Vincent Price, standing in a wine cellar significantly less murky than the ones from his Corman movies

Like avocado refrigerators and Ginsu knives, food photos don’t age well. The colors fade to ghastly, corpselike shades, and food tastes and trends change, so that herring in aspic that may have looked mouthwatering in 1954 becomes nausea-inducing in 2015. This is one of the weird reasons I collect old cookbooks. Pictures of anemic pork roasts make me laugh, and I’m not the only one.

With this in mind, a friend found me a copy of A Treasury of Great Recipes by Vincent Price and his wife, Mary. Vincent and Mary Price were skilled amateur chefs, and they traveled the world eating great food at great restaurants and inns and collecting recipes. They brought the recipes home to share with friends, and, as with their efforts to make art and design more available to the middle class, they cooked the recipes many times to adapt them to American kitchens with only one or two cooks and more modest budgets.

The book, published in 1965 and beautifully laid out, is organized into sections for different areas of the world, and recipes are interspersed with photos, copies of menus, and delightful stories from the Prices. Many of the dishes wouldn’t appeal to modern American tastes (I’m looking at you, Scandinavia section), and time has somehow made the photos both garish and livid, but that just makes the book more of a treasure.

Pam and I love to throw theme parties—her Mexican wrestler costume birthday party was a particular favorite—so naturally we made this book the centerpiece of a New Year’s celebration. We picked a few gems from the recipes and served them up while showing our favorite Vincent Price movies. In the tradition of Vincent and Mary Price, we’ll share what we learned.

This is the only way you’d get me to a baseball game

Vincent Price Loved Hot Dogs

Vincent Price rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous and ate gourmet food from all over the world, but never lost his love of the classic American hot dog. Stealing the idea of “scallops three ways” or “steak three ways” from Top Chef and other cooking shows, we prepared all three hot dog recipes from the collection, using beef, turkey, and tofu dogs just for fun.

It was no surprise that the Stuffed Frankfurters were the favorites, because they’re stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon. The Western Franks—hot dogs cooked in a spicy sauce with pineapple juice, molasses, and chili sauce and eaten either with a knife and fork or (Vincent’s preference) in a bun with extra napkins—were the second favorite. Our guests were initially unsure about the Frankfurter Skewers—cocktail franks in teriyaki marinade on skewers with tomatoes, mushrooms, and green peppers—but gamely ate them anyway.

Just making sure there are no human body parts in the soup

Eggs Are a Lot Bigger Now

The year 1965 screamed “fondue” to us, so we made the cheese sauce from the Welsh Rabbit recipe and served it in a fondue pot. (Price acknowledges the argument between those who call it “rabbit” and those who call it “rarebit,” but goes for the populist option.) The texture was ghastly—kind of like lumpy, bright-orange paste. One guest, a professional chef, explained that large eggs are much larger now than they were in 1965, and she was fairly certain the size of our egg yolks was what had thrown off the recipe. Despite her best efforts and a lot of white wine, the sauce was beyond saving. The flavor was excellent, though, for those brave enough to eat it.

That’s a very obedient poodle

It’s Gotten Harder to Light Food on Fire

The recipe we were most excited about was Banana Pancake Flambé Stonehenge, which is basically bacon and bananas wrapped in crepes and set on fire with banana liqueur. We were disappointed to learn that we wouldn’t be arranging the bananas and crepes into a mini-Stonehenge, but even more disheartened when we assembled everyone on the back deck for the Grand Lighting of the Bananas—my husband, Captain Safety, wouldn’t let us do it in the house—and our banana liqueur wouldn’t ignite. With some Google Fu we discovered that banana liqueur of 1965 was about three times more potent than the modern version, so we tossed that aside and sent my husband to the all-night liquor store two or three times for ever-stronger types of alcohol. Bacardi 151 finally got the bananas burning, but rendered them inedible.

Vincent Price tasting soup with a guy who is probably not Vladimir Putin

Anything Tastes Better with “Come Again” Rum Punch

The Prices’ recipe for Hanaho “Come Again” Rum Punch was sweet enough to both induce diabetic coma and mask the incredibly large amount of alcohol it contains. In the introduction to the recipe, Price says he’s not sure if the “come again” name means “come again to our house” or “come again with the rum punch,” but after a glass or two, we decided it was probably the more X-rated meaning of “come again.” We’ll never know for sure, but it gave several people enough strength to try the Frankfurter Skewers and coagulated cheese fondue.