Multitasking circa 1950

Sometimes cooking is boring. All of that stirring, cutting and chopping can be repetitive. This illustration (from the Boston Globe Cookbook) shows how to cook without paying attention. The magazine that this chef is reading is called "Stomps" or "Stumps". Either way, it's an intriguing niche market. It appears to be an enthralling periodical, as the chef can't tear herself away to look where she's pouring. We can't be sure what she's cooking, or if we'd ever want to eat it due to her distraction. Eggshell cake? Oh goody!

Food Behaving Badly-Part 1

This looks like a pretty standard recipe booklet from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. They sprung for the full color covers, but the inside is full of these odd little 2-color illustrations.

You get a sense of the design aesthetic with the tiny portraits of cute food items. But don't be fooled by their innocent looks. Once you venture inside, you will be subjected to their naughty deeds.

Baked goods seem to be the instigators in a lot of these scenarios. Take the poor cake and the posse of rambunctious cupcakes in her care. She appears rather distressed while these young hellions are running amok. They have a strange game of leap frog going on, which, when you think about it would be pretty messy.


















I'm not sure what's going on in the next illustration. Three somewhat phallic-looking baked goods are pointing at a smiling muffin (I think). The tall ones seem to have a look of disgust, as if something smells bad. The little muffin blob looks pretty satisfied with himself.

Who cut the cheese?

Apron fools!

Another treasure is the 9th Annual Grand National Cook Book. This is a compendium of the top 100 recipes from Pillsbury in 1958. There is a cash prize of $25000 for the top winner-a king's ransom back then.

The photos in this booklet are priceless. Lots of shots of women with aprons, hair neatly coiffed bending over cakes, mixing bowls and stoves. In the left photo below, this woman is described as a "farm wife". The photo on the right shows a young contestant getting a "lovely corsage to wear on her apron". Check out the dirty look the woman behind her. Jealous!

The most unusual thing about this booklet is the heavy product placement. Every recipe has listed in bold text the brand of ingredient. Not only is Pillsbury's Best All Purpose Flour repeated constantly, but so is French's Mustard, "quilted" Kaiser Heavy Duty Foil, Morton Salt, French's Vanilla, Crisco (shortening), French's Cinnamon, Red Star Active Dry Yeast, and a dozen or so French's spices and flavorings. I was almost expecting to see French's EGGS or Pillsbury WATER listed. I feel pity for the poor copywriter who had to put all of those plugs in.

This event was a big deal. The back cover shows a young woman receiving a phone call from a celebrity. The weird thing is she's standing next to Art Linkletter, who was a TV talk show host and a celebrity. He was a retro version of Jerry Springer without the transvestites and fist fights. Actually, there was a rumor in 1968 that his hippie daughter had taken LSD, stared at the sun for six hours and went blind or jumped out of a window. It was a cautionary tale for the generation that grew up eating all that Crisco.

Wisconsin lunchladies in love

This book was authored by The Milwaukee Public School Kitchens Girls Trades and Technical High School, Authoritative Dietitians and Experienced Housewives-no inexperienced housewives were consulted.

This 28th edition (circa 1947) was originally published in 1901 and has an interesting history. Here's the Wisconsin Historical Society's website offering about the origin of the book: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=910 if you're interested in that sort of stuff.

I don't know how much of the text is original to the turn of the century book and what recipes were more 1940s-based. This book was a primer for young immigrant women and had recipes, cooking tips, explanations of cooking utensils and how to start a wood or coal fire; hopefully in the stove.

There is a section on special diets. The following recipes are intended for infants:

• beef juice
• scraped beef
• prune pulp
• barley water
• oat water
• catnip tea
• oatmeal gruel
  
• and cracker gruel.

Never having eaten scraped beef, or oat water, I can't say that a baby would enjoy it. Most of the recipes have tremendous amounts of salt or salt water. Those babies were probably wicked thirsty.

My very favorite infant recipe is for the delicious sounding Flour Ball. Here is the recipe:
2 pounds of wheat flour
2 quarts of water

Tie flour in cheese-cloth bag and boil for 5 hours in 2 quarts of water. Place the resulting ball in the oven and bake for several hours or until the outside is quite brown. Break and discard outer shell. Grate inner ball to a powder.

Doesn't grating the ball turn it back into...flour? Seems like an exercise in futility.

You can use it to make flour gruel, which is flour, salt and water.

Wait a minute-that's how we used to make homemade Play-doh. What baby wouldn't want to eat that?

