Fashionable Food and Food Fashion

In the Cold War era, amidst nationalism and patriotism, the woman was seen as important because she could lead the family against liberalism, socialism, and communism. In her marriage and motherhood, the housewife kept the family together which would help keep the nation strong. With postwar prosperity offering new opportunities and domesticity being stressed, many women of the Cold War age found themselves whisked off to the suburbs, where they were sold new ideas about the family meals that were their most important undertaking by companies of mass-produced packaged food.

FASHIONABLE FOOD

In the 1950s bologna soup, the ‘Emergency Steak’ type of food found in Betty Crocker recipes, and other kinds of ‘mock dishes’ and recipes that bore fancy names yet consisted solely of canned ingredients were prevalent in cookbooks. In 1957 the French philosopher Roland Barthes described such recipes as ‘ornamental cookery.’ He asserted that in ornamental cookery ‘there is an obvious endeavor to glaze surfaces, round them off, to bury the food under the even sediment of sauces, creams, icing and jellies.’

· -sticking shrimps in a lemon

· -making a chicken look pink

· -serving grapefruit hot

· -Tuna noodle casserole with crushed potato chip topping

· -Jell-O rings

Like the photographs in cookbooks, many 1950s recipes advocated foods that could be served as proud displays of Technicolor splendor (and uniformity). There was an ideal way to present almost any meal. For example, chicken a la king was supposed to be arranged in or upon edible cups, timbales, or decorative rings of pastry that did not require lots of fuss. Neuhaus describes it as, “a visual symphony in purest white, accented by grace notes of scarlet pimento and green pepper. In the classic 1950s presentation, chicken a la king looked like Abstract Expressionist color drips applied to a dinner plate, so completely were its properties as food overwhelmed by its pictorial charm.”

FOOD FASHION

In the 1950s cooking was viewed by women as an outlet for creativity that was nonetheless encouraged in very structured and controlled ways by advertisers and cookbook authors. Suggestions for creativity with food were often specific, direct, and delivered in such a way as to imply women’s overall ineptitude at executing independent thought.

For example, theme parties were incredibly popular, and cookbooks described to the last detail how a woman could hold the perfect cocktail party, buffet supper, backyard barbecue, Hawaiian, Mardi Gras, fondue party... These them party menus came complete with directions on how to elaborately decorate the food and display it properly.

Women’s effectiveness and personal satisfaction in the kitchen, and thus, for many, in life, was not judged solely by their efficiency or cooking abilities. Cookbooks also suggested appropriate attire, as a connection was seen between women’s clothes and their family’s appetite and happiness. For example, Betty Crocker recommended that women should wear nice clothes and makeup in the kitchen because it would enhance their family’s enjoyment of their food:

“Every morning before breakfast, comb hair, apply makeup and a dash of cologne. Does wonders for your morale and your family’s too!”

SOURCES

Inness, Sherrie A., Kitchen culture in America. (University of Pennsylvania Press,
2001).
Marling, Karal Ann, As seen on TV. (Harvard University Press, 1996).
Neuhaus, Jessamyn, “The Way to a Man's Heart: Gender Roles, Domestic Ideology, and
Cookbooks in the 1950s.” Journal of Social History 32, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 529-555.

Ogden, Annegret S., The great American housewife. (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1986).