Vintage ad Whitman’s Sampler for Easter 1951

For some, Easter is all about the candy

Candy manufacturers have all hopped on the Easter candy bandwagon by painting some pastel colors on their usual year round candy. From Reese’s Pieces Pastel Easter Egg Candy or Whopper’s Robin Eggs, regular every day candy decked out in holiday hues just doesn’t count as real Easter candy.

You can call it M&M’s bunny mix in pastel colors but it’s the same M&Ms you get in your trick or treat bag.

In fact Easter ranks second only to Halloween in candy sales. Which may explain the perfect amalgam of the 2 holidays sold by candy manufacturer Brach. Their Pastel Candy Corn is the familiar old Halloween candy in soft hues.

For purists there is a difference between Easter–themed candy and Easter candy.

For some Easter can only mean Peeps.

But for others it’s just not Easter without a classic hollow chocolate bunny.

And as a mid-century suburban Jew, it was just not Passover without a chocolate bunny too.

A Bunny at My Seder

In this great American melting pot, it seemed perfectly acceptable to bring me an Easter bunny at Passover time.

En route to my suburban Long Island Seder, my NYC Great Aunts would stop at the W.T. Grants store on the Upper East Side where they would procure several RM Palmer hollow chocolate bunnies for all the children.

As a child, nibbling the chocolate ears of the RM Palmer bunny was as much a holiday ritual as asking the four questions.

Hallowed Hollow Chocolate Bunnies

Inside the RM Palmer Chocolate Factory, decorating the chocolate Easter bunnies. Illustrator Stevan Dohanos 1950

Though not the originator of hollow chocolate bunnies, RM Palmer is widely recognized for making more hollow chocolate bunnies than any in the world.

Hollow molds had entered the picture by 1939 when newspaper ads mention “hollow chocolate rabbits for 5 cents.”

The hollow center was developed for 2 reasons: first the treats were less expensive to produce and second the candy was easier for children to eat, since biting into a large solid chocolate bunny.might fill them to the brim.

During WWII the manufacturing of all chocolate novelties was temporarily halted by the War Production Board, so that the cocoa rations could be put to use for “staple civilian and military purposes such as breakfast cocoa and candy bars.”

At the end of the war, Richard M. Palmer Sr,  like so many returning soldiers, wanted a part of the American Dream. His would be covered in chocolate.

Candy Factory

Illustrator Stevan Dohanos cover for The Saturday Evening Post March 25, 1950. Inside the Penn.chocolate factory

In 1948 with an initial investment of $25,000, Richard Palmer purchased used equipment and rented an old warehouse in Sinking Spring Penn. where the company was formed.

With only 4 employees and 4 products that included Baby Binks, Bunny Binks, Daddy Binks and Hen and Egg, Palmer approached W.T. Grants Company 25 cent store. They immediately fell in love with Baby Binks and agreed to a trial display during the month of November.

The response was so positive that the retailer ordered $20,000 worth of the bunnies for Easter which helped the candy company get off the ground. In 1950 they relocated to Reading Penn. to make room for more employees and production equipment

The Saturday Evening Post immortalized the new factory on their March 25 1950 cover, seen above.

Illustrator Stevan Dohanos set up his easel in the Reading Penn. chocolate novelty company and for 3 days he painted bunnies as they marched past him in the general direction of Easter Sunday.

Note the steel molds in the illustration: one side is filled with molten chocolate, then they are closed and revolved while cooling, the whirling motion making the rabbits turn out hollow on the inside. Since their debut most of the bows and icing decorations have been made by hand.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

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“Reach for Your Sombrero…and go to your grocers pronto for this gay and colorful treat “Manana just isn’t soon enough. Surprise your family with this corn with the Latin touch tonight.” Vintage Green Giant Mexicorn Ad 1952

Toss on your suburban sombrero, gather your mariachis and lets celebrate Cinco De Mayo mid-century style.

Tequila, salsa, tamales, mole, No importa! For a real south of the border taste treat you couldn’t beat a can of Green Giant Mexicorn.

Ho Ho Ho!

With festive red and green peppers tossed in with the familiar Jolly Green Giant sunshine yellow niblets, it was easy to imagine yourself down Mexico way.

Senor Pancho

In our 1960’s East Coast neighborhood the closest we got to anything authentically Mexican was the cement lawn ornament we had on our front lawn. (The same lawn that ironically would be expertly mowed by Mexican landscapers some 40 years later)

No black lawn jockey for my liberal suburban family, por favor! No sireee, this was the era of the burgeoning civil rights movement, and we had our ear to the ground.

For our ranch style hacienda we tastefully installed a decorative stone statue of a Mexican hombre complete with a sombrero and a colorful sarape whom we affectionately called Senor Pancho.

Ay Carambe !

We didn’t need Cinco de Mayo to celebrate Mexican culture, because frankly the holiday was never even discussed in any of our classrooms. Nibbling on some Fritos or popping on a sombrero and chowing down on some Mexicorn was all a good suburban family would need to add a little bit of Mexican spice to their lives.

No Comprende

This is a much gay day for corn –the day when your grocer unveils the new pack of Niblets Brand Mexicorn. Never were the golden kernels so tender. Reach for the cans that show him wearing his Mexican hat.” Vintage Green Giant Niblets Mexicorn ad 1951

As with most mid-century suburban adventures into foreign cooking any relation to the country of origin was no importa!

Just as adding a few slices of Dole pineapple to a dish made it Polynesian, or a dash of soy sauce turned a humdrum recipe into something oriental so the with the help of the Jolly Green Giant and his Mexicorn, even a ho-hum meatloaf transformed into a Mexican fiesta.

Mexicorn was as authentically a Mexican dish as Chicken chow mein was Chinese food, Americans were content to eat have their ethnicity watered down, suited to their tastes. The great American melting pot had yet to be fully stirred.

AYE! AYE! AYE!

“If your grocer has his Mexican hat on today don’t be surprised. It’s a big fiesta day when the new pack of Niblets Brand Mexicorn hits towns. Straight from the hacienda of the jolly Green Giant – tender Niblets Brand corn mixed with sweet red and green pepper. Gay surprise eating tonight!” Vintage Green Giant Mexicorn Ad 1951

Crossing the border of good taste,  in the 1950′s, Green Giant ran a series of  corny ads featuring all American icon the Jolly Green Giant decked out in a traditional sombrero hawking Niblets Mexicorn.

“El Cameon-The Champ” Vintage Green Giant Niblets Mexicorn Ad 1952

Women appeared in national costumes this 1952 ad that had the Jolly Green Giant posed as a bullfighter -El Cameon ( The Champ)  while three  adoring women in traditional dresses looking on.

“Don’t let the bullfighter get-up fool you,” the company assured the women.  “It’s your old friend the Jolly Green Giant reminding you that for a gay surprise in fine eating nothing can match this Niblets Brand Mexicorn. Everybody loves this so will you. Muy Mucho.”

In the Valley of the  Green Giant

Green Giant was the king of corn. In 1929 they invented a new process for canning vacuum packed corn. Called Niblets this brand would become the best-selling canned corn in the country.

The Minnesota Valley Canning Company developed the Giant as a product trademark in 1928. This American icon became so popular that the company eventually changed its name to Green Giant in 1950.

The original giant wasn’t green or jolly and they quickly changed his skin color from white to green adding foliage to the outfit. In 1935 ad executive Leo Burnett decided to rename him the Jolly Green Giant.

The Green Giant would soon become as beloved and trusted as Betty Crocker.

“A fiesta dish for every day a colorful new version of your fine friend Niblets Brand kernel corn” Vintage Niblets Mexicorn Ad 1947

In 1947 the Green Giant Company still called the Minnesota Valley Canning Company was one of the first companies to advertise nationally with a Mexican theme.

Introducing middle Americans to Niblets Mexicorn its ads featured the familiar Green Giant strumming his guitar, singing a Spanish song and wearing a sombrero and a colorful serape over his shoulders.

The trusty green giant pictured on the label assured Mrs. America that the product remained good and trustworthy, and that just like the Giant, the all American corn had just been dressed up for the occasion for variety.

Vintage Green Giant ad 1953

And not to worry, not only was there  nary a hint of exotic cilantro or chile peppers in this  colorful fiesta of sweet red and green peppers nestled with those famous golden kernels  that might give it a whiff of authenticity, the corn came straight from the hacienda of the Jolly Green Giant.

Packed at the fleeting moment of perfect flavor,  American homemakers could rest assured no Mexican migrant hands touched the product grown in the safety of sanitary Minnesota.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Dubious diets are as American as…well…. all-you-can-eat apple pie.

Relying on fad diets to shed a few pounds has been handed down from gullible generation to gullible generation willing to swallow anything promising a trim figure.

In 1938 The American Institute of Baking served up white bread as a “proper part of modern reducing diets” in its authoritative booklet “The Right Way to Right Weight.”

Let’s take a look at how one 1930’s gal went from gloomy to giddy and found her slender self with the help of a loaf of bread.

A Glutton for Gluten

Vintage Sunbeam Bread advertisement

Like most Americans, Gertie Gottlieb was a glutton for gluten. Whether bread, biscuits or Parker House rolls, Gertie gobbled ‘em up with gusto.

But like most gals, Gertie longed for a slender silhouette.

All the romance she got was out of magazines. And she had plenty of time to read them too.

A wee bit stout, she craved the right contours, eyeing with envy all the smart spring fashions pictured in the women’s magazines.

Flirtatious fashions, tailored for trimness. Fashions that called for a slim, youthful figure…”the lovely silhouette every woman so eagerly desires.”

Vintage Women’s Fashion Illustration 1934 “McCall’s Magazine” “Flirtation Fashions- Tailored into Trimness. The waistline is dreamily defined; Molded along modern lines for debutantes who crave the right contours.”

A Weigh We Go

Heaven knows, Gertie tried her hand at reducing.

“Being the modern common sense way to diet,” she knew enough to “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”

“Light a Lucky Strike,” the cigarette ads advised. “When fattening sweets tempt and you dread extra weight, light a Lucky instead. The sensible and sane way of reducing, just a common sense method of retaining a slender figure.”

At the end of the 1920′s a new slogan for Lucky Strikes appeared everywhere, advising to “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet,” suggesting smoking as common sense way of reducing. Celebrity endorsements, both male and female offered their personal testimony, such as the 1929 ad (L) featuring Grace Hay Drummond-Hay who was the first woman to travel around the world by air. The slim silhouette so in demand (L) Vintage ad Lucky Strike Cigarettes – “Smoke a Lucky instead of sweets” (R) Vintage Women’s Fashion Illustration 1934

But instead of a slim figure she ended up with smokers hack.

Gertie gobbled fat-reducing gum drops, chewed Slends Fat-Reducing Gum, and devoured so many grapefruits on the Hollywood Diet that she darn near felt she deserved a star of her own in front of Graumanns Chinese Theater.

The famous fat-busting banana and skim milk diet went bust, as did the bathtub filled with reducing bath salts with names like Lesser Slim Figure Bath and Everywoman’s Flesh Reducer which may have worked for every woman, but not for poor Gertie.

And speaking of bathtubs, she even tried her hand at washing away the fat with Fat-O-No soap hoping to lather up to slim down. And don’t get her started on all those thyroid pills, even if all the screen stars swore by them.

All she ended up with was a bad case of the jitters. But nothing a hot buttered bun wouldn’t fix!

A Diet Fit for Loafers

Down in the dumps, Gertie  worried if she was doomed to go through life feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

She had just about given up when her pal Mitzi told her about an amazing diet that was sweeping the nation. All Gertie needed was the proper guidance.

Gertie’s eyes glazed over at the thought of yet another diet till she heard the magic words: Bread.

For this gluten-loving gal it was a godsend.

The Bread Diet gives you delicious, satisfying meals- takes off weight without fatigue or nervous strain. (L) 1939 Ad Bread Diet, American Institute of Baking (R) 1934s Fashion Illustration McCall’s Magazine

The Bread Diet promised m’lady that in a few short weeks the pounds would just melt away all while enjoying your fill of the staff of life.

Authorized by the American Institute of Baking, their ads promised “To gain alluring slimness don’t think you have to starve yourself. Take the safe way to slenderness. Go on the Bread Diet.”

A registered nurse, Mitzi confirmed to Gertie that this diet was no gimmick. but  based on the most up to date, verifiable nutritional knowledge. “The bread diet is a scientific well-balanced diet based on years of research in leading universities and laboratories,” Mitzi informed her friend, handing her the advertisement.

Mitzi explained: “ Important in this diet is the amount of bread- 2 slices with each meal. Far reaching scientific tests have proved bread can be an important aid in reducing. It is a valuable combination of carbohydrates and proteins. In this reducing diet, bread helps you burn up more completely the fat you are losing. Excess weight is converted into energy.”

Vintage Bread Diet Ad 1939

Who could be more trustworthy than a doctor who by the way endorsed this program.

Reading further she pointed out a fact progressive doctors and nutritionists have long known: “Bread gives your body more than energy. It is a valuable source of muscle-building protein. Actually we get more proteins from bread and other wheat products than from any other class of food. Bread in this reducing diet helps keep muscles firm and strong!”

Vintage ad The Bread Diet 1939

The reason it was so successful was simple:

“Unlike so many reducing diets that cut down too much on needed food and often exhaust the system, the diet explained, the Bread Diet supplies the food elements the body needs. “

Vintage Bread Diet Ad 1939

The diet came with a warning to avoid the most dangerous pitfalls of most fad diets: “If you are reducing, take care not to rob your body of the food fuel it need. Then the fat that you lose is not burned up properly…a harmful residue is left in the system often causing fatigue irritability and lowered resistance.”

