15 Foods And Drinks Loved By Lucille Ball

Let's be honest: Lucy Ricardo, the central character of "I Love Lucy," was not famed for her cooking skills. Fortunately, in real life, the actress who played her was far more competent in the kitchen. It's not surprising, given that Lucille Ball, beloved American comedian and actress, grew up cooking for her family. Her mother, DeDe Hunt, had a job as a hat seller and often wouldn't return home until the evening, so Ball was expected to have dinner on the table for everyone.

Even after she became a famous actress and star of "I Love Lucy," Ball still spent a lot of time cooking. We know this because she would regularly share her recipes in cookbooks and discuss her favorite dishes in interviews. Ball had her Ricardo-esque moments, though. Once, the iconic actress hosted a dinner party — but forgot to invite any guests.

More often than not, though, Ball succeeded with cooking and she was a big foodie. Find some of her favorite foods and drinks below, including crispy cookies, her own Chinese-inspired creations, and her classic, incredibly run-of-the-mill and unglamorous go-to sandwich.

In 1938, editor Fannie Sniff managed to pull together no less than 280 recipes from the rich and famous for her book "Famous Stars Favorite Foods." Ginger Rogers contributed her own Southern fried chicken recipe, while Cary Grant gave the instructions to his signature Crab Louie Sandwich. And Lucille Ball? She gifted her fans her very own salad dressing recipe, which included one particularly unique ingredient: ketchup.

To make Ball's favorite salad dressing, you have to start by boiling sugar and water together and then cooling the mixture down. Next, combine it with grated onions, garlic, vinegar, and lemon juice, as well as celery salt, dry mustard, and catsup. Fun fact: Catsup was the original word for ketchup.

Ball would mix the catsup/ketchup mixture vigorously before pouring it into a glass jar and drizzling it over her favorite salad. Those who have tried Ball's signature recipe say it's pretty good. It's tangy, savory, and reminiscent of Catalina dressing, which isn't all that surprising, considering it's also made with ketchup.

In the mid-1950s, a booklet called "Lucy's Notebook" was given away with every purchase of Philip Morris cigarettes. Given that the company was a sponsor of "I Love Lucy," it's almost certain that this "notebook" was just a marketing ploy, but it does claim to include recipes that Lucille Ball genuinely loved and wrote down herself, as well as letters actually written by the actress. Well, again, that's what it says, anyway.

One of the recipes in "Lucy's Notebook" was Ginger Beef Ricardo, which, of course, was named after Ball's beloved "I Love Lucy" character. To make the ginger beef, Ball starts by cutting beef into cubes before stir-frying it in a skillet with ingredients like garlic, ginger, soy sauce, a cornstarch slurry, and chopped green onions. After that, Ball says to serve up the beef on a bed of wild rice. 

Honestly, Ball's recipe sounds full of flavor, so it's not surprising it still has fans today. "This sounds really good," wrote one Redditor about the recipe. "Garlic and ginger. OK, Lucy. I see you, girl!"

Lucille Ball wasn't just a dab hand at cooking, she was also good at baking, too. We can hazard a guess at this anyway, considering "Lucy's Notebook" offers a recipe for walnut crisps. Ball's walnut crisps are, as you might have already gathered from the name of the recipe, basically crispy, nutty cookies. To make them, Ball used classic cookie ingredients, of course, like melted butter, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, and eggs. She then combined it all with half a cup of chopped walnut meat to get that nutty flavor and texture.

Ball liked her walnut crisps super crispy, but if you decide to make her cookies for yourself, you can slice them thicker if you prefer. People who have tried them say they're very tasty and hard to stop eating once you start. So, fair warning: There's a risk you might eat the entire batch in one go, which is four dozen cookies. But according to Ball's recipe, you can limit yourself by baking a few cookies at a time and then keeping the remainder of the dough in the refrigerator, as it will last a few days.

Lucille Ball spent most of her life in the limelight. "I Love Lucy" hit the airwaves in 1951, and it catapulted her to a stratospheric level of stardom that she would enjoy until she died in 1989. You might think that being a member of Hollywood's elite for that long would mean Ball only wanted to eat caviar and drink Champagne, but that's far from the truth.

In 1986, before a taping of the sitcom "Life With Lucy," actor Peter Graves was warming up the studio audience and answering questions about Ball's life away from the cameras. The live audience wanted to know her favorite food, and he told them that she loved honey-baked ham. Yep, just simple sliced, honey-glazed ham. Nothing special.

And it gets even more normal. In an interview with The Washington Post in the same year, journalist Tom Shales witnessed Ball eating honey-baked ham firsthand. According to him, she ate it on plain white bread, in a simple sandwich she made from scratch at home before heading to the studio.

There are many iconic episodes of "I Love Lucy," but, for many, one of the most memorable was "Lucy Does a TV Commercial," which aired in 1952. If you need a refresher, here's a recap: Lucy's husband Ricky gets a hosting gig on television, but he needs a pitch girl. Lucy persuades him to give her the role, but she doesn't realize the "health" drink she's promoting (say it with us: "Vitameatavegamin") is actually full of alcohol. Cue hilarity.

