My mind is spiralling madly out of control in this vortex called nostalgia. Every Christmas sound, sight, and smell stirs memories, some real, some imaginary, of Christmases past.

            I have held onto one memory that has haunted me for too many years and I thought perhaps this year I should lay it to rest. I can remember clearly the taste of a pie called Nesselrode. I know it was called Nesselrode because I also have an acute memory of a pudding box labelled “Nesselrode.” I’m not sure where this box was; in my mother’s cupboard or my grandmother’s. Maybe it wasn’t even my memory, but a memory stolen from a Donna Reed show. But no, I must have eaten it, because I can recall the sweet, buttery, nutty flavour. It’s either that, or I have an imagination to rival Stephen King’s!

            The pudding/pie itself is no mystery. I can find recipes for it in my Joy of Cooking and on the internet. The authentic version of this rich, custard dessert was created in the mid-1800s by the chef of a Russian diplomat, Count Nesselrode. By the 1950s, it had been adopted by high-end New York restaurants as a must-have dessert.

            What makes a Nesselrode an authentic Nesselrode is the presence of candied chestnuts and chestnut puree (NOT horse chestnuts) along with candied fruits and maraschino cherries and rum flavouring. It was frozen in either a pie crust or served as a pudding, often reserved as a Christmas treat. This rich and decadent dessert went the way of the old steak houses and is rarely remembered anymore except by obsessive people like myself.

            I was more curious to find out if the stuff ever came in a powder form as in the box I am sure I saw in someone’s cupboard. We were not what you would call an avant-garde sort of family; meatloaf was generally followed by desserts of the tapioca or rice pudding ilk. There had to have been a popular “Insta-Nesselro” available in the ‘50s.

            Time to pull out the vintage magazines I have collected: Gourmet and Good Housekeeping (GH). They come in handy, especially the GH ones that date from the months just before I was born. Whenever I have these déjà vu moments, I count on them to prove I was right or, more often, completely bonkers.

            Thumbing through the pages, it was hard to ignore some of the unintentional humour. From GH I learned that women in the early ‘50s were all abuzz because they had just figured out that they could have more than one phone in their home:

             “She’s so lucky…has 3 phones! First woman: Really! Where! Second woman: In the kitchen, den and bedroom. She says she couldn’t do without them—they save her time and so many steps.”

            I also reaffirmed that magazine editors must have thought we were absolute morons. In an article, “Short cuts to easier housekeeping,” I discovered that I could cut my dusting time in half if I were to “Dust with a dustcloth in each hand.”

             I just can’t go on!

            But although I did learn at least 30 ways to use canned peaches, I could not find a single mention of instant Nesselrode; apparently too uptown for GH chicks.

            Thinking, “more uptown,” I turned to some old Gourmet magazines circa 1952-59., and bingo, I got as close as I was likely to get. I found ads for “Nesselro” a Nesselrode sauce made of marrons (that’s Italian chestnuts) and candied fruits in a rum sauce.

             There was an address to send away for more information, which caused me to ponder another question that has plagued me for eons: what happens if you mail a contest entry or recipe request from one of those old magazines. Do the letters go into some sort of parallel postal universe?

            On a mad whim, I went back to the internet and called up “Raffetto,” the company name and found that this product was still available by email (that other parallel universe.) Tempting, but not exactly what I was looking for. And although I had not found the mystery package of my memories, this little exercise has managed to exorcise the pudding demon from my brain.

            This is why I should never watch movies like the “Stepford Wives.” I already have enough wild imagination and dreams full of Donna Reeds dressed in Donna Reed dresses and white gloves, to drive the sanest housewife mad.