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.