It’s not often Don Draper is cooking, so we noticed when he makes corned beef hash one night in his kitchen in Ossining.
Shortly after Don and Betty’s third child, Eugene, is born, Sally wanders into the kitchen to find Don frying some meat, diced potatoes, and onions in a cast-iron skillet. Betty is still in the hospital, so Don must fend for himself.
“What are you making?” she asks.
“A snack,” replies Don.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” she says.
“Mommy’s much better at it,” Don admits, cracking an egg and adding it to the mixture.
Like Don, few professional men knew their way around a kitchen in the 1960s. They might cook a steak on the grill, but they weren’t in the kitchen making soufflés or roast chicken. The simple corned beef hash Don is cooking up was likely the extent of his culinary skills. It is likely he even took the mixture straight from a can, as many did in the ’60s.
“I believe that the ability to prepare and serve good food and attractive meals is a delightful feminine virtue,” wrote Amy Vanderbilt in Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Cookbook (1961) (emphasis added). “The men in our family were all quite sure of their roles as men, which in my opinion is the way it should be. My father and my grandfather were never to be found in the kitchen mixing a cake.” Nor, we suppose, making Miss Vanderbilt’s corned beef hash recipe, on which ours is based.
Hash refers to the cooking of various odds and ends and comes from the French word hacher, which means to chop. According to The Encyclopedia of North American Eating and Drinking Traditions, Customs and Rituals by Kathlyn and Martin Gay (ABC-CLIO, 1996), “Corned beef hash...probably has its origins in being a palatable combination of leftovers. In the nineteenth century, restaurants serving inexpensive meals—precursors to today’s diners—became known as ‘hash houses.’ By the early 1900s, corned beef hash was a common menu item in these places.”
Though corned beef hash was more often served for breakfast, we understand why a new father, even one with two other children, might make a late-night snack of it: it’s easy and delicious, especially when it’s not right out of a can.
ADAPTED FROM AMY VANDERBILT’S COMPLETE COOKBOOK BY AMY VANDERBILT (DOUBLEDAY, 1961)
3 tablespoons butter or bacon fat
2 cups coarsely ground or finely ground corned beef
3 cups finely chopped boiled potatoes
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1⁄4 cup milk
Quick grind freshly ground black pepper
Eggs, for serving, if desired
YIELD: 6 SERVINGS
A BUSY EXECUTIVE LIKE DON DRAPER, OR A BUSY HOUSEWIFE LIKE BETTY , DIDN’T ALWAYS HAVE TIME TO COOK UP CORNED BEEF HASH FROM SCRATCH. CANNED VERSIONS, SUCH AS HORMEL FOODS’ MARY KITCHEN® ROAST AND CORNED BEEF HASH, LIGHTENED THE LOAD.
CANS OF HORMEL FOODS’ MARY KITCHEN® ROAST AND CORNED BEEF HASH
