Carle Vernet’s Boar Hunt: The Intersection of Sport and Art

By this stage in our journey through Susan’s part of the 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook, I was starting to think she really knew her stuff.

Looking back, that feels a bit naive.

She earned my trust early. The scalloped potatoes won me over with comfort, while the macaroni and cheese brought real substance—a quiet reassurance. Even the cheese soufflé, which I doubted, not only surprised me but changed my expectations. Sundays pulsed with a rhythm: old recipes, never ridiculous, always practical and fulfilling. Susan wasn’t flashy. She radiated capability: stern enough to command respect, her warmth barely flickering beneath the surface, but her competence always clear.

Things Start to Slip

Then came the baked eggs in cheese sauce.

That was the first jolt that things with Susan were shifting. It wasn’t a disaster—nothing burned or fell apart. But it wasn’t good; it sat there, dense and joyless, as if made by people who thought pleasure didn’t matter. Yet, one bad dish isn’t much. Every cook, cookbook, and era has an off day.

So last Sunday, we tried again.

This time, the recipe was Cheese-and-Onion Casserole. In theory, it sounds appealing. Cheese is a good start, onion means flavor, and casserole promises comfort—a golden, bubbling family meal served with pride.

But apparently, it can also mean a gray, defeated bread pudding with none of that promised charm—a dish left to sit and reckon bitterly with its own choices.

The ingredients should have warned us: day-old white bread, milk, minced onions, processed sharp cheddar, butter, and dry mustard. No eggs—more a warning than a mistake. This wasn’t a strata or fancy custard. It was bread soaked in milk, passing as a casserole.

But old cookbooks have a way of pushing you past your doubts. They don’t suggest; they tell you what to do. They assume you’re tough and don’t need help. If the recipe says to pour two cups of milk over buttered bread and melted cheese, you just do it, without stopping to wonder what will happen.

So that’s what we did.

We sautéed onions, melted cheese with salt, pepper, and mustard, buttered and layered bread, and poured milk over. But as it went into the oven, hope clashed with dread—a small voice urged optimism, while another whispered skepticism. Maybe this was a recipe that sounds bad but turns out great. Maybe 1963 knew what we didn’t. Or perhaps there was wisdom, invisible, buried in “day-old white-bread slices.”

There wasn’t.

What came out looked tired. Not a disaster, just worn out. It slumped in the dish, as if it had finished explaining itself. The bread soaked up all the milk. The cheese-and-onion mix tried to hold it together. It felt like everyone tried, but it wasn’t enough.

The Casserole That Ended Sunday Dinner

We served it anyway, because hope is stubborn and because adults who spend part of Sunday making an old casserole aren’t about to give up without at least pretending to be fair.

The first bite told us everything.

This wasn’t a recipe that just needed more salt. It couldn’t be saved by a side dish, hot sauce, or even low expectations. The problem was deeper. The texture was so soft that it made you question how we got here. The flavor wasn’t bad, which somehow made it worse. If a dish is going to fail, it should at least do it boldly. This one just sat there, damp, heavy, and oddly sure it belonged on the plate. There is a particular silence that arrives in a kitchen after a recipe has plainly failed. It is not an angry silence. It is not a sad silence. It is the silence of two people realizing they are now too old and too sane to keep eating something just because a cookbook published during the Kennedy administration told them to.

Frozen Pizza Restored Order

So we did what any reasonable people do when history disappoints them: we had frozen pizza.

And honestly, the frozen pizza had its perks. It didn’t ask us to admire how thrifty it was. It didn’t pretend to be part of some grand tradition. It didn’t make us try to enjoy failure. It just came out of the box, went into the oven, and did exactly what it promised. There’s something refreshingly honest about that. Frozen pizza might not be fancy, but at least it’s straightforward.

I think that was the real lesson of the night.

Until now, Susan seemed like a teacher from another era—strict but capable, sometimes surprising, often better than expected. But after two Sundays in a row, the shift was jarring: from trusted guide to someone lost in her own kitchen. The baked eggs, once a hallmark, disappointed first. This casserole wasn’t just a second loss—it was the kind that sends you in defeat to the freezer, hunting for something, anything, that might restore your trust.

Projects like this begin with romance. You picture old recipes as a form of secret wisdom. You imagine the past overflowing with skill and sense. Sometimes, that’s true. Sometimes you get scalloped potatoes that prove cream, starch, and patience mattered. Sometimes you get a cheese soufflé that exceeds its era.

And sometimes, you get a soggy bread-and-onion slab, a dish so tired it puts all memory of past compromises on your plate and makes you confront every faded hope for supper.

To be fair to Susan, the recipe makes sense in its own context. Avoiding waste wasn’t just good—it was necessary. Stale bread wasn’t just old bread; it was tomorrow’s casserole. Cheese made things feel less harsh. Milk was always around, used whether it fit or not. This was cooking for economy, not for pleasure. It was for people who didn’t expect food to be exciting, just to show up at six and feed four people.do a little more than that.

I’d like dinner, overall, to taste good.

So the journey goes on, even as Susan slumps and my trust wavers. We’ll be back next Sunday, because this project requires it, and because cooking from an old book shows not just what people ate, but what they endured. Lately, it seems quite a lot.

Yet, I can’t help feeling affection for it all. A failed recipe tells its truth with raw honesty, sometimes more powerfully than the successes. The good dishes flatter the past; the bad ones force us to see it, unvarnished and alive.

Last Sunday, that explanation came in a casserole dish.

And then, thankfully, in a pizza box.

If you decide to make Cheese-and-Onion Casserole yourself, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Cheese-and-Onion Casserole

From the 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook

Ingredients

• 1 cup minced onions
• 1/4 cup shortening or salad oil
• 2 cups grated processed sharp Cheddar cheese, 1/2 lb.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 7-day-old white-bread slices
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 cups milk

Directions
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sauté onions in fat until golden. Add cheese, salt, pepper, and mustard, and cook, stirring, until cheese is melted. Remove from heat.

Spread bread slices with butter. In a 1 1/2 quart casserole, alternate layers of bread and cheese. Pour on milk. Bake uncovered 1 hour. Makes 4 servings.

You have been warned.