My mouth is watering, probably from the salt.

Magic in a Minute

Before there was organic, locally grown, artisinal, free range food, there were chemicals.

Food companies were doing frightful things to our food to make products that probably shouldn't be eaten or even exist. Four decades ago, some chemist thought, "What if I take the creaminess of pudding and merge it with the jiggle of gelatin and freeze it?" Here is the result of the this strange concoction-"Whip 'n' Chill".

I actually ate this product as a child. In fact, I loved this strangely crunchy, gelatinous dessert, but I also liked to dunk M&Ms in orange juice back then.

I vaguely recall my mother pouring our Whip 'n' Chill batter into metal ice cube trays and putting them in the freezer. I wonder if the aluminum helped congeal this chemical laden biohazard, but we thought it was the height of sophistication. If only I had known that the magical cone shaped mold existed, I would've coveted that!

I may include some tasty recipes from this official "Whip 'n' Chill" booklet in upcoming posts. Who wouldn't want to know how to make Refrigerator Loaf or Pear Lime Dreamy Whip?

So kids, the lessons here is if food is advertised as magic, it probably doesn't contain any real ingredients that should go into your body.

Finger Fruit, Planetary Frankfurters and Clam Balls

Once again, we visit the Good Housekeeping Appetizer Book from 1961.

The illustrations in this book are pretty typical of the era's low budget two-color style. It's fun to pick out some of the characters and follow them through the book. Here's a few of my faves.

I really love the guy in the suit and shorts. What kind of party is he attending? This look is the mullet of fashion-business on top, party on the bottom. And really, was there any recipe in that decade that didn't involve pineapple chunks? Don't forget the toothpicks to dip them into the deviled ham'n'cheese. Eww.

Check out the recipe for "Planetary Frankfurters" below. There are only 4 ingredients: hard boiled eggs, hot pepper seasoning, frankfurters and something called "relish-cheese spread". Was there some kind of strange hybrid of pickle relish and cheese that has become extinct? I can only imagine what this conglomeration looked and tasted like. Hey, is that the same shorts guy raiding the refrigerator? Maybe he's looking for the relish-cheese spread?

Clam Balls. Turtlenecks. Accordians. Dandruff? Teenage madness-circa 1961!

Which way? Kwickway!

While cleaning out the closet the other day at my mother-in-law's, I found this priceless antique.

A unopened plastic bag full of plastic bags, from the 1960s.

They are ideal for travel and storage, strong, reusable, sanitary, odorless, waterproof, cuts cleaning bills, and dustproof. At least, that's what the bag says on the outside. I don't think the inside bags say anything.

The three women in the illustration seem to be enjoying the bags, though. Perhaps it takes their minds off having their arms disappear.

Dig that crazy party food-part 2!

Here's another tasty entry from the Appetizer Cookbook. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and I can think of a few good ones inspired by these photos-unappealing, gelatanous and unappetizing. The thing that confuses me the most is the combination of food items as appetizers. Are those grapes or olives on the crackers? And, really, what is that beige gunk in the bowl?

Please tell me.

Well, maybe I don't want to know.

The photogenic two page spread in the middle has that ubiquitous orange/red/green color combo popular in mid-century magazines. The strangest thing is that the food that should be green is yellow-look at the bowl of celery for proof. What wacky chef thought of combining toast, some slab of cheese, a thick pickle and some kind of red sauce topped with corn? The matching bowls of limp celery and potato chunks and the centerpiece goblet full of spotted mush only make the feast more delectable...not!

My favorite bizarre photo is the bottom one. Having eaten proscuitto and melon before, I know that it's tasty but a weird combination. Here is a testament to how important "plating" is for appetizing presentation. Loosely draped limp slabs of ham over two wedges of melon makes a surreal looking party repast.

Dig that crazy party food!

Hey cats and kittens!

This cookbooklet from 1961 will give you all the rockin' recipes you need for your next shindig, daddy-o.

Not only does it have some of the most unappetizing photos, the food is arranged in very bizarre ways with lots of toothpicks and skewers.

The front cover highlights a lovely arrangement of daisies, a candle and lots of strangely paired skewered food items. I'm particularly curious how they were able to poke holes in crackers without breaking them. Did they have glue guns back then?

In addition to the vertical food arrangement, there is a chafing dish and a basket of bread. What is in the chafing dish? Something red and lumpy. Yummy.

Below is the back cover with an amazing sculpture made of shrimp on sticks stuck on a basket. That leaves the interior of the basket free for a pile of unidentifiable yellow things. Hopefully, that glass contains a large Bloody Mary and not blood.

