Finding Betty Crocker

by Susan Marks

  Intense scientific research into the properties of vitamins increasingly had the side effect of inspiring fad diets that linked bread to weight gain and this created bad publicity for flour companies. General Mills deployed Hollywood darling Betty Crocker on damage control. Husted recruited slender actresses—Claudette Colbert, Margaret Sullavan, and Sylvia Sidney—to endorse bread as a foundation for a healthy and nutritious diet. The celebrities were featured in Betty Crocker’s 1935 national campaign and booklet, “Bread for Vitality.” In exchange for their endorsements, the celebrities received free publicity for their latest cinematic feats. For example, Claudette Colbert, winner of the 1934 Best Actress Oscar for It Happened One Night, was identified as the “star of Cecil B. DeMille’s new Paramount spectacle Cleopatra.” Next to her photograph appeared testimony that bread provided much of her abundant energy. Fans were urged to read Claudette’s personal letter:

  Dear Betty Crocker,

  You can’t imagine the strain of film work. Without plenty of vitality, a person simply can’t make a go of it—can’t keep looking her best. Diet, of course is tremendously important—and I’ve always been told bread is the best food for energy. I love bread—always have it in some form, three times a day.

  Elmer McCollum, a professor at Johns Hopkins who was America’s leading nutrition researcher, and the Yale vitamin expert Lafayette Mendel joined Betty Crocker and her Hollywood coterie on a 1934 radio special highlighting the healthful properties of white bread as a diet food. McCollum further championed General Mills’ cause with a 1935 letter to Congress denouncing “the pernicious teachings of food faddists who have sought to make people afraid of white-flour bread.”

  Betty was not the only home economist making the Hollywood circuit, but she was the one who commanded Hollywood’s attention. The studios collaborated with General Mills on a series of recipe booklets. In “Let the Stars Show You How to Take a Trick a Day with Bisquick” and “Betty Crocker’s 101 Delicious Bisquick Creations,” Betty showcased recipes and serving ideas from “smart luminaries of movieland” as well as from celebrity chefs, socialites, and magazine columnists. These inexpensive booklets covered topics from emergency meals for unexpected guests, to thrift menus and ideas for dressing up leftovers, to tips for the hostess of tennis, golf, yachting, and hunting luncheons.

  Hollywood stars shared their favorite Bisquick recipes with Betty Crocker in “How to Take a Trick a Day with Bisquick.”

  Betty Crocker magazine ad, 1933.

  Bette Davis recommended recipes for Bisquick hunt club sandwiches and ginger waffles. Joan Crawford, known for her “Smart Dinners,” favored whole-wheat Bisquick rolls and potatoes on the half shell with avocado salad. Claudette Colbert offered her Bisquick recipe for peach shortcake, and Bing Crosby gave his wife’s menu for a “Southern Plantation Supper,” complete with Bisquick fried chicken, corn fritters, spoon bread, candied sweet potatoes, and chocolate icebox cake.

  Betty’s celebrity connections landed her a home away from home, and she was the perfect resident of a place where nothing is as it seems. Husted’s Hollywood personification of Betty Crocker was so convincing that her own identity became curiously intertwined and interchangeable with Betty’s. Betty’s Hollywood friends, expert as they were at playing a role, certainly distinguished between the two. But there was simply no question that “Betty Crocker at Studio Soiree” made much better copy than “The Director of General Mills’ Home Service Department Mingling with Film Stars.”

  The stars obliged by validating Betty Crocker’s mission in their own words. In one radio chat, Norma Shearer told Betty:

  Of course the women who do all their own household tasks are the ones who have the greatest problem. I have the deepest admiration and respect for them. When you think they have to do everything—the cooking—the cleaning—looking after the children—why, it’s about four jobs. And unfortunately, there’s often not much credit in it. They don’t hear about it until it’s not done! Yet, there’s nothing more important than bringing up children!

  Basking in the esteem of their Hollywood idols, listeners reached out to their celebrity connection Betty Crocker with requests for the recipes of the stars.

