I Was A 50's Housewife

Imagine coming home from work and finding out that you are having the following for dinner: Meat Soufflé with Buttered Broccoli Spears, Creamed Potatoes, Denver Buns, and for dessert, the alluringly named, Glamorous Fruit Cup. Wow. That would be something. Now imagine cooking this meal. Not only would you need shortening, Bisquick, salt pork, undiluted frozen limeade and sifted Gold Medal flour on hand, but you’d need a whole afternoon to assemble this feast and a floral apron and protective head scarf to wear while doing so (optional).

While the above menu and ingredients sound unappetizing and downright bizarre for a meal today, I am quite sure that in 1958 a spread such as that would entice words of pleasure and approval from the mouths for whom the spread was intended.

That’s right; those dishes were culled directly from 1958’s Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two Cook Book (491 recipes and menus including a When-Company-Comes section). I friggen love this book. I originally picked it up at a second-hand store years ago and was immediately enamoured with the illustrations. Since then I have poured over the recipes within it with the fervor of an archaeologist discovering a lost tomb. A peek into the inner-workings of a mid-century housewife’s kitchen both fascinates and repels.

I was doubly pleased when my mother-in-law gave me this little gem this weekend:

(These are not my own scanned images, thanks to some tech problems at home.)

It has illustrations that are just as charming and recipes that are just as full of shortening and Bisquick, as well as handy tips and exclamations from little illustrated children like ‘Elizabeth’ sharing such gems as, “If I were a mama, I’d cook all day!”

Amen, Elizabeth, but considering that it is 1958 and you are 10 years old, I certainly hope you at least make time for a little bra-burning and mud dancing at Woodstock first. I do applaud your domestic aspirations, honey, but Saucy Hamburger Crumble on Mashed Potatoes with Candle Salad and Whiz Cake will always be there.

*SoundBITE*
Although the texture and/or consistency may vary slightly, do yourself a favour when baking, and if a recipe calls for shortening or margarine, replace it with good ol’ fashioned (organic) butter. The calorie and fat content is virtually the same, and though the issue is a hotly contended one, major food restrictions not withstanding, I will always go for a food made in nature over food made in a lab. For an even healthier recipe, substitute half of the fat with applesauce, prune puree or smooth peanut butter.

Comments

[nomotherearth]

I kinda want that Betty Crocker cookbook. Eventhough I rarely cook.

[katie ~ motherbumper]

I actually have the 1979 version of that book - it was a bit more psychedelic, groovy and short skirt fashioned (with aprons) than this particular release. FWIW - I'm still very undomesticated.

By any chance is that the Glamorous Fruit Cup gracing the cover (lower left)? Definitely fruit, certainly glamorous.

[petitegourmand]

I would love to check out those recipes.
I have a "first aid health book for house wives" from the fifties and it's hilarious!

[Nerine]

How are you. The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say. Help me! It has to find sites on the: Delonghi air portable conditioners. I found only this - thru the wall air Conditioners. Repair air conditioners on your own!!!Home and family. These are known as reverse cycle air conditioners and are mostly used in homes which experience warm and cold climates. Thanks for the help :confused:, Nerine from Serbia.