Better Homes & Gardens "Menu Cook Book" 1972 Practical Guide for Good Nutrition
In the 70's families started to get "busier" and most moms were in the work force: it was becoming difficult to have a family meal and nutrition was a idea that was beginning to going down the scuppers. Children were eating cold cereal for every meal around the clock and seemed happy, even though you knew it was wrong! What to do, mom? Well, it couldn't be simpler... Just follow these pre-planned and tested menus for every meal; breakfast, lunch, dinner, formal or informal, sit down or buffet, leftovers, meal stretchers... no matter what, it is all right here laid out with a spread sheet for alternatives, substitutions, seasonings, and all incorporating the "Basic Four Food Value Groups!" From an era when people actually cooked their own meals, microwaves were not a household staple, and some kind of meat was served at almost every meal. 8" X 10" hardbound, 96 pages, 115 menus.
"Menu Cook Book."
The Mid-Century Origins of Food Pornography
When I was flipping hotcakes at a Sambo's Pancake House back in the mid-century era my manager (I'm looking at you Leon) sometimes tried to impart restaurant food wisdom to my foggy mind. One of his firmly held beliefs was that we were first and foremost "Selling the Sizzle" rather than the actual food we served. A 1938 New Yorker article attributes that bit of sublime wordsmanship to a Mr. Elmer Wheeler: "In the 1930's Mr. Wheeler adopted the profession of seducing people in the mass with words including Wheelerpoint No. 1: 'Don’t Sell the Steak—Sell the Sizzle! ....the sizzle has sold more steaks than the cow ever has, although the cow is, of course, mighty important."
Up to that point cookbooks were created with the intent to produce a meal of some reliability and variety. However, around the mid-century a whole new kind of cookbook started popping up that was made for Looking, rather than Cooking! This nascent industry was first documented by Alexander Cockburn in 1979: "True Gastro Porn heightens the excitement and also the sense of unattainability by proffering colored photographs of various completed recipes." Cockburn defined Gastro Porn as a glamorized presentation of food using forms of photography and styling that presents food provocatively, similar to pornographic photography. More importantly he noted that the photographs in this genre "always repress the production process of the meal and are always beautifully lit and touched up." Soon the market was flooded with this new style of cookbook featuring glamor shots of gleaming meals for an audience of eaters who coincidentally seemed to no longer have the time, or desire, to actually cook. This was a generational shift which eventually led to the current norm for younger generations to routinely post visually appealing videos and photos of food and drink across social media: Food Porn was Born and Normalized.
Most of what we have in our Vintage Food Porn section is the early-on-mid-century work of professional pornographers. Better Homes and Gardens was a major contributor to this trend (whether they knew it or not) and we have a constant supply of their myriad iterations of this work along with many other examples. So, pull down the shades, take the phone off the hook, and find a comfortable nook to stretch out in while you browse along with us: https://www.ebay.com/str/portlandpandemonium/Vintage-Food-Porn/_i.html?store_cat=38704219017
We Will Scratch Your Vintage Itch