You could avoid these dangers by following the bread diet.

So if you’re dieting don’t think you have to give up bread. By following the safe easy Bread diet you can enjoy 6 slices of bread every day and lose weight!

Gertie was in good-for-you gluten heaven. Ain’t life grand!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

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Has the selling of the 1950’s nuclear family finally reached it’s expiration date?

In a consumer culture of unlimited choices, Madison Avenue has long sold only one brand of the American family…and it is now a bit shopworn.

Never was the notion of the idealized nuclear family more potent or more seductive than in mid-century America. The much cherished, deeply engrained ideal of Mom, Dad, Sis and Jr. was solidified into our shared iconography in the post-war years when America went on a binge of family life.

Family Construct

“Dads like a kid again when Bill and Bobby bring out their construction set. And Mom and Betty can’t resist a little “experting” on the sidelines. At all family affairs 7 up is a welcome part of everybody’s fun. 7-Up the all family drink-is a good friend of youngest and oldest alike. Be a fresh family…every member can be a 7 Up steady.” Vintage 7-Up advertisement 1949

The Mad Men of mid-century Madison Avenue cleverly created advertising campaigns calculated to sell the perfect family along with the American dream.

Images of the nuclear family exploded in advertising, scattering its potent assumptions of family deep into our collective psyches. And like a toxic overspill, remnants remain in each of us today.

Hawking the romanticized family as much as they sold brand loyalty to beer, cameras, or soft drinks, the ads both reinforced and reflected the fairy tale suburban life, offering a blueprint to the newly minted post-war middle class, living out the American dream.

The Nuclear Family Takes Off

The Nuclear Family Takes Off! Vintage 7-Up ad 1948

One popular ad campaign was a series of advertisements from 7 Up that created the picture perfect expression of the nuclear family who were as wholesome, bubbly and saccharine sweet as the soda pop itself.

Long before 7 Up was the “wet and wild” happening beverage for the “now generation” it was “The All Family Drink,” the perfect beverage for the perfect suburban family.

The ads which ran from the late 1940′s to the late 1950′s served up an idealized mid-century America enjoying their post-war promises of prosperity, while engaged in happy family living.

Share the Family Fun

7-Up the wholesome drink for wholesome families! The ads offered Kodacolor snapshots of the American dream made better with 7- Up Vintage 7-Up advertisement 1951

The idyllic snapshots of the American dream family that 7-Up used in the ads all portrayed an eerily homogenous landscape of spacious suburban homes and smiling, prosperous, cheerful, Anglo-Saxon families enjoying fun times together in their suburban rumpus rooms and backyards.

Naturally 7-Up was a regular part of family fun.

This “Happy Family Living” was the image that most advertising and entertainment seemed determined to project and one which served as a template for the idea of family.

“In Tune with Family Fun! It’s fun when the whole family gathers around Mom at the piano singing and playing their favorite tunes. And cheerful crystal clear 7-Up joins right in because its lively sparkle and clean taste appeal to all ages. It’s a regular part of happy family living in millions of homes. ” Vintage 7-Up Ad 1950

TV’s June and Ward Cleaver or Jim and Margaret Anderson-no slouches when it came to the nuclear family- would have fit right at home in any of these dozens of tableau’s of the American dream.

“Scores With all the Family- Young Bill may be the best bowler, but its pretty evident there’s another top scorer with the whole family. 7-Up lends its own good cheer to every family activity.” Vintage 7-Up ad 1950

All in the Family Drink

They really meant it when they suggested that sparkling clear 7-Up was the “All Family drink.” Several ads were directed at the playpen set.  Because 7-Up was  so pure, so good..so wholesome “…folks of all ages including little tots can “fresh up” with as much 7 -Up as they want, and as often as they want.”

“Really got a grip on that 7 Up haven’t you big boy? asks this 1953 Seven Up ad. “Go right ahead “fresh up to your heart’s content! Mom knows sparkling crystal clear 7 up is so pure so good so wholesome that folks of all ages even little guys like you can enjoy it often.” Babyboomers could get hooked for life.

“Pint size players can have big league thirsts and these little sand lot sultans of swat really know whats good for ‘em- and good to ‘em!” Vintage 7-Up ad 1953

Enjoy Good Times and Togetherness

“Bright and lively 7-Up is right down your alley whether you’re out bowling with the family or having your family at home!” Vintage 7-Up ad 1953

Funs a Poppin’ With  7-Up

Home Hearth and Kids. “Here’s a plot for happy autumn evenings…the fire glowing on the hearth the corn’s a popping and plenty of sparkling crystal clear 7-Up” Vintage 7 Up ad 1953

Pow Wow With 7-Up

Perfect for any suburban family pow wow. Seven Up is “one of the family” whether you’re working or playing. For friendly cheerful 7 Up adds its own lively sparkle to any occasion.” Honest Injun! Vintage 7-Up ad 1951

End Note

The advertising of those years have done so much to shape our impression of the era.

In the process, they came to crystallize some of the great American self delusions of the 1950s. By 1969 even Mad Men’s Peggy Olson wondered “Do family’s like this really exist anymore? Are there people who eat dinner and smile at each other instead of watching TV?”

Today as the very definition of family has gone through transformation allowing for more diversity, some still cling to the dusty and outmoded notions of the nuclear family that are as outdated as these vintage images.

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Thanks to war-time research and  American know how, growing up in suburban mid-century America  I would be the happy recipient of a veritable bushel basket of sun-kissed, vitamin rich fruits and vegetables.

No other country we were told  “has the good fortune to enjoy such a varied, appealing and wholesome diet”.

And no, we did not have a plethora of farmer’s markets, green grocers or organic community food co-ops; in fact today’s locavore movement- the notion of eating what is produced locally local and shunning what isn’t – would have been laughed at.

Most of the farm fresh goodness I would experience came courtesy of Birds Eye Farms ( quick frozen for quick serving) and the verdant  Valley of The Green Giant

No matter the season, I could always enjoy cans and boxes of good tasting, fresh-from-the-pesticide-sprayed farm flavor of fruits and vegetables.

Old McDonald had A Suburban Farm

(L)Happy days on the farm vintage children’s book illustration from “On Cherry Street” Ginn Basic reader 1950s (R) Vintage ad- Snow Crop Frozen Vegetables Country Fair 1957

 Quick frozen or in cans, dried or powdered, when it came to fruits and vegetables it was like having a farm in your own back yard, which funny enough I did.

Like so many other housing developments of the time, my ranch house sprouted up on what had once been one of hundreds of potato farms that dotted Long Island.

The original farmer, Mr Gutztsky who looked remarkably like Mr. Green Jeans on Captain Kangaroo, held on to a small plot of his original farm so that in fact for many years instead of rows of split levels houses, there was an actual working farm behind us.

For a while there were the early morning rooster alarm clock, the stray clucking chickens in the backyard and even a horse poking his nose in an open bedroom window.

Whatever connection of being back to the earth my city-bred parents originally  felt, was in just a few short years, eventually  totally bulldozed away when farmer/businessman  Gutzsky sold the last of his acreage to developers.

Better n’ Fresh

Actually preparing fresh vegetables seemed as out of date as the horse-drawn plow used on the farm we usurped.

Why bother boiling and peeling and mashing those plentiful local Long Island  potatoes when Instant dehydrated flakes were so much easier.

But the abundance of all those local russet potatoes did not go to waste.

They came in darn handy in creating an extended family for Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, with plenty o’ little tater tots to go around.

 A Ripe Idea

It’s Magic! L) Vintage Illustration Fairy Godmother Cinderella Walt Disney

Naturally from time to time, we did enjoyed the wholesome goodness of fresh fruits and vegetables straight from Mother Nature herself. The produce section had been set free of the tyranny of the seasons and become global in its choices.

Even with the proper refrigeration  the problem with these gold mines of health was that they were always so gosh darn perishable, but once again American scientists came to the rescue.

Why wait for lazy Mother Nature – when miracle sprays would force all the fruit to ripen and like magic, change color at once.

In this new, fast-paced jet-age, who had time to wait for vine ripened tomatoes?

Why wait till the end of summer, when with a healthy splash of ethylene gas those rock hard green tomatoes of yesterday suddenly would become today’s garish red ones, conveniently packed in styrephone trays encased in plastic, just ripe for tossin’ in the salad.

 Safeguarding Democracy

“Safeguarding the delicate natural flavor and goodness of many tree and vine ripened fruits and vegetables is made possible by Food Machinery Corp.’s Flavorseal process.” explains this (L) ad from 1948 “Protected by a thin wax like film these fresh grown products stay fresher and wholesome longer.” Just in time to be hermetically sealed in DuPont Cellophane wrapping. (R) Vintage ad DuPont 1957

 It was a Post War Promise kept – “You can have fresh fruits and vegetables tonight…..even if the calendar says no.

The reason- Flavorseal protection.

Developed by research scientists, Flavorseal was a solution which was sprayed in a thin waxy film over the surface of freshly harvested citrus fruit, tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce helping the products stay fresh and wholesome longer for your enjoyment.

Flavorseal, they boasted, slowed down the natural deterioration of the fruit or vegetable…preserves its original freshness flavor for many extra days or even weeks!

More food to eat- less to throw away.

Was My Face Red

“Wilt? I wilt- Not says this lettuce even after 30 days!” announced this 1944 ad for Goodyears Pliofilm. (R) Vintage ad 1944 Goodyear Pliofilm

Food could be kept fresh from the vine for months.

Believe it or not the ad claims this gorgeous red ripe tomato was picked ripe from the vine 30 long days ago!

Harvest wrapped in Goodyears miracle wrap Pliofilm- “a marvelous new transparent moistureproof, spoilageproof wrapping material that seals in natures goodness and seals out natures gremlins. “

To drive home the point  Goodyear boasted that tests made by the University of Florida Agricultural Experiment Station proved that “Pliofilm has a way with fruits and vegetables that lets them keep their natural goodness, flavor color and vitamins for weeks and even months after ripening.”

And toss those ripe tomatoes in wilt-proof lettuce. Imagine lettuce, we are enticed: “keeping its head- and its crispness, and color and flavor- for 30 days after leaving the garden” thanks to Pliofilm.

Yes, it was always harvest time in our household, no matter the season. And thanks to science, it was not just canned and frozen vegetables and fruits- but fresh, rot-resistant tomatoes, fresh frost resistant strawberries year ‘round!

The future of good nourishment was well protected!

Elsie and Elmer in their WWII Victory Garden 1943

In urban areas across the country vacant lots are filled with sights of neighbors pulling weeds, planting seeds and tending heirloom tomatoes.

Overnight city rooftops have sprouted lush gardens. “Tarbeachs” once reserved for city sunning, now produces organic vegetables for hipsters at high-end restaurants.

But, long before the locavore movement heated up this growth in urban gardening, there were “victory gardens,” the granddaddy of community gardening.

 WWII Home Front Gardens

 By 1942 at the urging of Uncle Sam, my mother’s family, like 20 million others Americans during WWII, had planted a Victory garden.

As in WWI, the federal government encouraged citizens to plant victory gardens to provide themselves and their neighbors with vegetables so that commercially produced crops could be available for military use.

With millions of farming acres abroad war-torn and barren, the world’s food supply was dangerously low and that included Americans. Farmers were working overtime to produce enough food

We were asked to pitch in.

Now out of duty and not pleasure, we were required to reacquaint ourselves with cooking and eating fresh, locally grown produce.

Besides which, we were told, working in a garden  “is a wonderful sedative for war nerves.”

Gardening along with a glass of whiskey was bound to help those wartime jitters. Vintage ad Paul Jones Whiskey 1944

Food Fights for Freedom

Thousands of government sponsored advertisements convinced the public that food was a weapon of strategic importance. If  folks on the home front used food wisely it would “fight for freedom,” as one ad explained :

“It won’t just happen that there will be enough food. America has go to work at it. Food is fighting today for freedom on many fronts here at home too. If you enlist in the fight you’ll help speed the day of victory.

“We know you will do anything you can to help.”

American Grown

Front lawns turned into victory gardens

During the war my teen age mother Betty and her family lived in a  house on Montgomery Street in Brooklyn, NY  and despite their postage stamp size yard, they were delighted to find that more than a tree could grow in Brooklyn.

They were not alone

All over the city vacant lots were commandeered for the war effort and made into vegetable patches joining the  millions of small town backyards and city rooftop gardens sprouting up across the country.

Some neighborhoods groups selected a vacant lot for growing, taking turns working the garden and forming food cooperatives.

WWII Victory Garden decal to affix on your home window

With no experience in gardening, other than the petunia stocked window boxes, my grandmother perused  the local library for advice.

Countless books on wartime gardening were suddenly available with titles like Gardening for Victory, Food Garden for Defense, and  Grow Your own Food to Feed Your Family.

Like most Americans more familiar with canned corn and peas,  Betty  became accustomed to new strange vegetables like Swiss chard and kohlrabi introduced because of the seed shortages.

“Win the War with Spade and Hoe Make a Victory Garden Grow!”

 Uncle Sam exchanged his top hat for a farmers and was busy churning out gardening information.

Government victory garden instruction booklets explained everything from equipment  fertilizers, to how to work the soil. A healthy Victory garden according to the pamphlets  should be on the constant lookout for that most deadly enemy-  the Japanese beetle to be sprayed with a particular vengeance.