  “The Betty Crocker Effect” reaped enormous financial gain for General Mills. A 1940 national survey indicated that Betty Crocker’s Home Service radio programs held a strong category lead, and that she received over a quarter of a million letters per year. It is no coincidence that General Mills was one of the “Golden Eight” corporations that throughout the Depression never failed to pay—without reduction—a regular dividend on common stock.

  Chapter Three On Betty’s Watch

  Service Cake

  Cream together ⅓ cup shortening

  ¾ cup sugar

  Blend in 2 eggs, well beaten

  Sift together 1½ cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour or,

  1⅔ cups sifted SOFTASILK

  ½ tsp. salt

  1¾ tsp. baking powder

  Blend into creamed mixture alternately with

  ½ cup milk

  1 tsp. vanilla

  Pour into greased and floured 8-in. sq. pan. Bake about 35 min. in 350° oven.

  Victory Icing

  (For 2-layer 8 or 9-in. cake … to be served soon after icing.)

  Heat just to boiling

  ¾ cup light corn syrup

  Pour into (in thin stream)

  2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

  Beat until fluffy.

  Blend in

  Pinch of salt

  ½ tsp. lemon extract

  ½ tsp. orange extract

  From Betty Crocker’s “Your Share” (1943)

  As World War II swallowed the Great Depression, homemaking took on a renewed sense of urgency. In more than 30 million kitchens nationwide, women were charged with providing their families foods for building strong bodies, steady nerves, and high morale. “The eyes of the nation are upon you,” President Roosevelt told American women in February 1942. “In far-flung outposts, in the military isolation of camps near home, men at sea, men in tanks, men with guns, men in planes, look to you for strength.” Homemakers were urged to sign—and uphold—the U.S. government’s “Consumer Pledge for Total Defense”:

  I will buy carefully.

  I will take good care of the things I have.

  I will waste nothing.

  Realizing these goals on a national scale required extensive planning and education, encouragement and enforcement. The government called for consumers and consumer product companies to forge a partnership to address a common problem: food. Prewar food expenditures averaged $14,753,000,000 per year for an abundance of consumables.

  But suddenly homemakers had rationing and shortages to contend with, along with rising prices. Corporations faced scarcity of farm labor, as well as transportation and distribution problems. Ideas for how to feed families at home while conserving rations for troops abroad were in high demand.

  Betty Crocker had the answers, and the national platform to deliver them. Marshaling vast informational resources with militarylike precision, General Mills’ Home Service and marketing departments orchestrated elaborate public service initiatives so as to position Betty Crocker as an indispensable wartime resource. Betty was everywhere—on the radio, in women’s magazines, in newspaper columns, in the mail, and in recipe booklets available in grocery stores—sending messages of empowerment and civic pride.

  Betty’s staff worked tirelessly to ease the pain of rationing, which was no small feat considering that sugar, a key component of the most beloved Betty Crocker recipes, was first on the government’s list. Beginning in January 1942, the Office of Price Administration appointed local rationing boards. Food rationing began on May 5, 1942, with the twenty-eight-stamp “sugar book.” The weekly allowance was set at eight ounces per person. Coffee, butter and other fats, canned and frozen goods, and red meat were rationed by February 1943.

  In an effort to stem feelings of deprivation and re
sentment—and to avoid repeat price inflation rampant on the World War I home front—Betty Crocker explained the philosophy behind the program. “Food rationing at home helps to save lives of American service men.” In McCall’s, Betty rallied homemakers: “Let’s make rationing work!” The “Betty Crocker Suggests” campaign offered recipes designed to do just that. Set in a column bracketed by Betty’s portrait and signature and punctuated with trios of patriotic stars, the advertisements alternated menu planning advice with news items from Uncle Sam and homemakers’ letters, recounting baking success à la Betty.

  Sugar-saving tips figured prominently in Betty’s suggestions. “No sugar required for fresh fruit shortcake!” she declared in a July 1942 ad. “Just do this: … Sweeten your raspberries, or strawberries, with a bit of corn syrup. Use corn syrup to sweeten the whipped cream.” And the following winter: “Now’s the time to make a hit with midwinter fruit pies! … Canned fruit pies made the Betty Crocker way gladden hearts, save sugar.” The baking secret to these recipes was General Mills’ Bisquick. The product’s blend of ingredients included sugar, so that the consumer needn’t use her own ration.

