The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook
1950 Facsimile Edition
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
Although strictly speaking this cookbook does not belong to the period of the Great Depression, its approach to food and cooking definitely was shaped by that period and the one that followed it, World War II with its strict rationing and sometimes complete unavailability of consumer goods. Although prosperity was beginning to return to the United States by that time, the scars of the years of privation still ran deep, and there was still a strong focus on careful economy.
My mother has one of the original printing which she got when she was in home economics class in high school. I learned to cook from it, and I still remember my crushing disappointment when I discovered that the current editions of the Betty Crocker Cookbook didn't have nearly the density of information. I wanted one of my very own to start housekeeping with, but I was not going to settle for the updated version that might be full of pretty full-color photographs but didn't have nearly the density of information. So I ended up making do for years with a random collection of cookbooks, including my old 4H cookbooks and some little cookbooks that had belonged to my grandmother.
Recipes in the classic 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook are typically arranged around key recipes which can then be modified to produce five or ten additional foods. For instance, in the Cookies chapter there is a recipe for basic sugar cookies which we regularly made when we wanted a quick, easy cookie to take to a potluck or to provide refreshments for a meeting. In addition to this key recipe, there are a number of additional recipes on the lower half of the page which add additional ingredients such as nuts and chocolate chips to make several other types of cookies.
The key recipe approach was originally designed because it enabled the publishers to get more recipes onto each page, and thus increase the perceived value of the cookbook to consumers. However, it is also very good because it trains the user to think in terms of variations upon a theme, rather than a collection of individual recipes unrelated to one another. Once you've mastered the principle of modifying a recipe to use different ingredients, it becomes easier to see the possibilities of incorporating different ingredients according to what you have in your refrigerator and cupboard -- something very important during hard times, when it may not be possible to simply run out to the store and buy something. And that goes double when you're receiving packages of food from a cooperative buying program or food pantry -- since there is no way to control or often even anticipate what assortment of foods will be in your box in any given month, you need to be able to mix and match various items in order to make satisfying meals instead of being stuck with fragments that don't add up to any one meal.
In addition to the recipes themselves, there is a wealth of information dealing with such things as meal planning and general kitchen management. For instance, there are diagrams of all the major cuts of meat, with explanations of what they are best used for. There is also information on the best way to store bulk foods such as flour and sugar to protect them from spoilage and vermin, something that becomes increasingly important in hard times when people turn to club buying in order to get more food for their money.
Instead of being bound like a normal book, it is published in the form of a ring binder. Not only does it mean that the entire book lies flat for ease of use, but it also means that you can take individual pages out and clip them to a recipe holder as you cook. Of course you will always want to return the pages to their places as you're cleaning up -- my mother had some close calls in which pages nearly got discarded by accident because they were left lying on the counter after she finished cooking. But the benefits of this format far outweigh the disadvantages, as anyone can testify who has had to struggle to keep a normal hardbound cookbook open to the desired recipe without breaking the spine.
If I could only have one cookbook, this is the one that I would choose, simply because it is so versatile and so chock full of information.
Review posted February 27, 2010.
Buy Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook from Amazon.com.