In real life, Lucille Ball was partial to a boozy cocktail, but unlike Vitameatavegamin (which was apparently made with vitamins, minerals, meat, and vegetables, as well as alcohol), she was more into margaritas. Of course, margaritas are made with a far more appetizing mix of tequila, triple sec, lime, and salt.

According to Los Angeles Times journalist Paul Rosenfield, who interviewed Ball in 1986, while she was answering his questions about her successful TV career, she would do so with a margarita in hand. But she didn't need a bartender, because Ball enjoyed mixing margaritas for herself at home. We told you she was humble.

It might sound morbid, but "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook" by author and performer Frank Decaro isn't supposed to be depressing. Actually, the 2011 book, which includes 150 recipes from stars that are no longer with us, is a celebration of life through food. Decaro spent more than 15 years finding recipes for the book in old bookstores and markets, and during that time, he built quite the treasure trove. It turns out, Johnny Cash left behind a recipe for pan-fried okra, and Eartha Kitt had her own signature chicken wing recipe. During his research, Decaro also discovered a recipe from Lucille Ball, for Apple John.

If you're not familiar with Apple John, that's not surprising. It's not eaten as much today, but back in the early 20th century, it was a popular dessert made with shortcake dough and stewed apples. It was kind of like a cobbler or a pandowdy.. It was clearly a favorite of Ball's, considering she had her own recipe.

To make it, she would bake apples, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon peel, lemon juice, and water, before combining the whole thing with a biscuit mix. When it was golden, she would wait for it to cool and then serve it with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. According to those who tried it, Ball's Apple John is comforting, full of winter flavor (thanks to the spices), and has a nice crumbly texture, due to the biscuit mix.

While much of Coca-Cola's success comes down to the taste, of course, the brand has never shied away from celebrity endorsement. In fact, it first worked with a celebrity (Hilda Clark) in 1900. So, to compete with Coca-Cola, it helps to get a big name. That's probably part of the reason why, in the 1940s, Royal Crown Cola bagged Lucille Ball as their celebrity ambassador.

"I Love Lucy" was yet to air, but Ball was still an up and coming star and had already appeared in several Hollywood movies. In the print ad for Royal Crown Cola, Ball appears in a swimsuit on an inflatable unicorn and declares that Royal Crown Cola is the best cola around. Many who remember the brand agree that it really was. In the South, it was even tradition to mix Royal Crown Cola with peanuts for a nutty sweet drink.

Now, it's hard to say if Ball genuinely loved Royal Crown Cola or if she was just paid to promote it. We're not saying this means anything, but in the early 1940s, she's pictured with her former husband, Desi Arnaz, and friends at a party, laughing, while seated at a table that is littered with glass bottles of Coca-Cola.

In the 1970s, Lucille Ball generously donated a few recipes to "Cookbook of the Stars," which was compiled by the Motion Pictures Mother's Club (basically a club for the moms of movie and TV stars). Ball's contribution to the cookbook was a three course meal, perfect for Sunday nights, that could feed two people or be scaled up to feed 20 (hence its name "Lucy's Sunday Night Supper for Two or Twenty").

The meal starts with a simple salad of pulled apart iceberg lettuce. She suggests drizzling over Roquefort, French, or Thousand Island dressing, but, if you're in the mood, you could also go for her 1930s ketchup dressing. Then, it's the main event: beef goulash.

To make the goulash, Ball instructs readers to brown ground round in butter, before sauteeing it with chopped onions, green peppers, and garlic. She then advises simmering it with canned tomatoes, and adding a little Accent (which is MSG, an impressive umami-enhancer). Ball lets it cook away for 30 minutes before serving it with egg noodles, garlic bread, and a glass of Chianti wine. To finish, Ball says a large fruit and cheese plate with crackers or wheat wafers will do.

Another 1930s cookbook that Lucille Ball contributed to was "What Actors Eat When They Eat," a compilation by two popular actors of the time, Rex Lease and Kenneth Harlan. Alongside Betty Grable's Watermelon Rind Pickle and Cary Grant's Barbecued Chicken, the book contains a recipe for Ball's very own Chicken Saute Sec With Mushrooms and Artichokes.

To make the dish, Ball instructs the reader to disjoint a chicken, sprinkle it with a seasoning blend of paprika, flour, salt, and pepper, and then fry it in olive oil. Then she says the chicken must be removed from the pan to make room for the mushrooms and artichokes, alongside onions, garlic, and parsley. This is all fried for a few minutes, before it's combined with wine. Next, the chicken is added back in, and everything is simmered for another 10 minutes.

If you want the step by step instructions for Ball's special Chicken Saute Sec, you can buy the book online, but be warned: It's not a cheap purchase. At the time of writing, it's available on eBay for just over $250. A signed version from Harlan is significantly more, at around $1,800.