The Jolly Green Giant Lends a Hand

The Green Giant offered gardening tips to patriotic Americans starting their own Victory garden in this 1944 advertisement. “”Come on everybody. Lets do it again. Last year we asked all you home gardeners to compete with us growing peas and corn because- because your country needed that extra food. Your letters warmed our hearts.”

In the great American spirit of competition, the Jolly Green Giant volunteered his formidable green thumb, instructing novice gardeners how to grow their own peas and corn.

Ever the patriot, he shared his secrets to one and all through ads and free booklets chock full of information of when to plant, types of seed and how to prepare the soil for your victory garden. Bursting with pride at the success, the Green Giant wished us all the best of luck” to the finest competition any company ever had!”

Ho-Ho Ho Tojo!

Hollywood Goes Gardening

Despite her mother’s nudging, my preoccupied teenage mother was a less than enthused farmer

While my grandmother was busy reading Better Homes and Garden, bobby-soxer Betty kept her nose buried in the glossy movie magazines  which constantly chronicled Hollywood’s war efforts.

Photoplay magazine  reported  that Miss Joan Crawford worked in her own backyard garden and  favored hearty vegetables like beets and cauliflower carrots and squash and had a special section devoted to a variety of red, yellow, and white tomatoes.

Betty read with delight “that special guests invited to Miss Crawford’s home served what she called her Mildred Pierce Victory Salad with all ingredients grown in her own garden.”

If Betty’s s favorite movie star, glamourpuss Joan Crawford could work hard in her own victory garden getting her well manicured nails grubby, by gosh there was no reason for Betty to be a slacker.

Madison Avenue Gets Their Hands Dirty

 Advertisers jumped on the bandwagon promoting and encouraging patriotic Americans to plant victory gardens  spurring people to harvest and share in the bounty.

Advertisers’ anxious to prove that they were contributing to the war effort shamelessly tied in their product to gardening in whatever way they could regardless of the product they were hawking.

Carnation Milk Ad 1943

Schenley Royal Reserve Whiskey 1943 Ad -Greens Committee

“There’s more  gardening  these days and less golf”

Schenley Royal Reserve Whiskey 1943 Ad -Harvest Time

“Americans make the best of everything. Americans are making the best use of their weekends and vacations by helping to bring in the crops. All Schenley distilleries are producing vital alcohol for war purposes so we were reminded to save it for special occasions.”

Coke  Hospitality in a Victory Garden 1943 Ad

“There is a Victory garden in almost every backyard this summer. Friends in work clothes come over to admire and compare crops. Then when a few moments of relaxation are in order they drink Ice Cold Coke and enjoy perfect refreshment while contemplating the results of their work.”

Jayson Sportswear Advertisement  1944

National Dairy Ad Products 1944 “The earth and I are friends now“

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream!

Growing up in mid-century Long Island, no  sound was more welcome than the suburban siren call of summer – the seductive jingling  bells of the Good Humor truck.

Normally at the first ring of that irresistible ding-a-ling-ling, slippery tots would jump out of vinyl sided pools, Stan Muesial baseball mitts were tossed unceremoniously to the ground, and gun slinging cowpokes shifted their attention to the thought of a toasted almond or a chocolate éclair bar, as a  blur of pigtails, baseball caps and scraped knees would appear.

Salivating like Pavlovian dogs, they would go running to the nearest parent, their tiny hands thrust out impatiently for a coin.

But discerning ears knew that not all chimes were created equal.

Bungalow Bar in the Burbs

Vintage ad Dixie Cups 1946

On certain afternoons the jingling of bells brought no buyers, the streets remained remarkably empty of Dixie cup craving children.

This was because the chimes belonged to the Bungalow Bar truck, that trespasser from the city Boroughs. A stranger to the burbs, the truck roamed the streets like an unwelcome tourist in a foreign location which in fact it was.

I’m sure the Bungalow Bar man was as friendly as Nick our Good Humor man, always impeccably dressed in his blindingly white uniform, just as I’m sure he was equally skilled at reaching into the ice cream compartment steamy with condensation and able to pull out exactly the item you wanted without even seeming to look.

No doubt he was just as adept at working the silver metal coin organizer that he wore on his belt quickly clicking the little lever that would eject a coin at the bottom for your change.

But he was never even given a chance.

At the appearance of the truck I would join the rest of the kids chanting at the top of our lungs a mean-spirited ditty that was mysteriously passed from neighborhood to neighborhood, without any real foundation to it: “Bungalow bar/tastes like tar/ the more you eat/ the sicker you are.”

The truck itself was quaint, its white rounded corners reminiscent of an old-fashioned Frigidaire the kind found in a Grandmothers apartment.

It was  designed to look like a small bungalow  complete with a white picket fence instead of a door, topped with a dark russet-brown shingle roof and a fake chimney, which if it were real would probably belch out black smoke from its coal furnace.

In the shiny new suburbs where everything you saw and touched was not just new but never before new, it looked plain old-fashioned, and woefully out of place.

Suburban Interloper

Their only customers were the occasional family nostalgic for the old neighborhood, families like my neighbors the Moskowitz’s, who would often sit on lawn chairs set up on their stark concrete driveway as if they were still sitting on the stoop of their Bensonhoist Brooklyn apartment watching the nonexistent foot traffic go by.

Like a doddering old Dinosaur, this interloper that had originated in Brooklyn and Queens had stumbled across the Nassau County  border hoping to join the stampede pouring out to the suburbs of Lon gIsland.

Maybe for those crowded, apartment dwellers who escaped the heat each summer to the fresh air of the Mountains renting tiny, 2 room, asbestos shingled, gable roofed bungalows in the Borscht Belt, the sight of that  Bungalow on wheels brought back bucolic  memories  of pine scented air,and screened porches.

Perhaps in Bushwick or Bensonhurst, Flatbush or Forest Hills, a world of two family attached houses, broad stoops with great balustrades in lieu of backyards, narrow concrete alleyways where little boys rode bicycles and little girls played Double Dutch, Bungalow Bars may have ruled unchallenged but in the modern suburbs of swing sets and split levels  Good Humor was king.

Suburban Paradise

Suburbia so Modern…so Up to Date

This was the land of Exodus where so many seemed to have found the Promised Land, and Bungalow Bars were a remnant of a former life, a reminder of a past left behind.

The boroughs were the Old World and for some, Brooklyn and the Bronx were as far removed from this first generation of suburbanites as Minsk was from my first generation American grandparents.

The Cadillac of Ice Cream

So we would wait for the big spanking white porcelain truck with the modern clean square edges, its familiar logo with the picture of the chocolate covered bar with a bite taken out of it, baked into the tiny freezer door.

Yes, we were willing to pay an extra nickel more for the privilege of eating a frozen treat from  Good Humor the Cadillac of ice cream trucks, the standard by which other ice cream trucks were judged.

Vintage ad “Live Better Electrically” 1965

In 1956 happy homemaker Helen Watson didn’t give a hoot about leaving carbon footprints; in fact if one were pointed out to her she’d most likely plug-in her powerful Electrolux vacuum and sweep it all away.

Was she concerned about climate change? Not in the least. An electric blanket kept her toasty in winter a Freon filled air conditioner kept her cool in summer

Like most mid-century Americans,  Mrs. Watson wasn’t worried about energy related greenhouse gas emissions or renewable energy…unlimited energy was an American birth-rite.

American Dreaming on the Grid

Glancing up at the electric Telechronic clock in her suburban kitchen Helen smiled contentedly as she poured herself another cup of Maxwell House from the Miro-Matic electric percolator.

All was right in the world.

As the family’s wash n’ wear laundry tumbled in the Whirlpool dryer, baby Betsy’s bottle warmed in the electric bottle warmer, and hubby’s eggs sizzled in the automatic skillet, she mindlessly hummed a familiar jingle:

“Make your families life much brighter”
“You will find your work much lighter”
“It’s as easy as can be”
“To live better electrically.”

Good Vibrations

The peppy little jingle was courtesy of General Electric the folks who promised that progress was their most important business.

Helen’s carefree days were delineated by the lulling sounds of progress.

The familiar purr of the frost-free Frigidaire, the hum of the coffee maker, the whirring sounds of a Sunbeam Mixmaster and the whining of the waste disposal were soothing sounds to Helen’s ears.

In the distance, the buzzing of Ed’s electric razor, the whirling of his electric roto-shoe shiner blended seamlessly with the symphony of synchronized electric hedge trimmers and power tools emanating from do it yourself neighbors yards.

High Voltage Living

In mid-century America,no one wanted to be considered underprivileged, electrically speaking. Vintage Ad- America’s Independent Electric Light and Power Company 1955

Like most Americans, Helen was tickled pink with her all-electric living ( not too pink please, no one would dare accuse her of being a Communist) “When you live better electrically,” Ronald Reagan told viewers as host to GE Theater, “ you lead a richer, fuller life.”

At the end of the day she could sleep securely under her electric blanket, satisfied that she was plugged into the American Dream.

That is until a series of advertisements appeared that cast some doubt.

From her waffle maker to her water heater, her radios to her rotisseries, Helen was quite sure she was living life large on the great American grid.

But now a questioned nagged at her…was she living large enough?

Apparently not.

How Do I Rate?

Vintage ad 1957-America’s Independent Electric Light and Power Companies

Along with the plethora of quizzes and tests that were so popular in all the women’s magazines asking the reader to rate their marriage, parenting skills and beauty quotient, there appeared a series of quizzes  posing as ads designed to rate your standard of living.

A standard of living as defined by Westinghouse, Frigidaire and 5 star General Electric.

“Just how efficient were you? the ads asked ?”  Naturally efficiency wasn’t referring to energy-efficient appliances it was about how many energy using appliances and devices you could fill your home with.

No one wanted to be considered underprivileged electrically speaking.

Live Better Electrically

Posing as quizzes, a series of ads appeared in the mid 1950s asking the reader to rate their standard of living. In 1957 to accompany the Live Better Electrically campaign,   GE organized the Medallion Home Program targeting home builders. To earn a status Gold Medallion the height of modern living a home had to have an electric washer and dryer, waste disposal, refrigerator and all-electric heating. (L) Vintage ad 1958  ” Medallion Homes -Live Better Electrically” (R) Vintage 1958 ad “Live Better Electrically” “How clever are you at gift shopping? Check the Give Better Electrically scale and see.” Not only were we living better electrically we were also encouraged to give better electrically.

Hoping to generate more electric power sales, a campaign was launched in 1956 called “Live Better Electrically” which was supported by 180 electrical manufactures and 300 electric utilities.

To keep electricity demands up, they aggressively ran ads, distributed booklets, produced a popular Sunday night TV show, all touting the benefits of electrical living.

Keeping Score

“Can you guess how many ways you put electricity to work?” one ad asked, inviting the reader to make it a fun family affair. One good measure of your standard of living is the number of ways electricity is working for you. The more things you let electricity do, the more likely you are to live comfortably and conveniently and get the most out of life.” Vintage ad 1957

A fun family activity was keeping score of all the electrical appliances in the home. It helped the kiddies with their arithmetic skills to boot!

“Just for fun,” they suggest in one ad from 1957 , “why not guess right now how many ways you put electricity to work?”

“Then on the lists below check how many appliances you have in your home. If your guess comes within 5 of your actual total, you’re far above the average in your power of observation.”

If you checked  30-40 items you rated very good,  while having less than 15 items -” You Are …Missing a Lot!”

Naturally if you checked 45 items or more your standard of electrical living was excellent. Your chances of contributing to greenhouse gas emissions even greater!

 How Do I Measure Up?

Some ads spoke directly to the lady of the house. How did she rate as a housekeeper ?

Its simply good sense to key your kitchen to modern living with an all-electric kitchen and start living better electrically. Check the Live Better Electrically scale and see o much of your life is spent in the kitchen. Vintage ad 1958 Live Better Electrically

“Are You spending too much time in the kitchen?” they asked. “Its simply good sense to key your kitchen to modern living with an all-electric kitchen and start living better electrically.”

All these “electrical servants” they boasted were true energy conservation appliances. Of course the energy they spoke of  was in reference to m’lady. These energy-saving, labor-saving items meant less tiresome chores and more energy and pep for the happy homemaker.

Vintage advertisements detail “Live Better Electrically” 1958

Like revealing personality tests, these simple yes or no quizzes had the reader rate themselves from 1-16 in a series of statement such  “Do you have at least 6 electric cooking appliances? Can you cook a perfect supper while you’re shopping?”

High scoring “Lots O Leisure Lottie” was the ideal to strive for,  who more than likely lived in a “Push button palace”  and was clearly living better electrically.  No one wanted to end up a low scorer like pathetic  “Drudging Dora” with her measly couple of electrical appliances  whose “Nightmare House” was positively primitive.

Are You Cooking the Hard way?

Just as advise writers regularly reinforced the ideal of beauty and womanhood so GE was reinforcing the ideal and status of an electric home with how many gadgets you owned proving how progressively plugged in were you.

High scorer “Dinner Duchess”   the winner in this quiz with a fully loaded kitchen of appliances fit for a Queen was described as “high and mighty happy are you! You’re ruling the kitchen the royal way- with electricity and the results are really regal!  The low scoring “Galley Slave” was to be pitied –”you’re not emancipated-just a notch above a drudge-unless of course you have a modern electric range.”

Remember, the ads reassured the reader, if you didn’t rank as high as you expected to on the Live Better Electrically scale, don’t be too unhappy. Just hop in your gas guzzling Buick and head on over to your local appliance store.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Native American Graphic by Milton Glaser Cover Life Magazine December 1, 1967 Return of the Red Man

Many are on the warpath over the use of the offensive name Redskins.