  Betty lamented, in “Meal Planning on a Limited Budget” (1943), “Trying to handle the food budget economically and yet give the family the kind of meals they enjoy and the food they should have for their physical needs is a very interesting game. And I don’t know of anything that brings more satisfaction to a woman.”

  One of Betty Crocker’s many wartime publications distributed to homemakers in the name of the home-front war effort.

  Betty demonstrated the patriotic qualities of Bisquick biscuits in an ad quoting “Mrs. America”: “He’ll have his biscuits, and often. Even if I’ve been toiling for Red Cross or such. No trouble for me, making biscuits. Just a whisk and a pat. Absolutely a cinch, with my trusty Bisquick. Can we have ’em tomorrow, too? Of course! Simple to make.” With thrift and economy key ingredients, here was a food that embodied the War Advertising Council’s 1943 anti-inflation message: “Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or do without.”

  Starve the Garbage Can

  In 1942, the government called for a stockpile of a billion pounds of fats needed for war production. The launching of a single big ship required 96,000 pounds of mixed tallow, suet, and petroleum products to grease the way. And with consumers meeting just half the fats quota, Betty Crocker, along with other key spokespeople, was called upon to redouble conservation efforts. Betty created alternative baking techniques to save on butter. “IN PASTRY: Use lard or vegetable shortening. If those are not available, bacon or poultry fat, or clarified drippings may be used.”

  Betty spoke out in support of the national “Starve the Garbage Can” campaign with tips for conserving food, eliminating waste, and bolstering morale. “Watch Your Wasteline” seconded the “Washington Newsletter” in McCall’s of August 1943. “Remember that if every family wasted only a single slice of bread per week, the total would come to 1,000,000 loaves a year.” Thrift was essential to homemakers juggling two budgets, one for money and one for ration coupons. “Save your ‘blue’ stamps,” advised Betty Crocker, “by using fresh fruits in season when abundant and at their best—by extending canned fruits—by using dried fruits for variety.”

  For a company lunch “easy on points,” Betty Crocker planned a meatless menu around “Green and Gold” filling (green beans and margarine) in Biscuit Rings, with “salad bowl of shredded lettuce, raw cauliflowerettes and radish discs, little extra biscuits, and jam and pickles” as side dishes, with fresh pineapple and cupcakes for dessert.

  With prime meat rations reserved for military tables, civilians could look forward to eating less beef and more pork, both summer and winter. In her contribution to the search for untapped sources of nutrition, Betty Crocker invoked Uncle Sam’s silver lining: “WEALTHY! ‘We have great riches of wheat and other cereal grains.’” Betty’s bottom line: “It’s good to extend your meat with Wheaties,” a General Mills cereal touted for its “good proteins.”

  For Betty, good eating depended on good cooking. Her staff, ever dedicated to food preparations that fit the times, titled this recipe after the national mood:

  EMERGENCY STEAK

  1 lb. fresh hamburger, or ground round steak

  1 cup Wheaties

  ½ cup milk

  1 tsp. salt and ¼ tsp. pepper finely chopped onion (if desired )

  Broil 8-15 minutes at 500 degrees. Brown other side and finish cooking. 6 servings.

  With nearly half of all women employed at some point during the war, cooking time became precious. Cereal might have been an obvious choice for breakfast, but Betty suggested, “Why not Wheaties with milk for lunch or supper, occasionally?” In May 1943, Betty reminded women, “War workers in your family? Please note: Dr. Helen Mitchell, Principal Nutritionist, U.S. Health, Welfare and Defense Committee, says: ‘The Homemaker should see there’s breakfast enough to give the worker a good start for the day’s work.’… Better breakfasts are in order!”

  Victory before everything was the order of the day. As 20 million patriots produced in their gardens 40 percent of the nation’s vegetables, Betty was posted in her test kitchen. One of her most valuable wartime contributions was “Your Share: How to Prepare Appetizing, Healthful Meals with Foods Available Today,” a booklet distributed at General Mills’ expense to almost 7 million Americans. Between its red, white, and blue covers were 52 menus, 226 recipes, and 369 tips for wartime food buying, preparation, meal planning, serving, entertaining, and etiquette.

