Beef Stew by Dolores Stargell - from "A Treasure Chest of Pirate Recipes" (1971)

RECIPE

1 lb. beef stew chunks or 1 lb. ground steak 

1/2 cup flour

salt, pepper, garlic salt

1 small onion

2 green onions

1 envelope Lipton's Beef Flavor Gravy Soup

1/2 cup cooking oil

1/2 small bell pepper

1 1/2 cups water

*rice or noodles, as suggested below

Flour and season meat with spices, then brown meat with cooking oil at medium high heat in skillet.

Pour off almost all oil and add dry soup and water.  Add chopped onions and bell pepper.  Simmer until meat is tender about 1-1/2 hours.

Serve over rice or noodles.

Wilver Stargell, aka Willie, aka Pops, a Pittsburgh Pirates legend.

In 1971, Stargell was approaching the midpoint of his 21-year career, all of it played in the Burgh. He led the NL in home runs with 48, and was named NL Player-of-the-Month twice as he led his club to the division title and World Series.

By decade's end, Stargell would be one of the faces of the franchise.  He was the clubhouse leader who introduced the "Stargell Stars" that were awarded after a good game or key play.  These stars can be seen on most Pirate players' caps in the late 70s.

Here we have one of the dishes that gave Pops his pop.  

This beef stew is warm and comforting, and I served it over some wide egg noodles as suggested by Dolores Stargell.  Coating the meat with flour before browning elevates the comfort level.  As you can see, the recipe is flat-out simple and the only thing that takes time is the simmering.

I wasn't able to find an exact envelope of "Lipton's Beef Flavor Gravy Soup" but any powdered gravy mix will do.  The end result was delicious.  

Hang a Stargell Star on this one!

Mystery Pie by Shirley Virdon - from "A Treasure Chest of Pirate Recipes" (1971)

 

RECIPE

Mix together:

20 Ritz Crackers (rolled very fine)

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup chopped nuts

Then:

beat 3 egg whites very stiff

add 1/2 cup sugar and

3/4 tsp. vanilla

Fold in other ingredients.

Place in buttered 9" pie pan.  Bake in 350F oven for 35 minutes.  Cool.

Topping:

whip 1/2 pint whipping cream

add 3 tsp. powdered sugar

Spread on cooled pie shell.  Top with slivered chocolate (optional).  Chill for 2 hours before serving.

NOTE: Pie shell may be made 24 hours before serving.

It's a mystery! / C'est un mystère!

Crumbly on the outside, gooey on the inside.

This recipe was provided by Shirley Virdon, whose husband Bill was a longtime Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder and one of the coaches of the 1971 team. (The following season, he would succeed Danny Murtaugh as manager.)

This is one of those vintage recipes that probably appeared in magazines and community cookbooks for decades.  The ingredients are all items that would have been found in most households, and the preparation is simple.

Funny enough, the finished pie did not have any of that buttery Ritz flavour to it.  Like I said, it was very crumbly on the outside -- the photo above shows my desperate effort to get a clean slice onto a plate.  Inside however, it's all sweet and gooey with a bit of texture provided by the nuts.

Would I serve this to guests today?  Oh gosh no.  This is one of those desserts that should be trapped in time like an artifact, something to be appreciated but not really something for the present day.  There are better things to do with Ritz crackers anyway.

Lobster Vinaigrette by Delia Pagán - from "A Treasure Chest of Pirate Recipes" (1971)

 

RECIPE

1 lb. lobster tail

1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup vinegar

1 tsp. salt

1 small onion - chopped

4 hard boiled eggs - diced

1 green cayenne pepper - diced

Boil 2 cups of water and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.  Add lobster.  Let stand 5 minutes.

Remove and cut into chunks.

Mix olive oil, vinegar, salt, onion, pepper and eggs.  Pour over lobster chunks.

Refrigerate and serve chilled.

Puerto Rican infielder José Pagán played 15 seasons in the majors, starting with the San Francisco Giants in 1959, then moving to Pittsburgh in a trade in 1965.

Pagán was the hero of the 1971 World Series against Baltimore.  In the eighth inning of Game 7, he doubled to drive in the game-winning RBI and secure a place in Pirates lore.

After one more season in the Burgh, he signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia Phillies for one season, and retired in 1973.

There are two approaches you could take to preparing this appetizer. Either get ahold of genuine lobster tails as directed in the recipe, or find some packages of lobster meat already scooped from the tail (it's cheaper and the meat is ready to use). Another substitution I made was to use a shallot instead of a small onion, just because I had shallots in the fridge.

The hot green pepper definitely adds some zip to this dish. If you don't have or don't want to use something that fiery, you can leave it out and splash the prepared dish with a few drops your favourite hot sauce instead. Delia Pagán's recipe definitely calls for something to balance out the mellowness of the lobster and eggs.

José Pagán came through for the Pirates at the end of the World Series, but here he leads off with a hit.

Bookshelf - "A Treasure Chest of Pirate Recipes" (1971) by the Pittsburgh Pirates

32 pp. paperback

33 recipes from the wives of players, coaches and management

The year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Pirates' fourth World Series championship. 

Those Pirates have been referred to as the team that changed baseball, because they were the first championship team to be fully integrated. Half of the players on the roster were either African American or Latin American.

In 1971 the club also published A Treasure Chest of Pirate Recipes, the slim volume pictured above. This cookbook has quickly become one of my favourites. Even though it contains fewer than three dozen recipes, they definitely reflect the multicultural makeup of the ballclub.

There are fancy appetizers and desserts, lots of soulful comfort food from popular American and Latin American cuisine, and some scary Jello-based salads too.

Over the course of the next 12 months I'll be preparing a bunch of these recipes and posting the results here. The lineup includes dishes from the kitchens of the Stargell, Ellis, Clemente, Blass, Oliver, Sanguillen and Grant families, and many more. Check out the food that fuelled the Pirates fifty years ago.