Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook

It was $3.95 and a Do It Yourself house was about $3500. It would cost about $40-50 today.

This is why there were way more desserts in the book than meat or vegetable dishes

Yes! It was a propaganda move. It showed off the abundance and variety of foods available under capitalism, and the bright packaging made it all seem very advanced and modern. Especially in Europe where people lived with rationing and shortages for a decade after the war.

The statement suggests that by the mid-1950s, color became the dominant factor in the retail industry. This implies that retailers started focusing more on incorporating color into their products and marketing strategies, possibly due to the increasing demand for vibrant and visually appealing items. This shift towards color could have been influenced by various factors such as advancements in printing technology, changing consumer preferences, and the rise of visual media. Overall, the statement indicates that color played a significant role in shaping the retail landscape during this time period.

Because of the social disruptions of WWII many women never learned to cook from their own mothers. When they moved to the suburbs their was often no one to teach them to cook. So Betty Crocker was a "substitute mother to a generation of motherless exurbanites" (Marling 209).

Check out pages 222-3 for more about this!

All of these are true! Dichter had a lot to say about cake. He is sometimes credited with suggesting that women be told to add "one fresh egg" to the mix to make it feel more like they were creating something. (They could have easily skipped this step and just put powdered egg in the mix.)

Given that Betty was fictional creation, it was hard to have her do a cooking show!

The correct answer is that color was a symbol of status and futuristic technology at work. This suggests that in the context being discussed, color was used to represent wealth, power, and cutting-edge advancements. It implies that color was associated with a sense of prestige and innovation in the depicted setting.

Only 36 of the hundreds of photos in the book were in colour (it was still expensive), but that did not stop it from being a popular gift at bridal showers

Interestingly, the idea came from a 19th Century movement to elevate women's work from "just" making food to a science or an art! "The artfulness of table presentations... stimulated the salivary glands and thus aided digestion" (Marling 222).

At a time when most people did not have colour TV, the packaging sold the fantasy of this colourful meal.

Marling says you might think that, but she points out that that maraschino cherries are just as bright today! It was just the fashion.

Lipton's Onion Soup Mix was used to make a sour cream based dip, that was seen as part of the new casual "California" style entertaining. Dips were often called "dunks" in early recipes.

The given answer provides a list of non-food-related products that "capitulated to the craze" for color. It includes examples such as soap (specifically Dial Soap), Kleenex, toilet tissue/paper, and refrigerators. These products likely introduced colorful variations or designs in response to the trend of consumers seeking vibrant and visually appealing options in non-food items.

To quote Marling. "The Picture Cook Book was the best possible advertisement for the brightly coloured boxes of cake mix stacked high on the grocers' shelves."

:) Although people certainly used "nifty" in the 1950s!