The debate over the Washington football team Redskins name made national television this past week. Not only did South Park dedicate its season premier to skewering the name, but John Stewart aired a controversial segment pitting Redskin fans against Native Americans.

Those hoping for a powwow of sorts were disappointed when the Daily Show’s segment quickly turned into a tense situation.

Pale-Face Profits

When it comes to heap-big offensive names the NFL franchise isn’t the first franchising organization to utilize questionable Native American imagery in its merchandise.

Many moons ago, a company called Franchise International offered mid-century American go-getters  the opportunity to own a fast food restaurant of their own with the dubious name Heap Big Beef.

Return Of The Red Man

“Hippies have re-discovered the Indian,” explains Life Magazine in this December 1. 1967 issue.” Viewing the dispossessed Indian as America’s original ‘dropout’ and convinced he has deeper spiritual values than the rest of society, hippies have taken to wearing his costume and honing in on his customs….Some claim to have found a precedent for the “be-in” in the Indian powwow. ..The hippies infatuation with the old ways of braves and squaws has not gone unappreciated by real Indians.”

In 1967  businessman William “Buffalo Bill” Brody had an eagle eye for opportunity.

According to Life Magazine,  the Red Man was red-hot.

At the same time that Native Americans were discovering their cultural history and  questioning their long heritage of violence, social disruption and neglect, Americans  fell in love with the noble Redskin.

Not only were headband-wearing, feather-donning, peace pipe smoking hippies re-discovering Indians – sporting a feather was believed to provide “good vibrations” during an LSD trip according to Life,- fashion designers were on the warpath producing all sorts of Indian garb for both braves and squaws.

Back to school musts – Pocahontas head bands were in as were fringe benefits from leather. Vintage ad Fashion Under 21, 1968

“The hippies involvement with Indian ways has infected the non hippie world,” Life announced.

Heap Big Profits

So when an ad appeared in the magazine  offering the chance to own your own Indian themed restaurant, Bill  knew a heap big business opportunity when he saw it.

In 1967 Franchise International ran an ad for the franchising opportunity to own a Heap Big Fast Food the coast to coast chain of roast beef restaurants of your own. No tipping, no deciding ( kind of like how we treated the Indians) No waiting. Heap Big Beefs swift and courteous service make your dining stop a relaxing refresher for the entire family. And for mighty little wampum!

“He man profits can be yours – make plenty of wampum with the ownership of your own Heap Big Beef Restaurant.”

Like any red-blooded American, who could pass on the chance to be their own chief and make heap big wampum?

Not this pale-face!

The offer to own your own franchise was irresistible.

Happy Trails

From coast to coast all along Americas best trafficked trails,tepee-dwelling  suburbanite were flocking to this latest food franchise. Guaranteed to satisfy a savage appetite, folks were happy to shell out 59 cents for an Honest Injun taste of the old west “sliced hot right before your eyes.” The mouth-watering meal  washed down with a wholesome Shawness shake or genuine Indianaid could be enjoyed amidst “sparkling Indian décor. “

The Indian themed restaurant didn’t offer Bison burgers but the heaping he-man sized roast beef sandwiches spelled he-man profits .

So chief, pack your squaw and her papoose in your Pontiac and head on over to Heap Big Beef !

Big Taste….  even bigger tastelessness.

All for little wampum!”

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Man Pleasin’ Meals – The Shortest Route to Your Man’s Heart-Heinz Ketchup 1940 ad

With Valentines day fast approaching, the media is running  rampant with  romance tips.   Forget everything else you’ve read – think Heinz. Who knew a simple condiment in your kitchen could come to your romance rescue?

During the dark days of the Depression, Babs Johnson learned how to keep her hubby happy and add some spice to her sagging marriage.

Ketchup.

For a Valentines treat that’s out of this world look no further than your Kitchen shelf. Heinz’s Tom Tomato Circles the World

No mystery here.  “Masculine hearts skip a beat when a lucky lady serves Heinz ketchup, the racy and rosy condiment!”

Life might not have been a bowl of cherries in Depression era America, but with a bottle of ketchup everything would seem like they were coming up roses. At least according to the ads Heinz ran in the 1930s.

“Heinz ketchup beckons a man!” one ad copy proclaimed. “It cultivates the habit of coming home to eat.” What man could possibly stray when that pert and perky condiment, that come hither Heinz ketchup bottle, beckoned?

You’ll understand why if you listen to this mouth-watering story:

Marriage Woes

Poor Babs learned the hard way.

Like the country’s economy her marriage to Dan was in the slumps. Romance had taken a holiday in her year old marriage. The honeymoon was barely over when Dan started burying his nose in the newspapers, barely touching his dinner, taking his meals at the local lunch counter.

It was a particularly nasty row over dinner one evening that sent this newlywed into tears.

Babs: “It’s the same hash you raved about at Ann’s Sunday night supper. You were so keen on it, I made her give me the recipe.”

Dan: “Then one of us is crazy. Why, I wouldn’t eat this for love or money”

“I’ll get a bite downtown,” Dan fumed storming out leaving Babs bothered and bewildered.

She had yet to learn that no gal can trust a plain meal to satisfy a man. This new bride was in need of a menu check up.

What That Man Of Yours Really Wants

Don’t take your man for granted! Keep a bottle of Heinz Ketchup always handy. You’ll find it an investment in happiness!

It took the wise counsel of her more experienced gal-pals to set this young bride on the path to matrimonial happiness.

Pointing to a Heinz ketchup advertisement in the latest issue of Woman’s Home Companion, Babs eyes lit up: “Looking for something to make a husband sit up and take notice at the table?” she read with great interest. “Something he’ll give you a kiss and a compliment for? Then make sure you serve a bottle of ketchup with every meal.”

“The man isn’t born who doesn’t love ketchup”said her pal Madge getting right to the point. “Still the shortest route to your man’s heart! That extra little dash makes the meal. A juicy steak and Heinz rich tomato ketchup are a winning combination all men go for!”

Between sips of her Chase and Sanborn coffee, her neighbor Doris offered this tip, “He loves corned beef hash doesn’t he? Well, here’s a quick simple table trick, straight from Heinz themselves, that gives this favorite dish an extra appeal. Put Heinz Ketchup on the table - handily where he can reach it and pour it readily…And that goes for his omelet, his steaks – all his pet dishes!”

Goes Over Big

Vintage Heinz Ketchup Ad 1939

“Keep a bottle of the worlds largest selling ketchup on the table-the way good restaurants do- another in the kitchen, and one near the stove,” suggested Heinz in their ad. “ See how easily and economically you can give your meals those intriguing little touches your family loves! Give your cooking the worlds favorite flavor. Remember Heinz ketchup is no bugbear to budgeteers for it’s so rich a little goes a long way.”

“And every cook knows it transforms leftovers into snappy culinary triumphs! chirped in Helen. “Men have a yen for this sauce. He’ll be smacking his lips!”

Happy Days Are Here Again

Vintage Heinz Ketchup Ad 1930s

Babs couldn’t wait to try it out.

“Come on home for supper, Darling! Corned Beef Hash, poached eggs and a new bottle of Heinz ketchup,” Babs cooed provocatively into the phone.

Dan could barely contain his excitement, “Coming soon, angel! That bright fresh ketchup flavor has my mouth-watering already!”

No more wandering eye at lunch counters.

No more whispers that Bab’s marriage was on the rocks. No more lonesome unhappy hours. For now, her hubby’s rushing home after work. Lucky Babs learned the secret to keeping a man satisfied.

“This dumb bunny’s never fooled again,” Babs said firmly.

She’d learned the first principle of culinary witchery  – keep a bottle of that lusty condiment Heinz Tomato Ketchup handy in the kitchen!

Something any gal today might want to keep in mind to keep her hubby from straying.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Like Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix produced no tears.

That dehydrated marvel of mid-century cookery was a staple in my Mothers repertoire. Mom joined the legion of happy homemakers who were overjoyed at the development of dehydrated soup cooking.

Besides being the backbone of the classic California Onion Dip, that pride and joy of every self respectable suburban hostess, my mother prepared her Passover Brisket using that Onion Soup Mix from a recipe supplied by Lipton’s published in Ladies Home Journal and endorsed by the Nassau Community Temple Sisterhood Cookbook.

Why spend hours peeling, chopping, slicing and dicing and sauteing reducing the onions down to a turn, when Liptons had come to m’lady’s rescue. Add water and voila…. onion stock!

So it was with modern pride that my Mother prepared her holiday brisket in that E-Z fashion.

I on the other hand, being just as contemporary, sniff at the notion of using a packet of dried onions, insisting on peeling, chopping, slicing and dicing the real McCoy sauteing them down til they are reduced to a golden hue.

But the copious onions required for the meal, along with the copious tears it produces, now co-mingle with great tears of sadness at the loss of my Mother.

As I prepare the Seder for which she will never again attend, it is lit by the glow of a yartzeit candle, a shining light of tribute and memory to her passing on this day.

So it is a day of tears, that even Lipton’s Onion Soup could not help.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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The Smell of Democracy in the Air

Making their season debut, white shoes and Weber grills come out of hibernation as Memorial Day kicks off the beginning of summer.

What better way to remember those brave men and women who died while serving our country, than with firing up a grill and charing some meat to a fare thee well,  a great American tradition beloved by family’s for generations.

Every Memorial Day when I was growing up, our split level development would be shrouded by the smoke of burning charcoal, the sizzling smell of democracy was in the air.

Besides a parade, nothing was more quintessentially American than the seasons  first back yard barbecue to commemorate  Memorial Day.  Like some sacred Old Testament tradition of sacrificing an animal to please the Lord, every  a burnt offering of seared flesh was offered up in homage to Uncle Sam.

And in that  confident mid-century soaring bull market, Democracy was as vital to our health as a Delmonico steak.

Dad  knew tossing a hunk of  meat on a sizzling grill, the ubiquitous package of Kingsford briquettes at the ready proclaimed to the world “I’m proud to be an American.”

The Smell of Capitalism  In The Air

In fact nothing was more American than those Kingsford briquettes.

Invented by the quintessential American capitalist Henry Ford as a way of further lining his own pockets, Ford had a better idea. By charring the wood scraps left over from his Model T’s and mixing them with starch fillers and just the right amount of chemicals, industrious Mr. Ford created briquettes .

The smell of democracy was indeed in the air – nothing reeked of capitalism more than turning industrial waste into profit.

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This once enviably svelte housewife now found herself among the masses of women who realized they needed to whittle their waists.

For decades, Memorial Day has long been a solemn occasion.

Besides reflecting on those brave souls whose lives were lost in service to their country, the holiday has also signaled the beginning of swimsuit season and with it the sobering reflection of the state of ones body as winter weary thighs and middle-aged spreads come out of hibernation.

In 1965 Winnie Roberts had one such sobering experience, bravely confronting herself in the harshly lit confines of a department store dressing room.

One glance in the triple view mirror and poor Winnie did a double take. The new slim fashions were not for her. Crestfallen, she knew in her heart that “her size” just wasn’t “her size” any more. Suddenly for the formerly winsome Winnie, dressing up wasn’t as exciting as it used to be.

Hangers filled with this seasons must-have figure flattering swimsuits in stripes , ruffles and pleats beckoned forlornly.

As she struggled unsuccessfully to wiggle into a new Rose Marie Reid swimsuit in unforgiving Banlon, her reflection in the dressing room mirror confirmed what she already suspected.

It was time for Winnie to whittle her waist.

Vintage illustration by Dick Sargent for Post Grape Nuts Cereal Ad 1958

There came a time in every cold war housewife’s life when the safety of the containment policy offered by a good girdle simply wasn’t enough to keep those pesky curves in line.

That time had come for Winnie.

Now that she was nearly 38 and officially middle-aged, the pounds didn’t come off so easily. If she wanted to compete with the Pepsi Generation, she had to do more than get with the now taste of Tab !

Is This the Day You finally Do Something About Your Weight?

Vintage Weight Loss Ads (L) Sego 1964 (R) Metrecal 1963

Back home as she carefully dusted the Kimball upright piano, dousing the pecan wood with aerosol Pledge, Winnie’s eyes fell on the array of framed family photos that adorned the top of the piano.

Glancing at a photo from a trip to a ski weekend at Hunter Mountain with her husband Jack from several winters ago, she marveled at how slender she was in the glow of the fire. Her face darkened musing “Would he think so now?…..”

That settled it. It was  time to do something about her weight. She pledged to go on a diet.

Hunger Pangs

But true dieting takes will power. Those temptation hours between meals when hunger sets in, are the undoing of so many wishful weight watchers.

And all those calories to count could make a gal dizzy.

Like millions, Winnie had read Dr.Herman Taller’s hugely successful  1961 bestseller Calories Don’t Count.

But even if she didn’t have a head for figures ( as her hubby always pointed out), she figured the good doctor was dead wrong. Calories did count.

Lucky for her there was no shortage of new diet products to help m’ lady in her battle of the bulge.

Best of all, she could leave the counting to someone else.

By 1965 over 5 million had been helped with that mid-century miracle – Metrecal.

Metrecal came in a variety of delicious flavors including eggnog and tantalizing raspberry. They also offered wafers and soups as alternatives. Vintage Metrecal ads

It was while flipping through her latest issue of Ladies Home Journal that help came to Winnie. There nestled between tempting recipes for gay, festive cakes and hot day casseroles was a double page ad for Metrecal.

