You just finished reading your April 1958, issue of House and Garden and you are inspired. This way of cooking with all of the convenience foods available is motivating. It’s about time YOU throw a party. You and your husband are now settled into that beautiful, low-mortgage, little tract home of your dreams with a modern kitchen that has a dishwasher and a great big range with enough room between the burners to set your new blender.

Thinking of throwing a dinner party, you keep in mind the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1953) prelude that reminds you, “Of course you’re a busy lady that’s why we have a section of jiffy meals that rival the kind that take hours to prepare (you get a head start with packaged, canned, and frozen foods).” Canned duck and canned wild rice are on the shelf, but you still don’t know since your hubby’s Boss is coming to this party. What should you start with? There’s that lovely beet soup recipe, made from pureed baby food that you ran across in an April 1952 copy of House Beautiful. And, your bomb shelter in the basement is full of cream soups. You could use them to make Chicken Divan or Lobster Thermidor or Beef Stroganoff. As that thought captivates you, you have this vision that a future U.S. president (J.F.K.) will have a chef (Rene’ Verdon) that will, too, use canned soup in his rendition of Beef Stroganoff. Frozen buttered peas would be an excellent side dish. Since the elegant Baked Alaska is showing up on dessert tables everywhere, you may just want to open a can of fruit cocktail as an alternative.

But, you know men love their meat so much that maybe you shouldn’t have a dinner party. Maybe you should have a Bar-B-Que. And, men love to Bar-B-Que. James A. Beard and Helen Evans Brown said it best (or nicest), in The Complete Book of Outdoor Cookery (1955) - “Men love it, for it gives them a chance to prove that they are, indeed, fine cooks. The ladies can do the planning and the marketing, the preparation and the hostessing, but the man will do the actual cooking over the coals.” Men love steak, and magazines everywhere are promoting it - from Look (dubbing the ‘50’s the protein era) to McCall’s (proclaiming: Eat meat to lose weight). What side dishes to serve? Since potato salad is a little “old-fashioned and dull,” try making a three-bean salad (comprised of mostly canned ingredients) as the advertisers called it, “The salad men love!”

Or, maybe you want to go more care free. How about a cocktail party? Your friends like their martinis and usually don’t serve much more than peanuts at their parties, but you do like to cook (in this modern, sort of gourmet-way). So make some finger food. How about some chips with the clam dip recipe you first saw on the Kraft Music Hall television show? Just make sure you purchase those canned clams well in advance because since that airing, New York City sold out of canned clams within 24 hours. Even in Harrisburg, you can’t take those sort of chances. A cheese ball is a favorite and you’ll be sure to dazzle the guests with the colorful bright orange processed cheese rolled in a nutty mixture and sprinkled with parsley and paprika. Remember, food must also be attractive. And, since men love their meat, how about a Spam party loaf, or, that “recipe” you recently saw for bologna layered with cream cheese and cut in wedges?

OK, you thought long enough. Now it’s April 1998 and you’ve finally decided what kind of party to throw. It is going to be a cocktail party, but at the local martini bar - you and your guests will just graze through varieties of brick oven pizza topped with wild mushrooms and drizzled with truffle oil, savory Spanish tapas, and east-meets-west fusion delicacies. Now, how much more convenient can you get than that? And, much more than that, how much more delightful? But the one question remains, how many men really do still love their meat?