In the 1960s, with the expansion of Chinese restaurants across the country, Chinese cooking was becoming pretty popular in American homes. People loved making dishes like chop suey and chow mein, and some people even got experimental, coming up with their own recipes made with Chinese ingredients. You guessed it, Ball was one of those people. In 1969, she told the Jackson Journal that she had created her own Chinese-inspired recipe, called Chinese Goodie.

The recipe (which might have been named after Chinese New Year Goodies, which are dishes eaten around Lunar New Year) consists of filets of beef, which are boiled in a broth of soy sauce, garlic salt, and ginger root. It's prepared while the guests are at the table, to ensure each person gets their meat cooked exactly as they like it, and then served on a bed of almond rice. Unexpectedly, Ball told the Jackson Journal that the dish tastes similar to egg foo young, which is a Chinese omelet usually made with pork or shrimp.

Lucille Ball grew up in New York, which isn't technically part of New England, but it's pretty close. This proximity to the region might be a key part of the reason why she told the Jackson Journal in 1969 that she thinks of herself as a New England cook. Her favorite dish? A New England boiled dinner, of course.

A New England boiled dinner is an incredibly simple dish. It has its roots in English and European cooking, and it's basically a mish-mash of various boiled foods. Usually, boiled corned beef is the star of a New England boiled dinner, and it's combined with various boiled vegetables like beets, cabbage, rutabaga, and potatoes. Some versions skip the boiled corned beef and opt for codfish instead (that's common in coastal regions), while others opt for chicken. 

In her version, though, Ball spurns tradition completely. Her go-to version of the dish often included ham shanks (as mentioned previously, Ball seems to have an affinity for ham), which she combined with cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. Sometimes, she would opt for beef brisket over ham, though, depending on what was available/she had a fancy for. According to the TV star, she would often eat New England boiled dinner alone, because her husband, Gary Morton, wasn't a fan.

As mentioned earlier, when Lucille Ball was growing up in the 1910s and 1920s, she did a lot of the cooking for her family. But her mom did cook when she had the time, and, like most moms, she had a big influence on Ball's food choices. According to the actress, Hunt used to can cranberries — one of Ball's favorite foods.

Ball told the Jackson Journal that she particularly liked having cranberries with a big traditional Christmas dinner over the holidays. Together with her family, she would enjoy a big feast on December 25, with plenty of cranberry sauce, gravy, candied yams, mashed potatoes, giblet dressing, and roast turkey, of course.

She spoke about cranberries and her mother's love for canning again with Family Weekly in December 1971. In fact, she told the publication that sometimes, there were as many as 16 cans of cranberry sauce at a Ball family Christmas.

Another dish that Lucille Ball's mom liked to cook during the holidays was persimmon cake, which, as you may have already guessed, is a type of cake made with persimmons. The orange fruits are the perfect cake ingredient, thanks to their natural honey-esque taste. They're also well-suited to Christmas celebrations, considering that they usually come into season around fall and early winter time.

Hunt clearly inherited her mom's love of the cake, because she also developed her own recipe (or started using her mother's). In "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook," a recipe attributed to the star instructs the reader to combine sugar, butter, persimmon pulp, walnut meat, dates, raisins, orange rind, and milk with flour, winter spices, and other classic cake ingredients in a loaf tin, and then leave it in the oven to bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for one and a half hours. Yup, that's it. One to bookmark for the holidays?

If you had a copy of "Lucy's Notebook" in the 1950s, not only could you whip up the actress's favorite walnut crisps and ginger beef, but you could also make her version of vichyssoise, too. For the uninitiated, vichyssoise is basically a creamy French soup, made with simple ingredients like leeks, onions, potatoes, herbs, and cream.

It can be served either hot or cold, but, in the booklet, Lucille Ball recommends serving it during the height of summer to stay cool. In fact, she even suggests placing the soup cups in cracked ice to keep them super cold and "looking more important when served."

Ball's recipe is pretty close to the original. She recommends that the reader finely chop onions and leeks, before sauteeing them in butter or margarine, and then combining them with sliced potatoes and chicken stock. Everything is cooked, strained, combined with milk and cream, and then chilled down before serving. "You'd never believe potatoes could taste so aristocratic," writes Ball.

Let's be honest, it's hard to imagine a world without garlic bread. It's one of those dishes that most people enjoy, largely because it's comforting, filling, and familiar. But there was a time when garlic bread wasn't actually that familiar at all. In the 1950s, for example, garlic bread was only just starting to become mainstream, thanks to Italian-American cooks (yes, garlic bread is an Italian-American invention).

Ball wasn't just a pioneer of American comedy, she was also early to the garlic bread hype. Are you surprised that she was a garlic bread stan? She is a relatable queen, after all.

We know Ball loved garlic bread because she included a recipe in "Lucy's Notebook." In the booklet, she instructs the reader to get a loaf of French bread, cut it into slices, and then slather them with homemade garlic butter before baking it. "Don't worry about the garlic knocking you down," she writes. "Toasting gives it a subtle delicate taste." It seems like an odd disclaimer, but most average people in 1950s America hadn't accepted the strong taste and smell of garlic just yet, and they needed a little hand holding to get them used to the idea.