Lea was losing it and Perrins was a punk!

I hope you're sitting down because today I am amping up the excitement!

Yes, it's the Lea & Perrins Exciting Ideas Cookbook (undated, but a note in the back says the company hasn't "varied Lea & Perrins Sauce in over 130 years," which would mean this is from the late '60s or early '70s). Of course, the Worcestershire sauce company wants everyone to know that there are plenty more uses for the sauce than a rib and kabob marinade or a Bloody Mary seasoner.

If you have expensive tastes, you can use it to ruin perfectly good caviar for an appetizer:

To be fair, though, stuffing celery with caviar-laced egg salad as a variation of ants-on-a-log that would seem to have no target audience is the real problem. I'm not sure how much a teaspoon of Lea & Perrins will mitigate (or worsen) the situation. You'll just have the kids wondering why there's no yummy peanut butter and the adults wondering why you didn't spring for blini and creme fraiche or at least toast points and hard cooked eggs with lemon.

The less expensive mistaken appetizer is the Lea & Perrins version of Guacamole:

Yes, in addition to the tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, this calls for double the amount of "catsup." And that little asterisk means this recipe is fine to make ahead of time, so I'm sure a few '70s party guests had to endure bowls full of brownish, ketchup-y guac if their hosts had this recipe book. Yay!

The onion, garlic, chili pepper, and anchovy-based sauce isn't just good for savory dishes, according to the booklet. It's also an asset for sweet sides:

As if layers of sweet potatoes baked with bananas and corn syrup aren't weird enough, throw in some Lea & Perrins! And hell, throw in some coconut while you're at it.

At least Yam-Brosia doesn't look too scary if you mentally edit out the bottle of Lea & Perrins hovering menacingly above the bananas.

Or for even sweeter Lea & Perrins action, throw it in a classic fruit salad:

It starts out fine: a classic combo of apples, pear, banana, and walnuts. Celery and mayonnaise? I'm firmly in the NO WAY for fruit salad camp, but some people seem okay with it. I hope we can all agree that garlic and fish juice just DOES NOT BELONG, though. Please, help me hold on to a shred of hope for humanity and affirm that this is just not right.

No matter how innocent Fruit Bowl Salad may look, please join me in staring disapprovingly at this picture so it will know that this kind of behavior on the part of Lea & Perrins is not acceptable.