practically non-existent (to insultingly break it down into one sentence). This is because the typical Chinese home does not have an oven of any kind as baking is probably the most energy inefficient way of cooking when compared to almost any other method.
The meal - at least, as I saw it - was incredibly authentic and quite vintage in that she had learned it from her own grandmother.
When I shared the information she gave me on a website I was working for the first e-mail I received was one stating that a few of these dishes were not authentic Chinese cuisine. Obviously, or so this reader said, they were classic and centuries old Vietnamese dishes that had been modernized a few hundred years ago by Vietnamese immigrants who moved to China.
So then, was the recipe vintage Chinese or revamped Vietnamese?
-Or is it Ancient Hmong or Modern Laotian?-
As for the baking? Well, baking does exist in Beijing-style cuisine. However, that’s only if there is a community oven available or if you’re rather wealthy. The bulk of Beijing’s citizenry do not have access to a community oven, do not have their own, and are middle class at best. Some purchase toaster ovens, but even that is rare. Most baked goods are prepared at restaurants. So, for the average Beijing home cook there is little to no baking occurring in his or her kitchen.
So as we can see the term vintage is hard to pin down for a number of reasons.
So what’s my definition of a vintage recipe? Probably these recipe cards of that my grandmother on my mother’s side, Sybil Capune, put together. Yellowed cards with recipes from magazine and boxes clipped and adhered with the universe’s most age-resistant glue, or recipes from her friends or of her own creationhandwritten in her antiquated and tight script. Some I have no idea if she tested or used. The only promises therein are ones with stains or where the clipped recipes have notes or annotations.
You’ve seen some of her recipes on this site before. Her banana cookie recipe is rather famous now, actually.
Still, one of my favorites is this one. Oreo cream pie. It’s originally Nabisco’s recipe, but I consider it mine. Grandma used it sparingly and my mom used it for almost every Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s kitschy and uses only butter, Oreos, cream, milk, and marshmallows. It’s pretty much one of the most unhealthiest and over-processed foods in existence. If Kate Moss were to so much as look at it she would stroke right the f*** out.
-I'm not sure why I'm focusing on models. Probably because eating this certainly won't help me become one.-
Can’t say I care, though. There’s too much memory wrapped up in this recipe for me. It tastes like my childhood on mornings the day after Thanksgiving when my brothers and I would sneak a piece for breakfast (only learning that mom and dad has very late seconds the night before after everyone had left or gone to bed). I think the Slow Food/Anti-GMO crowd will forgive me this one vintage recipe. It’s my heritage, after all; and there's simply no replacement for it.
Plus, don’t we all have something like this. A culinary anchor to our simpler days when days were spent running outside and the worst thing we feared from each other were cooties?
This Oreo cream pie is nothing but a fat-heavy sugar bomb. It tastes so good because of that. A wondrous, and floofy treat that will strike you smitten if not thrown into lust. You can almost feel your arteries screaming with every bite but that’s okay because the worship from your taste buds pretty much drowns that noise right out.
It’s not just a pie to me. It is THE PIE.
Plus, it’s so vintage and vintage is in right now. Good excuse as any, right?
Oreo Cream Pie
Makes 1 9-inch pie
41 Oreo cookies
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
24 marshmallows
1/2 cup whole milk*
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Roughly chop 10 of the Oreos and set them aside. In a food processor or using a rolling pin finely grind the remaining Oreo cookies into a sandy consistency. Mix ground Oreos with the butter and press into the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie plate. Place in the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour.
2. In a 2 quart sauce pan place the marshmallows and milk. Place over medium heat and mix with a spatula until melted and smooth. Do not leave unattended as mixture can easily scorch. Take off heat.
3. Whisk the heavy whipping cream and vanilla together until it forms stiff peaks. Fold 2 cups of the whipped cream into the marshmallow mixture. Fold in the chopped Oreos. Spoon into the chilled pie crust. Chill for 4 hours. Pipe on remaining whipped cream and add extra Oreos for garnish if desired before serving.
*You can use skim, but, really, why? You're already melting marshmallows with it so the healthy option is long gone.