Chocolate Reconsidered

In the spirit of sharing, the Boston Globe has a proud tradition of asking readers to submit items. In the 1950s, they published this cookbook devoted to chocolate. The recipes actually sound pretty good, but too bad there wasn't a budget to hire a decent illustrator.

These illustrations are just plain weird and confusing. My brain wants to confirm that the item on the cover is a cake server, and not a spoon or a badly placed perfume bottle. It just can't make that work.

I particularly like the Cambridge Chocolate Cake recipe, where the illustrator decided that a good interpretation would include a cake with a mortar board on top. Apparently even backed goods get a top education in Cambridge.

The towering cake below is part of a fevered dream of the Devil. Of course, he is sleeping on a bed supported by spears with a very thin and saggy mattress. However, this doesn't stop Satan from dreaming of his favorite dessert, multilayered cake of barbed wire topped with kayaks. Yum!

Snap Judgement.

All gather to hear of the nobility of Snap!

I am but the truest
of fasteners. My lineage bequeaths my ability to hold cloth together. My herald bears witness to my heritage!

Bow down before me, lowly button!
Do not gaze upon me, simple hook!
For I am Snap!
Ruler of Notions!

No one told me that.

This cookbook was my paternal grandmother's. She was a great baker. I don't know if she used this book, though.

There are some, er, interesting, and unusual recipes like Pickled Pig's Feet, Norwegian Prune Pudding, and Krapi, which are badly named Slovenian doughnuts.

I tried making cookies from one of the recipes, but they turned into giant floppy sugar disks.

I guess the kitchen isn't my glory.

You don't want to help Grandma.

A long time ago, before Cuisinart, blenders, juicers and probably electricity, preparing food was serious. Sometimes it was dirty and backbreaking. And sometimes it was just plain dangerous.

This is a food chopper. One can only speculate how many fingers bore the scar of this implement. There's no mistaking what this thing does. It cuts. It means to cut. It wants to cut. It's older cousin was a guilloutine. It means business.

Life was hard in the old days. Get over it.

Wheat you want?

Sifting away...Here is a Hand-i-Sift brand 3 Screen (count'em 3!) metal sifter. The company has offered to show you what yummy treats you can make with their product on the outside of their product.

Let's see, there's cakes (both pink and a blotchy looking green ones), pies, jelly rolls and something that I hope is a hot dog bun. Not quite sure what the plate of disks might be.

There really are 3 screens inside-good old American ingenuity. If Hand-i-Sift had been more aggressive, perhaps they would've gone to 4 or 5 screens-just like Gillette keeps adding blades to their razors. Then they could have won the sifting championship and taken over the world.

Susan's Sewing!

This was my mom's needle package and I remember looking at it when I was a kid and thinking, "Why are they staring at this needle?"

Apparently the woman with the needle is Susan, and she has never either seen a needle before or successfully threaded one. All of her friends are very pleased for her. Except the woman on her right looks a little snarky. I bet she's really a frenemy. Her right arm bends funny too. I don't trust her.

You can tell that this is a modern house with a lovely red and green color scheme, mostly in shiny, plastic upholstery. The artwork on the wall ties the room together.

From the looks on their faces, I don't think these women discovered sewing-I think they discovered LSD.

I'll hold your scouring pad, Florida.

This is a ceramic piece that belonged to my husband's grandmother. i don't know who gave it to her, but I think the thought process was a little skewed.

"Let's bring Rubye a present from our trip. Wow, a scouring pad holder-it just screams Florida vacation!"

It's in pretty good shape, so I don't think she used it. I wonder why...

Atomic Needles

I neglected to comment on my first photo-Atomic Brand Sewing Needles. I love this packaging. It's the epitome of 1950s optimism in science and domesticity!

What this image has to do with sewing, I don't know. Are the needles radioactive or contain rocket fuel? There's a few of them inside, and they look normal. Maybe I should throw them away, before I start glowing at night.

This is one of my favorite package illustrations. The woman is so dainty sitting side saddle and I love that she has her purse with her-definitely needed in space. Overall, it's a bit Freudian, too.

Can't you just imagine that creative meeting? Right out of Mad Men!

Welcome!

Recently, I realized that I have acquired a number of funky retro household items. These pieces are from early to mid 20th century. They were utilitarian pieces decorated with images of idealized domestic life or extolling the virtues of "women's work". I will be adding photos and comments.