American Advertising Cookbooks: How Corporations Taught Us to Love Bananas, Spam, and Jell-O

This book poses a problem for me. It is the only book on Amazon to address a delightful and fascinating phenomenon of American life in the 20th century, the American advertising cookbook. It breaks new ground, because the subject does not appear to have been treated before – at least not in a book aimed at a general audience. And for that we should be grateful.But the way Christina Ward chooses to tell the story exemplifies everything that is wrong with modern academic approaches to history. For some reason I am having trouble discerning, she chooses to view the story through a social-justice lens, linking cookbooks somehow to class divisions, the problems of capitalism, the oppression of minorities, and all those other fashionable concepts that seem to be pervading the news media and publishing today. Apparently foisting stomach-turning recipes on the American public was a plot by the wicked corporations that control our public life. The book also reflects the curious conceit we often see in current academic research, that the people of today are much more enlightened than the people of the past, even though they were every bit as smart as we are.The book lays it on thick. Here’s an example, from page 15 --“Exploitation of all resources, as exemplified by the protestant principles of the ruling classes, drove growth-at-any-cost mentality. This exploitative ideology of the early capitalists is a thread that runs through American culture to this day.”You can find examples of this type of argumentation on pretty much every page, sometimes two or three examples – direct statements like these, loaded words, and a presentation of arguments designed to make the point. In other words, it cherry-picks the facts and excludes information that might weaken the case, all for the sake of the political argument. As a former history major who enjoyed a long career as a newspaper reporter, and who remains employed in the writing trades – and as someone who knows the source material – I really do have to object. I’m all in favor of using the social-justice approach to history when it is appropriate – but for gosh sakes, we’re talking about cookbooks.American advertising cookbooks, typically pamphlets of 16 to 64 pages, were distributed widely during the 20th century, starting about 1900, by producers of the brand-name products that were then starting to show up in local markets. As electrical appliances entered the kitchen, appliance manufacturers got into the game as well. And there are many other sub-genres. These corporate recipe booklets continued to be published through the ‘70s and ‘80s, and one might say the tradition continues today in different form. But they certainly are not as pervasive as they once were, as the importance of home cooking has receded in American life. I’m going to take a wild stab here and guess that at least a couple thousand titles were published prior to 1960, based on what I have seen on eBay. They survive in such great numbers that we must presume they were distributed in the millions. It seems astounding to me that this once-vital genre of American literature has been ignored.The pamphlets published prior to 1960 are particularly interesting, because of the window they provide on their times. In terms of graphic design and copywriting, they are among the highest achievements of the American advertising profession – many are absolutely gorgeous. And the content is fascinating. Through them we can recognize the vast importance of the American processed-food industry in changing the nation’s diet and bringing a greater degree of wholesomeness to grocery shelves. We can begin to appreciate that all the denunciations of processed foods we hear from “experts” today is a bit misplaced – these packaged brand-name foods really were a cultural advance.For instance, “The Story of Crisco” (yes, there really was a book of this title) talks about the indigestion people often faced when eating pies and other foodstuffs made with the lard you might have gotten at the local butcher shop. We learn that constipation must have been a major problem, via lavishly illustrated pamphlets promoting Kellogg’s All-Bran. (“Keep on the Sunny Side of Life,” says one.) Today we consider Spam a joke and Velveeta to be somehow putrid (even though it isn’t and does have its place) but through these pamphlets we begin to realize that in their time these processed foods really were a revolution. These cookbooks tell us about everything from sex-role expectations to trends in kitchen design, nutritional thought, home economics, and the wonderment as electricity arrived in the kitchen. We see booklets from the depression that explain how to keep leftovers and make your food budget stretch, and from wartime that explain how the homemaker might negotiate the problems of food rationing and still keep the family fed.And the hideous recipes – think of the worst stuff you could imagine suspended in lime-green Jell-O. I am still wondering if I dare make a prewar recipe I found in a Miracle Whip booklet, for a cakelike loaf frosted with all the varieties of Kraft mayonnaise. All of the fabulous things you could make with these products were beautifully presented, often with oversaturated Kodachrome and primitive color-photography printing techniques that produced many colors not found in nature.I have to respect Ward’s research. The book does provide much of what I was looking for. It traces the history and development of American cookbooks through the 19th century, and describes the cultural influences they reflected. The book tells me a few things I didn’t know – for instance, I had never made the connection between these cookbooks and the “scientific cooking”/home economics movement. I appreciated her discussion of some of the harmful diet fads we see promoted in some of these booklets – she appears to know her stuff, also a fair amount about cooking. And there are flashes of wit throughout.But oh, lordy, the political spin. Ward appears to think these cookbooks were part of a nasty scheme by food corporations to get the American public to eat garbage. Take this, from page 5 --“Whether you’re a Mayflower descendant or a recent immigrant, your American-ness is shaped by the actions of a small group of corporations who want you to behave in a way that serves them.”Well, yes, they wanted people to buy their products. I remain unconvinced this is evidence of a conspiracy of oppression.I suspect the book originally was written as a graduate thesis – the writing style, the paragraph structure, the flow of argumentation all are giveaways. I guess this is the kind of writing it takes these days to get through dissertation review panels at our radicalized institutions of higher education. I consider it lazy. I would have appreciated a more “straight-up” approach that takes a greater delight in the subject, and spares us the political diatribes. And yet – I’m glad to see at least some sort of attention paid to this obscure and forgotten literary genre.

