The Cursed Irish-Italian Spaghetti – A Mid-Century Recipe Test and Tale - Mid-Century Menu (2024)

Oh How I love your Posts!!!

Oh, man, I’m now afraid I’m going to get sick just by reading this! That aside, I am trying to figure out what the “Irish” is supposed to be in this recipe.

I have a recipe for beef stroganoff which is pretty similar, except that it uses sour cream instead of the cream of mushroom soup and thin strips of leftover medium rare beef instead of hamburger. It dates back to 1955, when it was a restaurant favorite at a nice place near my folks house in Denver. I’ve been enjoying Tom immensely. He’s a real hero to try those ’50’s gelatin salads. My MIL would put anything in gelatin, top it with mayo/sour cream/cream cheese and call it “Surprise Delight”. Surprise, yes; delight, not so much.

i didn’t get why they said it was “irish” ……. it sounds like normal spaghetti made with that bland watery dollar store canned sauce ….. youd of thought it would of had corned beef or even ground lamb something in it ..

Seriously? I was expecting something involving big strips of corned beef mingling with the noodles…

You’ve got it backwards. Full English includes mushrooms, full Irish can but it’s not a must.

But really, what makes it “Irish”? I expected finally chopped corn beef or something.

Well, I am proud of you honey because you didn’t let the recipe win!

I’ve wondered about that as well! I think I am going to have to contact Campbells. I thought about getting an old soup can, but I don’t think you were required to put the ingredients on labels until the 1950s or 1960s. And that might have just been for food additives, and may not have required all ingredients to be listed.
Or, it might have always have been this bland, and it’s our palates that have changed instead. So many possibilities!

Thanks!

Call me crazy but I thought this would be good! I’m going to have to try it regardless.

Your version of read stuff sounds almost like stuffed bell peppers- with the peppers chopped.

Jennifer Ron April 18, 2019 at 9:13 am

Here for my annual lamb cake check-in, but got excited when I saw this post. My mother in law frequently makes this dish – too frequently for my taste, but my husband loves it. I’m glad I’m not alone in concluding that Irish-Italian spaghetti is disappointing.

One of my all-time favorite dishes. I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember, (I’m 42 now)

The original dish probably tasted better because it had a lot more fat in it. It specifies browning onions in “hot fat,” which meant lard. A quick scan of 1940 grocery ads for ground beef finds there seemed to be three grades: regular at 11 cents/lb, “lean” for 15 cents and “A-1 bottom round” at 28c. I expect regular was something like a 75/25 grind.

I make a “no peek” stew that calls for tomato soup and cream of mushroom mixed and the end result after cooking for hours in the oven is a yummy taste. So, I was expecting to hear that this one tasted good. I wonder like another commenter if it could be missing fat content that once existed in meat. The beef I use has some marbling of fat. Thanks for sharing! I want to try it! But I won’t! *one eye winks

I am so glad I stumbled across your blog! I just love it!!!! PS- your husband is a really good sport.

This is the only spaghetti I ever had growing up. My grandmother started making it for her family of six kids and it was passed down. I had no idea it was from Better Homes and Gardens until I found out that another family from my hometown also grew up on it. I am beyond shocked and saddened by the end result and review of this awesome concoction. I wonder if you did not use enough of the spices or what could have happened. My family has always loved this. My daughter who is a vegan has creatively found a way for her to make it. I guess I’ll just chalk it up to people have different tastes and agree to disagree. But for my 40 plus years and three generations this has been the go to spaghetti sauce for us!!

This was the only spaghetti that my kids would eat when they were still living at home. They called it Memaw Lynda spaghetti because my mother-in-law was the only one in our world who knew it exist it existed! She had the cookbook that you have pictured here. I think that the fat content that Chef Fleisch mentioned along with the flavor of the soups does have an effect on it because it has never seemed as good to me as it did when my children were small, and I bought the higher fat vontent meat. (It was cheaper!) But tonight I saw your article and decided to make it again. Surely I had mushroom and tomato soup in the pantry. But as luck would have it, I had everthing except the tomato soup. So I substituted Organic Paesana Tomato and Basil sauce
and used only one-half of the 25 oz jar, added some garlic and surprise — it was very good! Not EXACTLY like the old stuff but close enough that you knew it was Memaw’s spaghetti. My kids would have been very happy.

Taste it after you season. I add more chili sauce. I use El Pato Mexican sauce. I also put Italian seasoning. Make it as spicy as you like. I also add more red pepper. Its a family favorite. You do need to taste to your liking. I hope you try again.

Actually, the hot fat is the 2 tablespoons of salad or olive oil listed right after the onion. But, it doesn’t say to drain after browning the beef, so there’s that.

SO I went and made this today. And it was awesome! I did add the spices at the end instead of in the meat before the sauce. I could really taste the spices. What is really good about it is the way the sauce clings to the noodles. mmmm

I made a vegan version of this with tofu crumbles in place of the ground beef, homemade sauces in place of the canned soups, and added a generous amount of garlic. Tasted great!