Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Merry Kitschmas!
If you're more Martha than Betty, this site is not for you. But if you, like me, cannot get enough of Kitschmas, consider this an early Kitschmas gift.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Will the real Betty Crocker please stand up?
So many people have told me about this episode of Antique Roadshow. This is a very rare 1st edition/gift edition of The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook - probably 1949 rather than 1950.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Christmas Baking with Betty Crocker (Vintage)
From Betty Crocker's (Ring-Bound) Picture Cookbook - Christmas Cooking section.
Every year my sister and I get together in early December for a tradition we like to call "Fudge Fest". Our recipe is not a Betty Crocker recipe - it's better. It's a family secret recipe that is simply amazing. People who don't normally like fudge, like our fudge. I've seen grown men cry over our fudge. So that leaves my sister and I to figure out, each year, who exactly is fudge-worthy. It's truly that special. I hope every family has a recipe like that. Nothing you could find in a cookbook nor online. But a tried and true, past down through the generations, perfected family recipe.
A sneak peak behind the scenes of Fudge Fest 2012.
Part of what makes our fudge so special is the methodology. It's not just your ingredients, but they way you go about preparing them. (And it helps to know just a touch of chemistry)
While we were waiting for the magic, we thumbed through some of our vintage Betty Crocker cookbooks, lingering on the Christmas baking sections. The photo at the top of this post reminds us of our childhood. Our mother, a true Betty, make almost all those cookies.
As you can imagine, when I was researching my book on Betty, I interviewed many home economists or "Crockettes" who worked for the Betty Crocker Kitchens. I often asked them about Gingerbread men because they factor so heavily into Betty's recipes over the years. No one knew why, but they all remarked that Gingerbread men were so thoroughly ingrained into the Betty Crocker culture that no one questioned it. Gingerbread men, like so many of Betty's recipes are like a cultural singalong, we all know these tunes.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Vintage Betty Crocker and Holiday Baking
I was interviewed recently about holiday baking. Read here and here.
Happy Baking this holiday season!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
All things Betty
If you love all-thing Betty and the quintessential housewife, you must know about killing hours and hours on pinterest: http://pinterest.com/beelori/vintage-housewife/
You can find me there too: http://pinterest.com/ohsolazysusan/books-i-wrote/
You can find me there too: http://pinterest.com/ohsolazysusan/books-i-wrote/
Thursday, May 3, 2012
From my Betty Crocker Archives
Betty goes Hollywood in the 1930s with a series of recipe booklets, radio broadcasts and magazine ads.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Betty Crocker's Early Days
Marcia Poole from the Sioux City Journal recently wrote about my Betty Crocker book:
Back to the Farm
On the traditional print side of this week’s theme, let’s look at the latest in The Farmer’s Wife cookbook series. Just released by Voyageur Press of Minneapolis, “The Best of the Farmer’s Wife Cookbook” offers hundreds of easy-to-follow recipes, including variations on old favorites. Dozens of menus give us insight into farm kitchens of decades ago.
The inspiration is The Farmer’s Wife magazine, published in Minnesota between 1893 and 1939. Good Eats has been following the series that takes us back to the farm. Here’s some background on the magazine:
The Farmer’s Wife carried recipes and stories written by women who aimed at creating opportunities to connect with other women. It may be hard to imagine the rigors and joys of life back then. Families lived a fair distance from the nearest town. No TV, no Internet. The telephone was probably a party-line shared by three, four or more families. The radio and newspaper were the all-important sources for information and entertainment.
People wrote letters back then. The US Postal Service delivered these preciously personal communications from family and friends. The letters may have taken several days to arrive in the mailbox, making them all the more precious. The mailman also delivered magazines. The Farmer’s Wife must have been heartily welcomed for information, entertainment and future reference for all sorts of topics, including recipes.
Most subscribers cooked using produce from their own gardens. Dairy, eggs and meat likely came from their own operation as well. The magazine was a forum for questions and concerns about everything from raising chickens and slaughtering hogs, to managing a lean household budget. Dressing the kids, keeping house and making the most of time in the kitchen were major parts of The Farmer’s Wife story.
“The Best of the Farmer’s Wife Cookbook” is packed with recipes and stories from the magazine. One of my favorites sections is “Baking.” Bake then, dessert was really dessert - something that capped off supper after a hard day’s work. Think pot roast and all the trimmings perhaps - and then a slice of fruit pie or a fruit tart.
Baking day was essential for supplying cupcakes and such for lunch pails, and muffins and other sweets for tea parties and club lunches, according to the book’s editors Kari Cornell and Melinda Keefe. No matter how tough times were, farm wives delivered the goodies.
“...Through the rationing of World War I, the privations of the Great Depression and the uncertainty of the years leading up to World War II the farmer’s wife baked what she had - sometimes absent wheat and sugar and she baked it as well as she could,” they write.
For more information about “The Best of the Farmer’s Wife Cookbook” (Voyageur Press; 2011) visit: www.voyageurpress.com.
Questions for Betty
I can only think that Betty Crocker was a familiar name to many women who read The Farmer’s Wife. Betty Crocker shares the Minnesota roots and goes back to Washburn Crosby Company, the original Minneapolis purveyor of Gold Medal Flour and the forerunner of General Mills.
“Finding Betty Crocker” (Simon & Schuster; 2005) by Susan Marks tells the story. It’s one of the most entertaining books Good Eats has featured.