“Is this the day You do something about your weight?” the ad’s headline asked the reader.

“If you are overweight, if your clothes don’t fit right, if you don’t even feel as attractive as you should, isn’t it time you considered Metrecal? ” The copy seemed to speak directly to her.

Like most savvy gals, Winnie had heard about Metrecal. Since it was introduced in 1959, Metrecal had changed the dieting habits of the nation. The 225 calorie meal replacement drink taken 3 times a day melted the pounds in a jiff.

As the ad explained: ” Of all the ways people have tried to lose weight nothing approaches the record success of Metrecal dietary. Gave Americans a new solution to the dilemma of having to choose between embarrassment and danger of overweight on the one hand, and the hunger monotony and uncertainties of dieting on another.”

Winnie was ready to turn her  back on Lobster Newburgh for her figures sake and join the Metrecal for Lunch Bunch,  sipping her way back to her former slenderella self.

 Sip Yourself to Slenderness

Mead Johnson & Co. makers of Pablum, eventually morphed into the diet business with Metrecal. (L) vintage ad for Pablum 1958 (R) Ad for Metrecal 1961

By the early 1960’s several liquid diet meal replacements appeared to help sip your way to slenderness.

But the granddaddy of them all was Metrecal, a product of pharmaceutical company Mead Johnson & Co.

Along with a generation of busy mothers, housewives like Winnie Roberts had long counted on Mead Johnson & Co, makers of Pablum and Dextri Maltose, to feed her babies.

Purchased at the recommendation of their family doctor these ready mixes were quite useful in plumping up baby. offering “an adventure for baby’s first solid food.”

By the fall of 1960, these same mothers were buying a new Mead Johnson product, a powder called Metrecal, which promised just the opposite-to take those unwanted pounds off mama!

Now women could confidently begin their own adventure with the same peace of mind inspired in millions by the name Mead Johnson & Company.

Metrecal- A Marketing Miracle

For Mead Johnson & Company founded in 1900, Metrecal was just a new trick coaxed out of an old product.

In the great American marketing tradition, Metrecal was really an old product re-marketed to the newly diet conscious population.

Mead Johnson & Company was best known for inventing Pablum in 1931, a nutritional powder that could be mixed with water or milk and spoon fed to young babies. For decades the cereal had long been prescribed for millions of babies by thousands of doctors

But nearly 25 years later, concerned that the company was almost exclusively identified with baby products, they set up a research department to develop a diverse  line of products.

Savvy researchers at Mead Johnson stumbled across an invalid’s food called Sustagen. A mix of skim milk powder, soybean  flour, corn oil, minerals and vitamins, Sustagen- a precursor to today’s Boost- was designed for hospital patients unable to eat solid foods.

It worked so well at giving patients the feeling of having eaten a solid meal and diminishing between meal hunger pangs, that Mead Johnson decided to rename it  Metrecal and market it as a weight-reducing food. The only change was to recommend a limit of 900 calories of Metrecal a day.

Naturally as a drug company, Mead Johnson wanted to keep the good will of doctors who prescribed most of their other products, so they wisely started advertising Metrecal in the American Medical Association Journal, eventually branching out into general markets. Wisely ending  each advertisement with a plug to “see your physician” about weight problems,  gave Metrecal that all important AMA stamp of respectability that most other diet concoctions lacked.

Sales soared.

Your Doctor Knows Best

Like most homemakers, Winnie would never dream of starting any slimming regime without the advise of her trusted family doctor.

Once she could eliminate any glandular problem as the cause for her excess weight she was free to enjoy imbibing on the 900 calorie, full-bodied goodness of Metrecal with her doctors blessing.

Like most physicians, her doctor was very boosterish on the canned beverage as an aid to slimming down. Smiling paternally, he patted Winnie’s hand advising her to “take a can, and take it easy!”

Sternly he also instructed her to avoid undue exercise  as part of her slenderizing program as it was counterproductive.

Like many doctors, he felt it was of very little value since it was believed that exercise spurred ones appetite. So Winnie would leave Jack La Lanne and his jumping jacks and the good vibrations of a slimming belt at Vic Tannys to others.

As Metrecal confirmed “Your physician is the best source of counsel and guidance in problems of weight loss and control.”

 Metrecal or Martinis

Adverting began targeting men and weight loss too. (R) In a vintage Borden’s Skimmed milk ad from 1955, Elsie the Cow’s husband Elmo goes on a diet. “But dear you don’t have to starve while dieting,” Elsie suggests sweetly to her husband. To which Elmo replies in a blustery tone” “And what’s wrong with my shape?” (L) The Metrecal ad from 1961 is targetting the businessman.

Women weren’t the only ones watching their waistlines.

If Winnie’s husband jack wanted to cut a fine figure in his cabana set, he might have to do a bit of dieting himself and Metrecal was there to help him too.

Tapping into the manly world of 3 martini lunches, it wasn’t long before Mead Johnson started targeting men too, expanding their market as quickly as American waistlines grew.

Metrecal was originally introduced as a powder, mixed by hopeful dieters with water or skim milk. Soon it was available as canned Metrecal which was marketed for the bloated businessman. A 1965 print ad stated “Not one of the top 50 US Corporations has a fat president!”

Who needs a BBQ? For the beef lovin’ American man, Metrecal promised their tasty can of Metrecal had all the nutrition of a steak and potatoes dinner.

If  Jack started to develop a bit of a paunch, Mead Johnson suggested he keep those canned Metrecals refrigerated in a desk drawer for his noonday  meal joining the Metrecal for lunch bunch.

And if he took clients to lunch, he could rest assured, Metrecal was served up the finest establishments. While clients could imbibe on a Blue Hawaii at Trader Vics, the tiki themed restaurant also offered a 325 calorie lunch which was 1.5 ounces of rum mixed with nutmeg and Metrecal.

A Deluge of Diet Drinks

Vintage ads Borden’s Ready Diet

Metrecal was so successful it spawned nearly 40 imitators from other large companies: Sears Roebuck brought out  Bal-Cal, Quaker Oat’s  pitched Quota, Jewel Tea Company had Diet-Cal; even deep discounter Korvette’s hawked Kor-Val. to name just a few.

Winnie’s head was swimming from the choices.

If reliable Elsie the Cow who was apparently watching her waistline too,  claimed her product “Ready Diet” was “the happiest tasting drink,” maybe  she should try Borden’s rich and creamy elixir. Their scientific blend of 900 full-bodied calories was ready to drink from the gold carton with no measuring, mixing, dissolving or diluting.

Focusing on the women’s market, Pet Milk’s popular Sego stuffed more protein and 2 more ounces into the same 900 calories featured by Metrecal.

Vintage Diet Ads (L) Sego Liquid Diet Food (R) Sego Liquid Diet Food 1965

“Those temptation hours between meals when hunger sets in are the undoing of many a wishful weight watcher. Now new Sego diet food promised it had built-in help for nibblers. Its secret came from added protein: “10%  more than other 900 calorie diet foods.   Because protein is consumed at a slower rate,” they claimed, “ it stays with you longer, helping to delay hunger.”

Sego promised you would forget you were dieting with their 9 delicious flavors. “This is hardship?” they asked the reader. “These rich flavored drinks tasted right out of a soda fountain.”

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

“Better Living Through Chemistry” collage by Sally Edelstein

Who didn’t believe in better living through chemistry?

Post war Americans were eager to live out the dreams depicted in the color drenched ads that ran in all the magazines. Our romance with novelty blossomed as the world of plastics and chemicals was beginning to be revealed to the nation’s wondering eyes with each new miracle was awaited with bated breath.

It was expected that as natural resources became depleted synthetics would be ready to take over.

Detail of Better Living Through Chemistry” collage by Sally Edelstein. Composed of hundreds of appropriated images from vintage magazines, advertising, school books, etc.

Our pride in technology extended to the kitchen and the food chemists were wizards of altering emulating and improving upon Mother nature

Providing an artificial cornucopia to pour forth abundant substitutes for any shortage was a notion that made concern for conservation irrelevant to the promise of tomorrow.

We came to regard new products as the prime indicators of progress with little regard to consequences to our health or the environment.

My silent spring childhood memories would be chemically infused.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

Note

This work will be on view in October 2015 at The Nave Annex Gallery, Sommerville, MA as part of the exhibit “Visaural: Sight, Sound & Action

Bacon lovers are bemoaning the horrifying news that their favorite breakfast food has now been added to the ever-growing list of things that cause cancer. Vintage ad Swifts bacon 1961

Who says “you’re right in liking meat?”

Certainly not the World Health Organization who caused mass hysteria recently by adding much beloved processed foods like bacon, sausage, cold cuts and hot dogs to the list of cancer causing items.

Mighty red meat was not far behind, joining that ever-expanding carcinogenic list of other once prized mid century classics like tobacco, asbestos and DDT.

Now demonized, these same food items were once the darlings of nutritionists.

Processed meat was not only cherished, it was revered, prized for its high nutritional value.

Once upon a time folks  were not concerned if their consumption of red meat was too high, but worried that they were not consuming enough of the healthy stuff!

Who Put the Meat in America

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1947

To make certain mid-century Americans included plenty of essential red meat in their diet, The American Meat Institute created a long running ad campaign touting the benefits and magic of meat, assuring the public that yes, you’re right in liking meat!

The ads that ran from WWII through the 1950’s drew no distinction in food value or health benefits whether from  the lowly hot dog or  the king of meat, the sirloin steak.

Meat was the yard stick of protein, the gold standard of nutrition or as the American Meat Institute called it “the nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Some bacon lovers today would firmly agree.

You Know It Was Good

All their ads came with the certification of the American Medical Association,confirming meats nutritional value. Vintage Ad American Meat Institute.

Bacon aficionados, a group hit hard by this recent cancer confirmation, can now take heart in this vintage ad that asks the reader: “You Know it was good- but did you know it was this good?”

“Those  ribbons of rosy lean and crispy fat are more than food- with flavor,” the copy explain about nutritious bacon.  “Each streak of fat is energy food. Each streak of lean has complete protein – with all ten of the body building amino acids that must be provided at the same time to do their work right!”

Nourishing Bacon – Fill er up!

Vintage ad American Meat Institute

Here’s the break at breakfast the snap in sandwiches a flavor lift for all other foods a mighty good main dish too! And look what bacon brings to the meal. Protein the kind supplied by all meat- is the greatest builder of muscles and bodies – essential for maintaining healthy tissues and nerves.

So bring home the bacon. You’re Right in liking meat!

A Sizzling Sausage Says All’s Right With The World

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1947

Behind Good eating sure…but behind that flavor and sausage sizzle are high digestibility and good sound nourishment the kind of nourishment that contributes to that feeling that “all’s right with the world.”

Cold Cuts -Yardstick of Protein Foods

Vintage ad American meat Institute 1948

Cold Cuts as a nourishing meal…. that’s no baloney

Something nice to come home to the cold cut dinner- Ingenious wives are finding ways to build glamorous and well-balanced meals around the all meat economy of cold cuts. And appreciative husbands are giving them a hand.

A Square Meal Feeling

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1946

Cooked to a carcinogenic turn, burgers and hot dogs grilled over the coals is quintessentially American.

Sure, high temperatures cooking such as cooking meat in direct contact with flames produce more carcinogenic compounds but  as this ad says: “meat from the outdoor grill is more than just eating fun. Meat has the right kind of protein containing all of the amino acids essential to life and health. Meat provides satisfaction in the eating that good “square meal feeling.”

“Yes, outdoors or indoors you’re right in liking meat.”

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1948

Hot diggety dog, those red hots are a complete nourishing protein meal!

As American as the Lincoln Highway  friendly franks these tender juicy ruddy packages of fine meat food- handy and nutritious. Americans like ’em for their convenience. Our choice has been a wise one. The fine chopped, tender meats of this popular food contain high quality proteins and balanced nutrition

Meat…You’re right in liking it because it contains so many things that are good for you…and maybe some things that aren’t.

Continuing this week … an homage to meat and a time when Americans were encouraged to not only bring home the bacon, but the rump roast, pork chop and swiss steak too!

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Where’s the Beef?

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

When it comes to American exceptionalism, we Americans have long had an exceptionally voracious appetite for red meat, making us the proud leader of the free, meat-eatin’ world.

In this land of democracy, meat has reigned as king.

But recently after much maligning in the media, red meat is being dethroned as a nutritional superfood. Is this meats denouement?

Long before it was vilified, the conventional wisdom of my childhood assured us that “ meat was what made America great” and mid-century Americans were on a cholesterol high.

What’s So Great About America?  Meat!

Meat Serves Everybody, the people, the soil, the nation! Vintage ad American Meat Institute

Meat, ads proudly proclaimed, was the American way. It serves everybody!

Nothing was more American than a back yard barbecue when slapping a hunk of meat on a Weber grill proclaimed to the world “I’m proud to be an American.” In the suburban summers of my childhood, the sizzling smell of prime democracy perpetually hung in the air

Sniffing the steaming steak fragrance, an American tradition!

“No other nation in the world,” my barbecue bound-father often boasted, while carving a first off-the- grill sirloin into juicy slices (another ready to go, is ‘waitin behind the first) “is blessed with the amount of good, rich, nourishing meat!”

In this land of plenty one thing we had plenty of was rich, red meat.

With WWII meat shortages and rationing still a fresh memory, mid-century Americans were more than ready to play catch up.

Meat was as American as apple pie. and everyone was entitled to a slice or 2 or 3 of this tasty American dream.

