Links for 2008-10-28: Mental Hygiene: Better Living Through Classroom Films 1945-1970; The Gallery of Regrettable Food; The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s; Gastroanomalies: Questionable Culinary Creations from the Golden Age of American Cookery; Vikings Bathed Before Pillaging – righting a historical wrong; Transplanted cornea in use for record 123 years; The Virtual Dime Museum: A Grand Skatorial Boom; recommended recipes for laundry day; Unbelievably revolting recipes with bananas and other foul, disgust invoking combinations; guns and vegetables with yet more lookalike scenarios from Domestic Science exams.
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"Among the most pervasive and pernicious forms of 1950s cultural indoctrination was the mental hygiene film, extolling proper behavior to captive audiences of schoolchildren. Blatantly and crudely designed, the genre's products instilled proper dating practices and showed the consequences of failing to avoid drugs and of car wrecks. No social problem was too big for them, not even juvenile delinquency and the atom bomb. Mostly, as Smith shows, they aimed to maintain conformity. Evolved from World War II training films, they flourished from 1945 to the early 1960s, when the growing sophistication of their target audience rendered them ineffective." Sadly, we didn't see these films in my schools and we were rudderless on these issues.
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Enthralling collection of deeply unpleasant foods from popular cookbooks that possibly explains the dearth of transmitted cooking skills in some families. Commentaries on recipes that seem designed to traumatise but were actually recipes from advertisers who had some strangely warped understanding of their customers. Apparently, Joan Crawford shilled for some of these products – famous chefs promoted marshmallow with everything, including baked pepper.
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"astonishingly grim, unintentionally hilarious recipe cards (sample dishes: Aspic-Glazed Lamb Loaf and Snappy Mackerel Casserole) containing no nutritional information but illustrated with eerie photos clearly staged by a props department not averse to self-medicating. Compelled to share her discovery with the world, McClure posted the cards on a website, framing each with her own side-splitting and appropriately warped comments. The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan–a titled borrowed from one of the myriad improbably named recipes contained within–unleashes the entire god-awful collection. No review can quite capture the horrors of the recipe cards or the genius of McClure's riotous quips. Suffice to say these are milk-through-the-nose, tears-down-the-cheeks funny and a striking reminder of just how bent the 1970s were." Some excellent comments from people who recall them.
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"Gastroanomalies, James Lileks gathers another remarkable assortment of dishes that once inspired cooks to brave new heights but now inspire sour stomachs and thoughts of “how did I survive?” Highlighted with excerpts from bizarre cookbooks (like Joan Crawford shilling for Bisquick), dubious images (is it meat or chocolate ice cream?), ads heralding the latest in kitchen technology (how about a bacon-egger?), and Lileks’s acerbic, off-the-wall commentary (“Put your ear close, and you can actually hear the meat screaming in terror”), Gastroanomalies is an irresistible retro documentation of a bygone era when artisanal cheese and vegetables lightly steamed (not boiled to mush) were still light-years away. Gastroanomalies will have foodies, baby boomers, and lovers of kitsch in stitches."
Contemporary food is not looking that bad.
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Vikings were misunderstood and not as dubious in appearance or hygiene as might be considered. History has been unkind to Vikings and Cambridge Uni seeks to right that wrong.
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"He had a cornea transplanted into his right eye in 1958 from the body of an elderly man who was born in June 1885. The operation was carried out at Namsos Hospital, mid-Norway.
"I wouldn't be surprised if this is the oldest living organ in the world," eye doctor Hasan Hasanain at Namsos hospital told the Norwegian daily Verdens Gang"
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"Roller-skating on pedestals, while dancing AND balancing six glasses of water: now that's a grand skatorial boom. It looks like the acrobats divided up those six glasses between them, though.
The finale of this act was so funny "that the crowds of people go away nightly screaming at the funniest finish to any skatorial act ever produced in America." One hopes that they were screaming with laughter and not just screaming…"
There is no boom like a grand skatorial one.
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Yet another favourite for Domestic Science exam questions: laundry day meals. The excitement of running clothes through a hot tub and mangling them, pegging them out and watching the weather. Sewing all the buttons back on that you had removed prior to washing in case they were damaged in mangling. This was a day that needed something that could be left in the oven and needed no further attention.
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Unbelievably revolting recipes with bananas and other foul, disgust invoking combinations
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This has one of the popular scenarios in Domestic Science exams such as the unexpected guest. There are some disturbing line drawings of guns and vegetables. However, look through this blog (I particularly recommend searchign for banana (learn all about the tinned salmon and banana salad or the beef casserole with banana) because there are many ghastly recipes that seem to have been created for psychologists running expertiments designed to induce disgust.
October 29, 2008 at 11:59 am
Thanks for the links!
October 29, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Lidian – your website is full of quirky and fascinating material that is a thoroughly enjoyable read.