As Marks tells it, the flour company generated only a small number of consumer letters each year. They were handled in-house by an all-men ad department. Ad manager Samuel Gale and his staff consulted with the all-women Gold Medal service staff for answers. This arrangement apparently worked until 1921 when the company ran a Gold Medal Flour ad in the popular Saturday Evening Post.
The ad offered a free pin cushion, shaped like a Gold Medal Flour sack. To receive it, readers were instructed to cut out the ad’s puzzle pieces and assemble them into a Main Street scene. Some 30,000 consumers participated. Washburn Crosby was swamped with puzzle submissions, along with hundreds of consumer questions about using Gold Medal Flour for all manner of baking.
As a result the head office created a “female chief of correspondence” to handle consumer queries. The new “position” was filled by Washburn Crosby’s collective in-house imagination. The new staffer’s last name honored William G. Crocker, a retired director of Washburn Crosby. The first name was “Betty.”
During the Great Depression and World War II, Betty Crocker helped homemakers with tips for stretching ingredients. Making the most of milk, meat, and rationed sugar commanded considerable time. “Cooking School of the Air” ran for 27 years.
At her peak, Betty Crocker received up to 5,000 letters a day. Her support came from a staff of home economists that tested recipes and answered consumer questions. She was named the second best-known woman in America by Fortune magazine. Eleanor Roosevelt was first. Betty Crocker’s first true cookbook was released in 1950.
Back to the Farm
On the traditional print side of this week’s theme, let’s look at the latest in The Farmer’s Wife cookbook series. Just released by Voyageur Press of Minneapolis, “The Best of the Farmer’s Wife Cookbook” offers hundreds of easy-to-follow recipes, including variations on old favorites. Dozens of menus give us insight into farm kitchens of decades ago.
The inspiration is The Farmer’s Wife magazine, published in Minnesota between 1893 and 1939. Good Eats has been following the series that takes us back to the farm. Here’s some background on the magazine:
The Farmer’s Wife carried recipes and stories written by women who aimed at creating opportunities to connect with other women. It may be hard to imagine the rigors and joys of life back then. Families lived a fair distance from the nearest town. No TV, no Internet. The telephone was probably a party-line shared by three, four or more families. The radio and newspaper were the all-important sources for information and entertainment.
People wrote letters back then. The US Postal Service delivered these preciously personal communications from family and friends. The letters may have taken several days to arrive in the mailbox, making them all the more precious. The mailman also delivered magazines. The Farmer’s Wife must have been heartily welcomed for information, entertainment and future reference for all sorts of topics, including recipes.
Most subscribers cooked using produce from their own gardens. Dairy, eggs and meat likely came from their own operation as well. The magazine was a forum for questions and concerns about everything from raising chickens and slaughtering hogs, to managing a lean household budget. Dressing the kids, keeping house and making the most of time in the kitchen were major parts of The Farmer’s Wife story.
“The Best of the Farmer’s Wife Cookbook” is packed with recipes and stories from the magazine. One of my favorites sections is “Baking.” Bake then, dessert was really dessert - something that capped off supper after a hard day’s work. Think pot roast and all the trimmings perhaps - and then a slice of fruit pie or a fruit tart.
Baking day was essential for supplying cupcakes and such for lunch pails, and muffins and other sweets for tea parties and club lunches, according to the book’s editors Kari Cornell and Melinda Keefe. No matter how tough times were, farm wives delivered the goodies.
“...Through the rationing of World War I, the privations of the Great Depression and the uncertainty of the years leading up to World War II the farmer’s wife baked what she had - sometimes absent wheat and sugar and she baked it as well as she could,” they write.
For more information about “The Best of the Farmer’s Wife Cookbook” (Voyageur Press; 2011) visit: www.voyageurpress.com.
Questions for Betty
I can only think that Betty Crocker was a familiar name to many women who read The Farmer’s Wife. Betty Crocker shares the Minnesota roots and goes back to Washburn Crosby Company, the original Minneapolis purveyor of Gold Medal Flour and the forerunner of General Mills.
“Finding Betty Crocker” (Simon & Schuster; 2005) by Susan Marks tells the story. It’s one of the most entertaining books Good Eats has featured.
As Marks tells it, the flour company generated only a small number of consumer letters each year. They were handled in-house by an all-men ad department. Ad manager Samuel Gale and his staff consulted with the all-women Gold Medal service staff for answers. This arrangement apparently worked until 1921 when the company ran a Gold Medal Flour ad in the popular Saturday Evening Post.
The ad offered a free pin cushion, shaped like a Gold Medal Flour sack. To receive it, readers were instructed to cut out the ad’s puzzle pieces and assemble them into a Main Street scene. Some 30,000 consumers participated. Washburn Crosby was swamped with puzzle submissions, along with hundreds of consumer questions about using Gold Medal Flour for all manner of baking.
As a result the head office created a “female chief of correspondence” to handle consumer queries. The new “position” was filled by Washburn Crosby’s collective in-house imagination. The new staffer’s last name honored William G. Crocker, a retired director of Washburn Crosby. The first name was “Betty.”
During the Great Depression and World War II, Betty Crocker helped homemakers with tips for stretching ingredients. Making the most of milk, meat, and rationed sugar commanded considerable time. “Cooking School of the Air” ran for 27 years.
At her peak, Betty Crocker received up to 5,000 letters a day. Her support came from a staff of home economists that tested recipes and answered consumer questions. She was named the second best-known woman in America by Fortune magazine. Eleanor Roosevelt was first. Betty Crocker’s first true cookbook was released in 1950.
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