The pulse-quickening excitement of a sizzling steak brought out the patriot in a man.

Way before the current war on meat, meat itself had gone to war.

“Meat helped win the war by keeping us healthy and vigorous. American meat,” my Army veteran Dad would say nearly choked up, “had done its job!”

Meat was our secret weapon – our arsenal of democracy.

Meat Will Win the War

More and more meat was going to our armed forces and our fighting allies with less meat for the home tables . Vintage ad Swift and Company 1943

Food we were told during WWII, will win the war and no food was more vital to victory than meat, which became a materiel of war as soon as the hostilities began. Morale boosting meat was needed most to fight on and to win on.

War made a staggering demand on American livestock and meat industry.

In a never-ending barrage of ads and articles the  American meat industry reminded us, “that supplying plenty of meat for the fighting men and gallant allies was their first and foremost job.”

“There’s never a shortage of meat when Uncle Sam goes shopping for his armed forces.” WWII Vintage ad Swifts & Company

Uncle Sam went on a shopping spree, buying up all the top quality meat supplies for our 10 million hungry boys overseas so that meant for those on the home front there would be fewer of the familiar choicest cuts.

Along with sugar, and coffee, gone were the all American Sunday roasts deliciously browned and larded with fat.

When Meat Doesn’t Make the Meal

WWII Vintage Ad 1943

For Americans who abided by the notion that “meat makes the meal” thriftiness and ingenuity had to be learned when it came to mealtime.

“Waste not the meat” stated one headline. “Lest not forget the ounce of meat we save is an ounce of insurance that meat is being used more effectively as a weapon of war.”

Where’s the Beef?

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1943 “The New Pioneer Woman in Meat” Todays homefront housewife “has learned it is fun to go adventuring in new meats.”

Making a little look like a lot particularly when it came to meat was the homemakers rallying cry as they were encouraged to make the most of meat.

Home front housewives like my grandmother, were bombarded with information on how to keep precious meat from spoiling, learning to rely on meat extenders  and tips on cooking meat in ways that reduced shrinkage.

The American Meat Institute tried to convince housewives that less expensive cuts that were available had the same fine nutrition as that Sunday roast, providing the same energy, stamina and vitality.

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1942

As much as her mother tried to dress them up, my teen age mother Betty wasn’t too thrilled trying the less familiar, often tougher, thriftier cuts of beef.

Though today you pay a premium price for it, free range, grass-fed beef was called utility beef in the 1940’s because it was cheap, plentiful, point free, and oh yes, tough.

Articles coaxed us to try utility beef, untried by most housewives, but long used in economical households. Utility or grade C beef, it seems, was cut from cadaverous-looking cattle that have forlornly roamed the range, feeding only on grass, the poor chemically deprived souls.

Vintage WWII ad Swifts 1944

Choice beef comes from contented cattle that spend 2-7 months in a spa like feeder lots where they dine extravagantly on corn or silage.

Grass feeding produces lean, less choice meat. Corn feeding produces fat, well-marbled cattle – and fat, well marbled people.

Blue Print For a Post War Product

An American Masterpiece! “In the not too distant future,” The American Meat Industry tempted us, “the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.” Yes, the kind of living that hardened our arteries and clogged our colons.

As the war began winding down, The American Meat Industry whetted our appetites waxing poetically about meat painting a rosy post war vision of juicy steaks and standing rib roasts.

“Here,” they teased a carnivorous craving public “is a wartime arsenal with a peace time future.”

“In the not too distant future, the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.”

With  high cholesterol levels and heart attacks  far from our minds, they promised…“Final victory will hasten the day when there will be plenty of meat for everybody.”

Post War Promises

For four long years, Americans had rolled up their sleeves and had wholeheartedly cooperated.

They had done with less. They conserved and extended their share of meat in every possible way so that our fighting boys and fighting allies could be assured supplies.

Vintage illustration for A&P 1951

But with victory achieved, it was payback time and Americans were ready to cash in on those post war promises of picture-perfect prime rib.

Meat All American Hero

When red meat returned to the home front it was lionized as a hero – it had done its part for victory. Along with other war heroes, it took its rightful place marching in the victory parade, ribbons and medals festooned on its rump roast.

Vintage Ad American Meat Institute. Painting a post war dream with a broad brush the copy reads: “This is not just a piece of meat…this is something a man wants to come home to…something that makes his wife proud of their meals…”

“Meat is life,” proclaimed one advertisement reverentially. “When the war is over is it any wonder that as meat moves back to the home plate we look on meat with new regard not just for its enjoyment, but as a nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Meats esteemed place in the red white and blue American diet was assured.

Leaders of the Free Meat Eating World

Vintage illustration 1958 Saturday Evening Post

When the boys came marching home from the war,  it wasn’t for some sissy cheesy carrot ring casserole, but for a he-man steak. Our new post war wealth allowed us to buy large chunks of steaks and chops. And binge buying we did, filling up our new deep freezers with all  manner of meat.

The rest of the world still reeling from the horrors of war, its industrial base shattered,  its farmlands untended or blown to bits, could only sit back in amazement and watch.

USDA Approved. Vintage ad for Swifts Meats

While the allies were busy carving up the post war world, Americans were living high on the hog, carving up their fat larded roasts.

And what well marbled, tender meat it was.

DES – It’s No Wonder

Are You Sure You’re Right In Liking Meat? In this land of the free, home of the brave, you might have to be brave to eat some of this meat L) Vintage Eli Lilly ad for Stilbosol ( diethylstilbestrol) (R) Vintage ad American Meat Institute

When hormones were introduced into livestock production after the war, the meat industry was fairly salivating .

The manufacturers of diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, hailed the event as the most important moment in the history of food production, right up there with frozen food.

And my father couldn’t agree more.

His cousin a Junior  executive with Eli Lilly, knew the benefits and importance of this breakthrough and explained it to my mother:

“Because it produced more fat and more weight on the animals,” Cousin Albert marveled,”and thus more profits for the meat industry, DES, rightfully so, was being used on more than 90 % of American cattle. It was short of a miracle.”

This new wonder drug he promised, “would give meat juicy tenderness that cannot fail-the best eatingest…melt in your mouth goodness cut with a fork tenderness ever served!”

Are You Sure You’re Right in  Liking Meat?

Just in time for the baby boomers diet! ( L) Vintage Ad for DES (R) Vintage ad Gerbers baby Food Meat

Baby boomers born into this golden age of meat consumption would grow up consuming this sizzling DES deliciousness folks don’t forget.

Decades later those unfortunate people who would develop cancer wouldn’t forget either.

Although the carcinogenicity of the synthetic DES in test animals was known by 1938 it was approved in 1947 by the USDA. With profits sky-high , it’s no wonder.

By the time I was born, meats place in Americas life was as firmly attached to their dinner plates as the plaque lining their arteries would become.

Next: When baby Sally says mmm she means meat. It’s never too early to start ’em on a life time of eating.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Where’s the Beef Mr. Trump?

More Sizzle Than Steak

Donald Trump can  boast about his juicy steaks all he wants but when it comes to substance and policy…where’s the beef? The Republican front runner is plainly just more sizzle than steak.

There’s just too much at steak here to empower this wiener.

Make  America Great Again

Clearly  Mr. Trump is following the conventional wisdom of my childhood that asserted “ meat was what made America great.” Cooked to a carcinogenic turn, nothing was more American than a back yard barbecue when slapping a hunk of steak on a Weber  grill proclaimed to the world “I’m proud to be an American.”

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1947 All their ads came with the certification of the American Medical Association, confirming meats nutritional value. Vintage Ad American Meat Institute.

To make certain mid-century Americans included plenty of essential red meat in their diet, The American Meat Institute created a long running ad campaign touting the benefits and magic of meat, assuring the public that yes, you’re right in liking meat!

Vintage Ads American Meat Industry

The ads that ran from WWII through the 1950’s drew no distinction in food value or health benefits whether from  the lowly hot dog or  the king of meat, the sirloin steak.

Meat was the yard stick of protein, the gold standard of nutrition or as the American Meat Institute called it “the nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Leaders of the Free Meat Eating World

Vintage illustration 1958 Saturday Evening Post

When the boys came marching home from WWII,  it wasn’t for some sissy cheesy carrot ring casserole, but for a he-man steak. Our new post war wealth allowed us to buy large chunks of steaks and chops. And binge buying we did, filling up our new deep freezers with all  manner of meat.

The rest of the world still reeling from the horrors of war, its industrial base shattered,  its farmlands untended or blown to bits, could only sit back in amazement and watch.

Toss another steak on the barbecue

While the allies were busy carving up the post war world, Americans were living high on the hog, carving up their fat larded steaks.

And what well marbled, tender meat it was.

DES – It’s No Wonder

DES -USDA approved (L) Vintage ad Eli Lily Stilbosol DES (R) Vintage ad Swifts Meats

When hormones were introduced into livestock production after the war, the meat industry was fairly salivating .

The manufacturers of diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, hailed the event as the most important moment in the history of food production, right up there with frozen food.

And my father couldn’t agree more.

His cousin a Junior  executive with Eli Lilly, knew the benefits and importance of this breakthrough and explained it to my mother:

“Because it produced more fat and more weight on the animals,” Cousin Albert marveled,”and thus more profits for the meat industry, DES, rightfully so, was being used on more than 90 % of American cattle. It was short of a miracle.”

This new wonder drug he promised, “would give meat juicy tenderness that cannot fail-the best eatingest…melt in your mouth goodness cut with a fork tenderness ever served!”

Are You Sure You’re Right in  Liking Meat?

Just in time for the baby boomers diet! ( L) Vintage Ad for DES (R) Vintage ad Gerbers baby Food Meat

Baby boomers born into this golden age of meat consumption would grow up consuming this sizzling DES deliciousness folks don’t forget.

Decades later those unfortunate people who would develop cancer wouldn’t forget either.

Although the carcinogenicity of the synthetic DES in test animals was known by 1938 it was approved in 1947 by the USDA. With profits sky-high , it’s no wonder.

By the time I was born, meats place in Americas life was as firmly attached to their dinner plates as the plaque lining their arteries would become.

Meat…You’re right in liking it because it contains so many things that are good for you…and maybe some things that aren’t.

Kinda like Trump.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Vintage WWI Food Conservation Poster

Food shaming is nothing new

Nearly 100 years ago dietary transgressions were darn near treasonable.

Not unlike today there was a moralization of food choices but it was based less on nutrition and health than patriotism.

A century before the current war on gluten was declared in the borough of Brooklyn by wheat shunning, vegan loving, white sugar snubbing hipsters, the same strict food edicts were enforced by patriotic Brooklyn housewives from Bushwick to Bay Ridge including my own great-grandmother Rebekah

In 1917 we were at war Over There, but back here on the home front it was all out war on wheat, meat, sugar and animal fats. “Food will win the war,” Uncle Sam proclaimed, exhorting women to win the war in the kitchen by restricting those precious commodities so that the dough boys would be well fed.

We Cheerfully Deny Ourselves

Vintage WWI Food Conservation Poster

Unlike food rationing which was obligatory during WWII, during the Great War, the restrictions were wholly voluntary.

In an age when Americans were gluttons for gluten and massive meat eaters, getting the public to change their food habits was no easy feat.

Remarking on the difficult task of altering folks eating habits, Ladies Home Journal commented in a 1917 editorial: “Perhaps it was not to be expected that a peace-loving people more prosperous than any other people on the face of the earth should overnight readjust themselves.”

Guilt and shame those twin handmaidens of social pressure worked like a charm

Just as the government had whipped a very reluctant country to go to war in order to “make the world safe for democracy,” so Uncle Sam became skilled at food shaming the American public.

Vintage WWI poster by Edward Penfield 1918

When America entered the war in April of 1917, the U.S. Food Administration was formed to help feed the American armies  and her allies. Herbert Hoover, the hero who saved Belgium from starving was the logical choice to head it.

Along with the FA, President Woodrow Wilson had created another agency The Committee on Public Information to turn the tide of public opinion on the war. They now actively sold the American people on the very war the president sought to avoid the year before when he ran for president under the slogan “He kept us out of war” Rhetoric was shifted completely and effortlessly to win the war to end all wars.

The committee on Public Information monopolized every medium and every avenue of communication available at that time with the goal of mobilizing and creating a nation of enthusiastic soldiers and home front warriors for democracy and convince them they were needed to help make the world safe for democracy.

Vintage WWI Food Conservation Poster United States Food Administration

Hoover’s agency used the same patriotic propaganda to reduce food consumption in the US drawing on the themes of shared sacrifice and responsibility of citizenship encouraging every American, adult and child, to “do your bit.”

Enlisting the help of housewives by making them soldiers of the kitchen women were on the front lines on the home front including my great-grandmother Rebekah and her daughter my then 17-year-old grandmother Sadie

Domestic Science

Young girls were eagerly sought after to be part of Wilson’s infamous Call to the Women of the Nation” and my then teenage grandmother eagerly stepped up.

A true American girl of tomorrow, 17-year-old Sadie was among the first girls in her school to take a class in the new field of Home Economics.

No subject was as cutting edge as Domestic Science and more important in the distribution of war-time food preparation information.

By WWI , food itself had entered a modern scientific age

By the time of the Great War, food itself had entered a modern scientific age with the establishment of what was called the New Nutrition. Hoover’s war time programs would rely heavily on these new principles.

At the beginning of the last century most folks at the time believed certain foods were good and others dangerous but there was no scientific basis to it. There was no concern about high protein, low carb foods because food itself hadn’t even been classified as such.

