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Then and Now: Thoughts Occasioned by Betty Crocker
by Toni Brian
31 October 2003
Then and Now: Thoughts About Betty Crocker
It's simply amazing to live a dual existence. I am a housewife. I tend the
children, plan the meals, fold the laundry and clean on occasions. Time to
time, I need to reference an outdated, twenty-sixth printing of a 1969 version
of Betty Crocker's cookbook. It is a big orange 3-ring binder and looks like it
has been used often since 1969. It is an invaluable reference for dinner solutions or if I am missing an ingredient or forgot to buy the "instant gravy" package. Prior to going to the grocery store I had to look up a recipe for beef stew. The nice thing about this cookbook is that there are sketches on the backgrounds of the recipe that follows. For instance this write-up prior to the stew recipes:
France has been known for its economical, lovingly cooked,
flavorful stews. Once considered a dish for peasants, their excellence quickly
elevated them to the realm of haute cuisine.
Nor is France alone in its love of stews. The Poles have their bigos,
the Germans and Hungarians their goulashes, and so on. (You find many of these
potpourris in the Main Dishes chapter, pages 290 to 314.) But it is Americans
who are true fans of all stews.
Let me pause here. Betty Crocker shows herself to be diverse; however, this
diversity confines itself to the borders of Europe. The context clearly
reveals the stew-loving Americans are not Nigerian-Americans or Chinese-
Americans. It is implied and taken for granted the Americans so discussed are White Americans descended from the old countries of Europe who have brought
their love of stew with them. It gets better. The paragraph concludes with:
An afternoon of shopping ahead? Someone working overtime? Let your dinner-in-a-kettle simmer away while you're away or until the family is ready to sit down at the table. Stews hold well; some think they are even better reheated. And no meal is more stretchable for those unexpected guests. Top your stew with a crown of Dumplings (page 50) and you have a true company dish.
There are several assumptions that are being made, not only with regard to meal
planning but also to the social norms at this time period. The audience
intended is definitely women, a housewife specifically. The someone working
overtime is certainly not the one wearing an apron here. It is the man, the
husband. Also note how unexpected guests and company were common occurrences
(more on dinner parties later). Now these formal get-togethers are not so
common in our world when two parents work and struggle to prepare food for
their own families and have no time to fraternize with friends or coworkers. It has rather become a cat-eats-mouse-eats-cheese routine.
I have been just time warped by my cookbook and need to make a trip to the
grocery to pick up a few items. While standing in the checkout, my eyes wander
to the bright colors and wonderfully spaced words and headlines. At a child's-eye view one can easily see a "modern" woman's magazine glaring with the headline: "Read His Dirty Mind"(1) next to a scantily dressed woman. I know its a little too late to complain about such sluttishish now. Cosmo has been on the grocery stores for years. The explicit promises of pornography inside the pages are not suitable for a housewife, let alone a child. I should have complained to the store manager. I should have spoken up and addressed my grievances with the cashier. But I knew this in itself was not a battle to be fought. It is a symptom of a disease. I kept my mouth shut, wielded my child's eyes from view and made my way out the door with the few items I needed to make my family dinner that night.
I love to go to rummage sales, garage sales or in some parts they are called
yard sales. At a local church rummage sale last year, I picked up thick
booklets for .25 each geared especially for women. I assumed they were produced
in conjunction with The Amy Vanderbilt Success Program For Women courses, if
there were such courses taught.(2) Copyright 1963. I picked up the only three
I could find with intriguing titles such as "How to use the A B C's of Sewing"
and "A Guide To The Art Of Conversation" and "How To Give Successful Dinner
Parties." It is a blast from the past. The colors, the graphic illustrations
show a world where White people laughed, ate, loved each other. No African
Bahama Mamas, No Dot-Heads or Fish-head eaters, no miscegenation. Just White,
all right. For example this paragraph regarding the how-tos regarding After-Dinner Coffee depicts a different world than we live in now:
A hostess with an after-dinner coffee service before her, especially if her party has gone well, is happy and realized. She may even be excused if she wears a glow. Because of her planning and effort, it has been an enjoyable evening. And with the warm conviviality that after-dinner coffee brings, there is good reason to believe the evening will continue to be
enjoyable.
