Introducing Vintage Retro Old-School Food Photography of Yesteryear: Venison Rolls

I have decided to begin posting new old food photos on a regular basis, perhaps even daily. I'm not going to stop posting about other things but this should make for more regular content on the blog, which might please those readers who have been frustrated by the lagging pace of my posting. I was going to start a second blog for these pictures but I decided against it purely on a gut feeling that it's better this way. I am too lazy to type in recipes to accompany all of these shots but if you want one just send me an e-mail and I'll take the trouble for you (if you'll be my best friend, natch).

If the point of all this isn't immediately evident from the image above, here's why I'm doing this: I love, nay, lurve vintage food photography, especially in color. I don't think it's kitschy or ridiculous. I'm not into the so-bad-it's-good thing. I love irony almost as much as the next overeducated wannabe hipster, but this ain't the place for it. I wouldn't post a picture of food I wouldn't eat just to show you how outrageous it is. If something is outrageous, it has to be that delicious, impressive sort of outrageous. (For the record, I have no idea when yesteryear ends and the present begins. Feel free to opine in the comments.)

This picture is in The New Complete Book of Cookery (New York: Weathervane Books, 1970), p. 159. I am in total awe of the before-and-after motif, with the mounted deerhead bearing mute witness to a feast of its very flesh. If you think selective focus is some newfangled idea in food photography, this should convince you otherwise. I'm also impressed by how dark and moody the lighting is, a quality shared by many of the shots in this book, which are credited to Ben Ericksson.

(food photography of yesteryear)