Sadie learned that although it was a German Scientist who had come up with the new idea of classifying foods into proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and water, the “new nutrients,” the German origins was now downplayed . Besides which, it  was American know-how and industry that was putting this new knowledge to good use. And would use that new knowledge to lick the Kaiser!

WWI Food conservation recipes for meatless meals

Home economists from the Food Administration had prepared a hefty textbook for High School students explaining not only the theories of new nutrition, but devising recipes and menus which would use substitutes for precious wheat, beef, butter and sugar.

WWI Recipes for using corn as a substitute for precious wheat

The no-nonsense class was run with the efficiency expected of a future household engineer. Donning her crisp, sanitary white apron and starched white cap, Sadie quickly absorbed the most current information explaining the new and efficient ways to think about diet, and be patriotic to boot.

Her Home Economics teacher, Miss Hattie Smith ( who only 2 years earlier had been known as Miss Schmidt, but changed her name so as to sound less German ) was a stern looking woman, with salt and pepper hair pulled tightly in a bun with features as sharp and angular as the wooden ruler she wielded.

WWI Wheat less recipes- ” Try these 12 Summer Dainties and be a Patriot”

She meticulously followed the course outline prepared by Uncle Sam, emphasizing the sacrifices needed in the home kitchen. It wasn’t enough to merely change the names of food from Sauerkraut which was now to be called liberty cabbage, or referring to hamburgers as liberty sandwiches.

First and foremost, Miss Smith appealed to the students conscious.

“In every home,” she emphasized echoing Mr.Hoover, the conscious must reign. If not, what then? Picture America –on compulsory rations – God Forbid! Every man woman and child in the US can help win the war by doing their duty by using recipes for wholesome menus that serve your country”

“Lick the Plate and Lick the Kaiser.”

Vintage WWI Poster

Wearing pince nez and an immaculate white smock, the domestic dominatrix, would explain to the class
“Every time you eat 3 times a day think of the starving people in Europe and the soldiers who are fighting out battles and keep those rules in mind!”

To waste a single morsel of food that can be used is a crime,” she admonished her class.

“Almost everything we have been asked to do has been directly for our good; to eat less meat where we are eating too much; to eat less wheat where we were overlooking the other more nourishing cereals and grains.”

To help with meatless meals, “The US Food Administration urges you to serve fish oftener,” suggests this 1917 ad from Borden’s Evaporated Milk, “and to use more milk – for patriotic reason.”

Royal Baking Powder stepped up to help the housewife wondering how to bake without wheat. “Knowing that women would be perplexed about the best recipes adapted to the changed conditions arising out of the war, ” the copy reads in this 1917 advertisement, ” we prepared booklets which have helped thousands of women, such as The Best War Time Recipes.” Vintage Royal Baking Powder ad 1917

Instead of animal fats we were urged to use vegetable oils like olive oil and coconut oil. To save on butter, margarine made from coconuts. Vintage Troco Oleomargarine ad 1917

Instead of sugar which Italy and France needed desperately for their soldiers, we were urged to use syrup, honey, molasses.

We were encouraged to use oats and corn and other cereals besides wheat. Vintage ad for Quaker Corn Meal 1917

Following the ideas of the new nutritionists patriotic Americans would learn for the first time that they could actually interchange proteins, fats, and carbs; that they could be persuaded to get their proteins from say beans rather than meat, their carbs from corn meal, oats and grains other than wheat and their fats from vegetable oils. A truly revolutionary idea,

Fruits and Vegetables

Uncle Sam and the Campbell Soup kids encouraged you to eat vegetables – especially in soup. “You are in line with the urgent food requirements of our government and at the same time you meet an essential health requirement of your family in a most practical way.” Vintage Campbell’s Soup ad WWI

Uncle Sam wanted us to eat our vegetables and the textbook reflected the recent growing awareness of the nutritional values of vegetables and fruits.

Straight from Mr. Hoover -“The US Food Administration Home Card advises – use soup more to get your fill of vegetables. “Vintage Campbell’s Vegetable Soup ad

Only a few years earlier before the discovery of vitamins, most of the early scientists dismissed fruits and vegetables because under the microscope they were just boring old water and carbohydrates. The tomato for instance was as good as useless. It could, if you wished be used in small amounts to flavor food, like salt and pepper, but it had no nutritional value of its own.

Now they were to be an important part of the diet seen as  cheap, filling foods, and Uncle Sam encouraged planting victory gardens using  slogans such as “We Can Can Vegetables and the Kaiser Too!”

Pledge Drive

Vintage WWI poster

Finally Miss Smith emphasized the key element of Uncle Sam’s program. The pledge drive

One way that Hoover was able to coerce people into volunteer conservation efforts was to sign a pledge card. The pledge card was used to make people feel a moral obligation to stay true to the ideals of the FA and conserve food.

These patriotic pledges were directed specifically too rally the middle class housewife and played an integral role in producing social pressure to promise to have one wheat-less day a week, one wheatless meal a day, one meatless day a week and one meatless meal each day and then to hang cards attesting to their oath ( “the service tag of American women”)

“Women,” she exclaimed, “must set the tone for the household conservation.” It was time for women to mobilize

When the first pledge drive began in late October, Sadie answered Uncle Sam’s call to canvass her Brooklyn neighborhood and collect pledge cards. Since no one wanted to be accused of having lax dietary choices which became synonymous with being unpatriotic, Americans unanimously agreed: “We shall cheerfully deny ourselves.”

Next Pt II: I Pledge Allegiance

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

As America entered the Great War in 1917, Uncle Sam encouraged all his hyphenated American nieces and nephews to join him in fighting this war to end all wars.

“You came here seeking Freedom,” he told the masses of immigrants living on our bountiful shores “and now you must help to preserve it!”

And on the home front nothing was more patriotic than the battle on food conservation.

“Food will win the war,” Uncle Sam proclaimed, exhorting all patriotic American women to help win the war in their kitchen by voluntarily restricting precious food commodities so that the dough boys and our allies would be well fed.

Vintage WWI Poster US Food Administration

While we were fighting “over there” over here it was all out war on scarce wheat, meat, sugar and animal fats; it was, also all out war on anyone remotely appearing un patriotic, i.e. un American.

If conserving on wheat would help our fighting boys it was a small price to pay to show you were 100% American.

Enlisting the help of housewives by making them soldiers of the kitchen, women were on the front lines on the home front including my great-grandmother Rebekah and her daughter, my then 17-year-old grandmother Sadie

Pledge Drive

The newly formed the Food Administration relied on patriotic propaganda to reduce food consumption in the US. Uncle Sam persuaded, not forcing Americans to cut down on their consumption of white wheat flour and meat as well as butter and sugar.Besides pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, American women were asked to sign a pledge card promising to restrict their food choices.

Young girls were eagerly sought after to be part of Wilson’s infamous Call to the Women of the Nation” and my then teenage grandmother Sadie eagerly stepped up.

Literally

One way that Uncle Sam was able to persuade people into volunteer food conservation efforts was to sign a pledge card.

When the first Pledge Drive began in late October 1917, my high school student grandmother answered Uncle Sam’s call to canvass her Brooklyn neighborhood collecting signatures. From October 29th to November  4th,  Sadie and her classmates tramped up and down Bedford Avenue, brownstone to brownstone, house to house, encouraging housewives to sign the pledge cards during Food Pledge Week.

No one wanted to be accused of having questionable dietary choices which became synonymous with being unpatriotic. Just as the government had whipped a very reluctant country to go to war in order to “make the world safe for democracy,” so Uncle Sam became skilled at food shaming the American public.

Americans agreed: We shall cheerfully deny ourselves.

We Answer to a Higher Authority

Corn as well as other grains were encouraged as substitutes for scarce wheat. WWI Food Conservation poster

Returning home from school one late October afternoon in 1917, my then teenage grandmother Sadie found her mother standing at the coal cook stove in the spotless, onion scented kitchen, rendering chicken fat (schmaltz) in the “fleyshik” (meat) frying pan, and frying cheese blintzes in the milkhik (dairy) pan, never ever confusing one cast iron pan for the other.

The rambling house in Williamsburg Brooklyn was alive with the odors of burning carrots, frying onions, cooking cabbage and fermenting sauerkraut ( now patriotically called liberty cabbage.)  Without even looking up from the stove, Rebekah handed Sadie a piece of challah, schmeered with schmaltz, – a nosh before dinner.

Sadie was bursting at the seams to tell her mother not only what she had learned in her Home Economics class and how it could help win the war effort, but the importance of the pledge drive.

Vintage WWI Poster US Food Administration

Sitting at the oil-cloth covered kitchen table nibbling on the rich, greasy, bread, Sadie excitedly explained to her mother how scientists had devised new rules of nutrition classifying food into groups like proteins and carbohydrates and were now telling folks what was good for them to eat based on the foods recently discover chemical make up.

Relying on these principles of new scientific nutrition, Uncle Sam had established rules for how and what to eat for the war effort.

Happily cooking with Crisco was not only kosher, economical and digestible it was patriotic. Whether baking challah or pastries, Jewish housewives could avail themselves of Crisco. Vintage Crisco ads WWI 1917

Home economists from the newly formed U.S. Food Administration had prepared a hefty textbook for high school students explaining not only the theories of new nutrition, but devising war-time recipes and menus which would use substitutes for scarce precious wheat, beef, butter, and sugar.

We All Must Do Our Share

Holding up a pledge card, Sadie explained how Uncle Sam was now politely asked housewives to voluntarily sign pledge cards to obey the food conservation rules set out by the Food Administration, suggesting one wheatless day a week, one wheatless meal a day, one meatless day a week, and one meatless meal each day.

WWI Pledge card from the Food Administration signed by First lady Edith Wilson.The second pledge card campaign in late October 1917 managed to sign up nearly half a million out of 24 million families.

Proudly she told to her mother that Mrs Wilson was the first woman to sign this important food pledge card, setting the example for all American women to follow.

“There was no better way to support and show your Americanism than to sign a pledge card like our first lady,” Sadie urged her mother.

Besides which, nowadays dietary transgressions, Sadie implied were close to treasonable. “But all a patriotic housewife had to do was walk right up and ask Uncle Sam to show me how!”

Separate But Equal

But Rebecca had already signed a pledge card of sorts.

She had walked up to her own higher authority, the laws of Kashruth, the ancient Jewish Dietary laws and asked them to show her how.

In an Orthodox Jewish household like my Great Grandmothers, the only important rule- one that was non negotiable was the time-honored rule of Kashruth, keeping kosher an elaborate system of rules that dictated the kinds of foods that were permissible to eat and even the way the foods are prepared.

She needed a scientist or Uncle Sam to tell her about food, like she needed “a hole in the head.”

But no one wanted to be thought unpatriotic. In an age of heightened xenophobia this Russian immigrant dared not be thought un-American. Besides, if a mensch like Uncle Sam asked, who could refuse?

A proud citizen she embraced her Americanism. By signing the pledge card, she joined thousands of immigrant Jewish housewives all over Brooklyn who would hang the cards in their windows attesting to their oath (“the service tag of American women”)

Meaning of America

Vintage WWI posters Uncle Sam and Woodrow Wilson

One couldn’t say that our land-of-the-free-government didn’t take the needs of the melting pot masses in to consideration.

Thoughtfully, Uncle Sam had printed out a whole batch of pledge cards especially for his “Hebrew Sisters” conveniently translated into Yiddish, so that they would understand what they were signing.

Along with the door to door canvasing the cards were distributed in the local synagogues, along with government posters in Yiddish proclaiming, “You came here seeking Freedom. You must now help Preserve it – Waste Nothing!”

This was all part of President Wilson’s Committee on Public Information in an effort to solicit support for the war.
As part of the program, an army of volunteers called the Four Minutemen gave brief speeches typically 4 minutes long to spread support for the war, speaking wherever they could find an audience such as at theaters, nickelodeons, lodges and churches.

A Four Minute Shtik

The local Four Minute Men organization tried to  tailor speeches to immigrant communities.

In N.Y.C alone some 16 hundred speeches addressed half a million people each week in their native tongues. Italian was popular but it came in second to Yiddish.

Yiddish speaking Four Minute men spoke at Yiddish theaters, playhouses, and synagogues, including my great-grandparent’s temple.

The jingoistic talks were called “The Meaning of America” and the appeal to patriotism was essential. Utilizing themes of shared sacrifice and responsibility of citizenship encouraging every American, adult and child, to “do your bit.”

This was the Great Crusade, the most insistent call for citizenship and participation the nation had ever seen.

The Great Crusade.

We would sacrifice for our Dough Boys – the crusaders of democracy. Vintage photo Ladies Home Journal

A handsome rosy-cheeked shtarker strode deliberately into the synagogue meeting room filled to capacity with Sisterhood members, and without any kibitzing got down to business.

“I am glad to join you in the service of food conservation for our nation,” he read aloud from a pledge card to the group of mostly former Eastern European Jews like my great-grandmother who listened intently. “Who could refuse? See what it says? You do not need to promise wheatless day.”

“Remember too, this pledge card is sent direct to Washington. It helps our boys and is an honor for every patriotic American woman.”

WWI Vintage Poster US Food Administration – “Don’t Waste Food”

Continuing in Yiddish, the young man explained that the American people should eat plenty, but wisely and without waste.

“It is our job, yours and ours to save food so that millions of starving people in Europe may have something to eat. (He got the Jewish guilt down right.) To buy or cook to eat more than you need to waste a single morsel of food that can be used –is a crime.”