The after-dinner coffee tray may hold large cups and demitasses. Some
men prefer large cups. It is pleasant contrast to use coffee cups of another china than the dinner service -- black-and-white striped, perhaps, or multicolored. In addition to the pot of regular coffee a well-appointed tray will offer a pot of decaffeinated coffee, too. Cream for those who wish it. Sugar, of course. And, for another surprise element: Brandy, for those who liked their coffee laced. Cinnamon sticks, which lend a provocative flavor when they are used as stirrers. . . .
Wasn't that wonderful? No wonder why Martha Stewart was so famous and so well
liked by millions of women, FINALLY - something we wanted to know about,
homemaking skills rather than 101 different ways to find a "G-spot"!
All modern magazines and domestic goddesses are semantically correct nowadays.
What a pity, pictures of different hybrids, races and cultures fill the covers
of these easily accessible magazines. Martha Stewarts' Living, doesn't
feature "Christmas," rather "Holiday," with lots of treats and trinkets for
fellow Hanukkah observers. It gets worse. The August 2003 edition of Better
Homes and Gardens (okay I was a sucker and succumbed to the headline: "Gardening for Fun: 10 Whimsical Ideas For Playful Plantings") features a section regarding small spaces. One of the "featured families" is a Jewish family in New York living in a high-rise apartment building. Surprise. Surprise. The Rosenberg family is admired and praised in the magazine for their "decorating skills." To tell you the truth I found the artwork that this lady and her daughter selected not only in bad taste but repulsive, such as the Thomas Ruff painting of a girl which occupies the FULL LENGTH of the dining room. How many homes have you walked in and a the dining room wall is covered by a huge face with a bright orange background? Bizarre. But to come to find out the Rosenbergs did not decorate "themselves" they hired a NYC architect Carol Maryan. It was also revealed special storage space was designed for this "kosher" kitchen. Yuck, vomit, retch.
Woman's magazines nowadays not only give balanced space to the minorities in
this country, but praise and glorify their Jewish editors and owners. It is
sick and not fair. I want White homemaking magazines, I want to read magazines
and how-to guides printed today, not what I had to dig through a pile of dusty
boxes at a rummage sale to find. I want to go to the store and know by the
cover of the magazines I am not a sex crazed birth-control-popping bimbo. I am
a mother, I am a wife, I am a friend. Where are my magazines, where are my
booklets that were made for my mother, my grandmother?
I have read somewhere or mentioned here at VNN we are at war - the war of
ideas. Maybe there's some special-tactic covert military term for Iraq or
Afanganistan.(3) But we, White Americans, are in a war. It is a THOUGHT war
being waged upon the neuron synapses of every man, woman and child. This war
affects me everyday from TV advertisements, billboards to magazine ads. I
understand I am being inundated with a bombardment of visual messages that
convey to me: in order for me to be appealing to the ones I care about, I must appear that I am in control, sex-crazed, feminist, single, bleeding heart liberal with fake hair color. I know I am better than that, what the Jews want for me. However that is not necessarily that it bothers me, rather it is the deliberate lack of helpful information and encouragement I need to continue and strengthen me to the call of duty - homemaker duty. There are some sparse sprinklings around the internet and a few gems found among the freebie recycled magazine at the library but until the White Woman Daily is produced and published and located next to the Trident at the checkout stand, I will seek fortitude in my kitchen, alone with my outdated, twenty-sixth printing of a 1969 version Betty Crocker's cookbook.
TONI BRIAN
(1) http://www.cosmopolitan.com/
(2) http://www.foundelements.com/books/amyvbooks.html
(3) http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=8544&TagID=2
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