  Betty Crocker began her foreword to “Your Share” with a call to arms: “Hail to the women of America!” Her words enlisted an army of women:

  Every American home-maker who selects food wisely, prepares it carefully and conserves it diligently is an important link in our national war effort…. At the end of the day, let us be sure we can say:

  “I worked for freedom today.

  I served at least one food from each of the basic seven food groups.

  I prepared the food I served with care. I wasted no food this day.”

  Betty outlined the finer points of the Victory Lunch Box Meal: “Hearty, wholesome meal that combats fatigue, maintains efficiency on the job, interesting and appetizing, varied daily … Take a peek before you close the cover. Would you want to eat the contents 5 hours later?” Patriotic recipes, such as Service Cake, Victory Icing, Yankee Doodle Macaroni, Victory Pancakes, and American Chop Suey, filled Betty’s wartime publications. When it came to wartime baking, “you can have your cake and eat it, too…. [M]ake smaller cakes. Use ½ or ⅓ of recipe. Make cup cakes. Serve uniced.” Wedding refreshments for wartime included simple recipes for angel food or two-layer white butter cake topped with “an attractive flower decoration.”

  Another General Mills wartime booklet, “Betty Crocker’s Thru Highway of Good Nutrition,” won accolades from the American Red Cross for outstanding national service. The recipes in this booklet were informed by new government standards on vitamins and nutrition. By late 1942, the American Medical Association advocated the fortification of milk and flour. In October of that year, General Mills began identifying its “Kitchen-tested” Gold Medal Flour as “Vitamin-Mineral Enriched.” The two added B vitamins and iron allowed the product to carry the AMA label of “preferred” food.

  Betty’s booklets, with their emphasis on a balanced diet of vitamin-and mineral-rich foods such as vegetables, milk, fortified bread, and lean meat, were often adopted for home economics curriculums. “The spotlight is on wholesome foods today!” Betty declared in September 1942. And Gold Medal Flour was a chart topper. “Give them this ‘Vitamin Snack’ when they’re hungry … milk and peanut butter cookies! made the Betty Crocker way.” The milk-and-cookie snack, Betty explained, was a source of vitamins A, B1, and B2, and of calcium.

  From Betty Crocker’s 1943 ration recipe and menu booklet “Your Share.”

  Americans coped with wartime rationing of sugar and other foods with the
help of Betty Crocker’s “Your Share.”

  “Your Share” was distributed to almost 7 million Americans during World War II, free of charge.

  In 1941, Betty Crocker and several home defense agencies teamed up to create “Thru Highway to Good Nutrition,” to help explain the importance of minerals and vitamins. This booklet received accolades from the American Red Cross.

  Up-to-date vitamin information was one feature of Betty Crocker’s War-Time Services for the Home-Front, a series of guides to preserving the virtues of thrift and good housekeeping as a means of civil defense. “Every Homemaker a Captain in the Product Line Thru Home Conservation!” Betty Crocker declared by way of encouraging homemakers to take the Victory Pledge for home conservation. To be sparing in one’s use of energy was paramount: heating the oven for a single dish or opening its door to peek at baked goods in progress counted as a vote for the enemy. With hearty fare sure to extend the powers of human endurance, true patriots prepared such ration-regulated meals as Short-Leave Dinner (included chicken-fried heart), Parachute-Landing Supper (baked squash stuffed with sausage), Mess Call Macaroni (platter of cooked macaroni with grated cheese), and Doughboy’s Special (old-fashioned beef-vegetable stew).

  Even in the darkest wartime hour, Betty remembered to celebrate. In December 1942, Betty wrote, “It will be a ‘military’ Christmas in millions of homes. And here’s a ‘military’ idea for your Christmas baking.” The recipe for “Military Christmas Cookies” was one of “the most practical the Betty Crocker staff has ever tested. One of the best-tasting too!” Betty provided traceable patterns for cookies in the shape of a pursuit plane, bomb, tank, shield, field gun, battleship, and sailor. The names of family members could be piped on with “No-Sugar Icing.” Easy to make and inexpensive, the cookies could do double duty as Christmas tree decorations. And they were “just the thing to send away to that boy in the service!”