“It was,” he said without a bit of irony, “the greatest crime in Christendom!”

It’s a Shame

Vintage Yiddish Theater Poster “Hard to be a Jew by Sholem Aleichem

It was only later when Sadie carefully read the card that she was asking her neighbors to sign, that she was shocked to see that in fact it wasn’t very kosher at all. Not only was it full of incorrect words in the translations, but her kosher mother had signed an oath promising to try to eat (in lieu of meat) shellfish, a violation of Kosher law.

The melting pot really started to simmer over that.

But if that wasn’t enough, an official circular from The Food Administration, signed by Mr. Hoover himself, was sent to the Sisterhood of the Synagogue-of which Rebeka was a member of good standing, urging them to convince the congregants to give up, just for the time being, mutton (forbidden ) and pork (really forbidden!) Rebeka also a member in good standing of the melting pot, really started to boil over on this one.

Thanks a lot Uncle Schmulie!

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Women and Food Will Win the War- WWI PT I

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

It was spring 1954.

While the Cold War was frozen solid, thanks to a temporary thaw in my parents own chilly clashes, I would be conceived on a sweltering hot night that June.

I would be conceived in the warm afterglow of the Hydrogen Bomb in 1954 (L) Cover Time Magazine April 1954- H Bomb Over the Pacific

The year had started with a bang and a boom.

Our arsenal of missiles was becoming as bloated as the ever-expanding bellies of the prodigious legion of pregnant women. Along with the birth of a boatload of baby boomers, a bouncing new U.S. Policy was born, and they would grow up together. The proud Papa, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles named his progeny Massive Retaliation.  Under the watchful eye of his rich Uncle Sam the policy would grow up big and strong.

Conceived, as was I, in the warm afterglow of the Hydrogen Bomb, it was also in the dark shadow cast by Godzilla, that radioactive mutated monster of mass destruction. Together they would send a collective shiver down our Cold War spine. What a brave new world awaited me, a world, thanks to science, of unsurpassed comfort, health and security. Lucky for us the words “Under God” would be added to our Pledge of Allegiance providing that extra protection we would need.

A Special Night – Music Martinis and Memories

Atomic Passion collage by Sally Edelstein

Spring turned out to be a real scorcher that year.

The night of June 5th was an unusually sultry one and Mom never remembered being so hot.

New York was in the grips of a deadly heat wave; the headlines of the New York Mirror said it all: “Heat Wave Blasts Scorched City.”  Despite the oppressive heat my parents were leaving their apartment in Queens to head into the sweltering inferno that was Manhattan. That evening they had dinner reservations at, a swanky supper club called ironically enough The Embers.

Embers Restaurant and Night Club, NYC 1950’s

My mother Betty knew it was a big night.

Dad was wearing his good Wallach Bannister Wing tips, donned his Silver Masonic tie bar and matching cuff links, and had splashed on Old Spice- “spiced with excitement and speaking of love” – with a generosity reserved for special occasions. Not only that, but earlier Dad had Turtle-waxed the Chevy in the blistering heat ensuring the car had a show off shine for the city.

Putting on Her Face

collage Sally Edelstein

The noisy oscillating fan in the bedroom only seemed to move the muggy air around the small room offering little relief as Mom prepared for the evening. Putting her face on in the heat was no easy task as beads of perspiration kept a perpetual shine that no amount of  face powder would subdue.

After powdering her nose for the umpteenth time, Betty had carefully applied her new lipstick ‘See Red’…the maddening new lipstick color. “Looking for Trouble?” the ad posed provocatively, warning the wearer: “And be careful- don’t start anything you can’t finish…!”

She deftly arranged her new Warner Wonderful Merry Widow Corset- the one that’s taken the nation by storm – the one you wear when you “want to look a little wanton.”

“It’s so simple to be sure of figure success, as it coaxes you into new fashion containment, you’ll barely be able to contain your excitement.”

“And neither will he!”

Imagine, taking two whole inches from your waist! My father Marvin never failed to notice the bewitching curves the cinch corset produces. “You look so naughty, feel so nice!”Mom  hummed to herself!

The Nearness Of You

Vintage illustration Phillip Morris Cigarettes ad 1955

Mom struggled with her zipper until Dad came to the rescue. Morphing into  Renzo Cesana, TV’s “The Continental” complete with  a sex-laden Charles Boyer-esque voice Marvin murmured: “Don’t be afraid darling, it’s only a mans apartment” followed by some well turned compliments, sly innuendos and intimate laughs, causing Mom to blush. He often fancied himself “the Continental” the suave Italian gigolo from the short-lived television show of the same name, whose job it was to woo the bored housewife.

Hot Date

Her incendiary figure was  smartly showcased in  five alarm cherry blossom red, ravishing cone-shaped, cotton shantung two piece dress, cool as a breeze, and gay as the fourth of July.

Because smart gals never go outdoors without it, she lavishly spritzed herself with some Helene Curtis Hairspray Net, careful not to spray any on her white stretch cotton gloves – M’lady’s loveliest accessory – frosting for that delectable spring fashion ensemble.

1954 Album. Romantic instrumentals by Jackie Gleason an accomplished musician as well as an actor and comedian

While Mom arranged her hat on her newly lacquered hair, carefully adjusting the feather capulet, Dad went to fix himself a drink for the road. Pouring a drink marked the moment of change over from the everyday world to one just a little bit warmer.

Sipping the Cutty Sark he soberly assessed the evening ahead.

Their marriage could run hot and cold, but it wasn’t like they were at each others throat like the mismatched Hickenloopers on Your Show of Shows. But Dad was sure tonight he would reignite the flame of romance. Casually slipping a little mood music on the phonograph, his selection of Jackie Gleason’s new album, “Music, Martinis and Memories”  sounded about right.

Knowing that my 2-year-old brother Andy would be spending the night with Betty’s Mother Sadie in the city, he put a bottle of Taylor Pink Champagne in the Frigidaire for later.

The Embers

Arriving at the Embers resplendent with its blinding bursts of gilded chairs, crystal chandeliers, and ornate mirrors, my parents were greeted  by a welcome blast of arctic air. The hum of the bulky Carrier Air Conditioner competed with the soft melodic music – easy on the ears, courtesy of the muted trumpet sounds of Jonah Jones and his quartet playing softly in the background.

However, the real show was in the main dining room which was ablaze with a dazzling display of pyrotechnics.

Dad knew no first-rate restaurant could even be considered sophisticated unless it flambéed tableside.

A true gourmand would never dream of allowing a lobster Newberg or Crepe Suzette, the sin qua non-of chic deserts, to be served in his dining room except from a chafing dish, always lit in front of guests. Fleets of wagons bearing gleaming flambé equipment, stood in a state of readiness.

The maitre d hotel was like a general and his well orchestrated waiters members of a well-trained rapid response force skilled in handling incendiary devices.

Surveying the room, they noticed anything and everything could be flambéed.

Nothing was safe from this barrage of fire – fruity cocktails set ablaze, meats incinerated, even iceberg lettuce as indestructible as the Titanic was smoldering in a blue haze of fire. A cease-fire was declared only upon closing.

Dueling waiters as dashing as Errol Flynn brandished swords of shish kebab engulfed in flames glowing vibrantly.

The shining copper pans reflecting the flickering blue flame beneath and the candle light on the table said “savoir faire. Her face aglow, Mom squealed with delight. This was real glamour, she thought, sinking softly in the sumptuous red leather banquettes.

Settling in with a simple but gratifyingly sizeable scotch served in a graceful etched glass, they pursued the large menu card. The room captains carefully maintained accent was as urbane and suave as The Continental himself.

Handsomely turned out in an elegant tuxedo, he approached the table bowing as Dad ordered two Steak Diane’s and a garlic studded he-man Caesar salad for himself. The order attentively taken, the captain and his escort backed off bowing in retreat as if Dad were Caesar himself.

As a white linen covered cart was wheeled tableside, great prowess was displayed as the serious rituals of mixing and measuring, sautéing and sizzling, began. With dramatic gestures, Theodore, the maitre d hotel personally saw to the finishing of the Caesar salad, wielding a two foot pepper mill, presented with much pageantry and flourish.

The high moment of drama was the skillful use of firepower within a restricted space. Using a long match  to ignite the accelerant, Theodore  tipped the copper sauté pan slightly to set the brandy on fire producing that amazing flambé.

As the burst of flame shot up, it created a whoosh, engulfing the whole table in a searing bluish white flash visible for more than five banquettes, nearly obliterating everyone from view.  The proximity of the skyrocketing red-orange fireball leaping capriciously close almost singed poor Betty.

With the room brashly ablaze, it occurred to Dad that although t he French may have originated flambeing, it was pure 100% proof American in its high-octane flamboyance.A Thermonuclear device was still a novelty and was on everybody’s mind, sparked by patriotic fervor and fanned to fascination by the impressionable pictures of the glowing skies and mushroom shaped clouds presented in Life Magazine.

Through the warm haze of his Dewar’s on the rocks, Dad sat transfixed by the flame’s blue haze enveloping the table.

With the room brashly ablaze, it occurred to him that although the French may have originated flambeing, it was pure 100% proof American in its high-octane flamboyance.

It took American know – how and showmanship to take these burnt offerings to such soaring heights of spectacle.

Not unlike the Hydrogen Bomb, he thought. The recently developed Super-Bomb was thousands more powerful than the Atom Bomb dropped on Hiroshima, making it seem as innocent as its Mother Goose sounding nick name of Little Boy.  This, Uncle Sam believed was the new kind of power that today’s American wants.

A new kind of power for a new kind of people: the growing, restless people of mid-century America.

Nuclear Family

The Happy Family — A Little Golden Book

My parents supported anything nuclear-especially the nuclear family.

The family’s outlook had never been brighter. It was no accident that there was a rocketing birthrate. That afternoon, while thumbing through the April issue of McCall’s, my mother came across a series of articles celebrating the American family.

“Is this a good time to have another baby you ask? You betchum! The latest news from science, industry and government says yes, it’s a fine time to be born! And to be parents! Parents have centered their lives almost completely around their children and their home.

American families are creating this new warmer way of life not as women alone or men alone, isolated from one another but as a family sharing a common experience.

McCall’s Magazine even cooked up a name for this spirit – togetherness, launching a thousand nuclear families.

It Could happen To You

Nowadays every magazine you flipped through painted the same glowing picture of the American family, emphatic in their belief that the family was the center of your living, and if it isn’t, you’ve gone astray- or you’re a Communist!

Like Mother like daughter. Vintage Reynolds Aluminum Foil ad 1954

As the waiter quietly replaced the full ashtray by cupping it with an empty one, Betty gave voice to her burning desire. Another child preferably a girl, would fill out their family just fine, she mused.  After all you couldn’t be a true nuclear family without at least two children.

As all the womens magazines pointed out it was no longer ‘Baby makes three’ for the American family.

“More second and third babies are born each year…Such behavior confounds the pessimists who say that we are living in the shadow of doom, under the constant threat of war and the H Bomb. To these gloomy Gus’s, young parents merely shrug them off coolly and tell them to go back to Russia where they belong…”

Cheered on by America’s manufacturers, an  ad filled, bloated McCalls enthused:

“Yes Mr. and Mrs. America have all the babies you want!”

Jubilation

The cherry jubilees that Mom ordered, matched her cherry blossom dress to a tee. Though steeply priced, at $1.50 a portion, the blazing brandy floating over the glistening fruit, was well worth it. Lighting Mom’s after dinner cigarette, with his Ronson Windsor lighter, its lustrous finish of black onyx gleaming in the candlelight, Dad leaned closer to her.

“How’s about creating some atomic fusion of our own,” Dad winked to Mom after draining the last of his scotch on the rocks.

Her scarlet blush was no match for his florid complexion.

Her crimson cheeks glowed as she cheekily replied: “Have you no decency sir. At long last have you no decency?”

Sounding mockingly shocked, she bore not the slightest resemblance in tone to the patrician coolness of Joseph Welch, questioning Joe McCarthy. Dad looked at her for an interminable moment, as warmth more exhilarating than her Jack Rose cocktail stole through her.

Tipping the hat check girl a dime, Dad donned his hat, puffed on his after dinner white owl cigar and slipped Mom’s Best and Company Mink stole over her shoulders as they walked to their car.

Blast Off

Vintage ad Oldsmobile Cars

With the car radio pre-set to WNEW, the Milkman’s Matinee played softly in the background. Snuggling in the Chevy, Mom kicked off her breezy little strap shoes as she moved over closely so that her shoulder touched the soft material of Dads suit jacket. As she glided over, the back of her thighs stuck rudely to the hot plastic seat, causing her to wonder why she had ever ordered the darn protective seat covers in the first place. Though she had to admit, the patterned plastic with gold fleur-de-lis design added an extra sparkle to the car upholstery.

Dads cigars tip glowed an iridescent red in the dark, as the car descended into the deep of the East River speeding with an abundance of extra power through the Queens Midtown Tunnel as he stepped on the gas, getting the extra thrust he needed.

The Nearness of You

He put his hand momentarily on hers and then returned it carefully to the wheel, but she knew what the gesture meant, that he was there to take care of her, to take her where she was going and to bring her back safely.

She was radiant.

Mom reapplied her “See Red” lipstick reminding herself what the lipstick ads had warned… “don’t start anything you can’t finish!”

Smiling to herself, she knew they would be a nuclear family at last.

A Birthday Blog ‘ specially for you….

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.