It's a funny world we live in, where even the bowling alley is now serving black linguine and disco fries have gone the way of actual disco and you're more likely to find truffle fries... never mind the farm-to-table aesthetic that has become the hallmark of enlightened dining. The beautiful thing about this book - aside from the fact that is very literally a beautiful book, filled with garish green Jello molds, and a rainbow of what can only be called "meat tones" - is that it has very little to do with enlightenment much less actual farms. The food that is celebrated in AMERICAN ADVERTISING COOKBOOKS is of an age when American post-war prosperity was as thick as fog - it must have been because if anyone could actually see what was at the end of their fork they would have lit out for the country. But make no mistake, what looks like kitsch now was what powered the American family then, and if you wonder why this country is so confused, the answer is likely in these pages. Some will find nostalgia in the ads and gorgeous pages ripped from from the dark era before the salad bar was invented, but personally, I find myself gawking with nearly prurient interest. The Spam ads excite me. I dont know why, I hate Spam. The recipe pages, the cans of syrupy goop, the casseroles, everything in this book excites me. It must be the optimism of the ads themselves - not to mention the eye-searing colors. But not only is this book existential food porn, it is also a subversive history that ties the threads of the American economy and post-war vision together in an unruly knot, and tells an origin story not often told, how the confluence of advertising and middle-class prosperity – a love of convenience and everything "new" — created the worst cuisine the world has ever known. This is who we are.

At first blush, one might assume this jam-packed ( pun intended) and colorful volume is just  perhaps a culinary car-wreck album---  you know....  a whole set of pics and recipes of this WTF-from-Mars stuff that proliferated women's magazines  and free or 5-cents at the grocery little pamphlets of  horrors ( usually involving aspic or things God never meant to go to together being married in a dish ( i.e. mayo and peanut butter, tomatoes and strawberry jelly, etc.)  during  ( but not exclusive to ) the middle of the 20th century.   And much of this book IS just that, providing indeed both shock and awe at not only why anyone would eat such horrors -- but who conceived that anyone would???  But this book is SO SO much more than that , which is why it rises from a pleasant diversion to a must have.  The socio-anthropological implications of how meals were prepared and what went on in family kitchens from  our old post-Mayflower arrival   North American world  even through the beginning of the industrial revolution-- who knew such stuff could be SO fascinating? And Has ANYONE written about this subject to THIS depth before?   Who knew all the strides in the mechanics of making  something as workaday as a plain' ol sheet cake could be a mirror to yet more socio-anthropological  change and history?   Who knew the politics of the sale and raising of sugar  could have as much impact on modern human history as that of the sale of oil??  Ms. Ward did and she whipped all of this info up together into this very special book.  So raise your saucer adorned with a slice of tomato aspic fricassee souffle surprise  and devour this absolutely delightful and informative  work ASAP!!!