Pizza Potatoes

The point of food styling is to make the food look good — more than good: inviting, delicious, evocative. It should tickle the senses, make your stomach rumble and your mouth water. It should evoke memory, inspire delight, and maybe even hint at what the ingredients are, or how best to serve it. 

 

Pizza Potatoes does none of these things. It is the epitome of anti-styling. It is a snapshot of something that presumably matches the recipe on the back of the card. It is unappetizing to the point of revulsion. It is the runt of the litter, its name a desperate attempt to describe its utility. 

 

The housewife who reaches for this recipe has just come home from work on the subway. Her latchkey kids have left the house a mess and demand her attention to mediate a fight as they whine relentlessly about being hungry. She pours herself a drink, lights a cigarette, and throws a packet each of frozen potatoes, pepperoni, and shredded cheese into a dish, along with a can of tomato soup and some water, and bungs it in the oven. While it bakes, she glances at the bills and tosses them, unopened, onto a pile. 

 

The kids want real pizza, and so does she. 

 

Pizza Potatoes

Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

 

Tinfoil Hat

 

Notes From the Betty Crocker Recipe Card Editorial Meeting

 

Spencer: I think we need a section for housewives on a budget. 

 

Frank: Good call. The Betty Crocker cook loves shortcuts and savings. 

 

Arthur: So what we’re looking at here are recipes that go easy on the garnishes, yes?

 

Spencer: More than that. It’s not that she can’t afford the basic ingredients — the meat, say, or the onions —

 

Arthur: Or the can of condensed cream of mushroom soup!

 

Spencer: — right. That’s not the kind of poverty we’re talking about. I mean she’s cost-conscious, but doing it in a socially aware, stylish way that wouldn’t make her husband feel like he’s not providing. 

 

Frank: I like it. Keep going. 

 

Spencer: She’s putting a complete meal on the table every night, as always, but maybe she’s reserving a little something each week from the housekeeping in a jam jar for a family holiday, you know? 

 

Arthur: Or to buy herself a new dress. 

 

Frank: Or to surprise her husband with some new golf clubs! 

 

Spencer: Anyway, it’s nothing her family would notice. It’s subtle. These are the recipes she relies upon for inspiration. 

 

Frank: Let’s put “budget” in the title. It suggests responsibility, good house husbandry. 

 

Arthur: Maybe she’s on a diet, she’s got her mind on reducing, the way so many women are today. She’s popping laxatives like they’re candy, smoking a pack a day, but the weight still isn’t coming off. So she’s cutting back on the food, but in a way she can keep to herself. 

 

Spencer: But not like she’s sacrificing good nutrition. It’s still decent food; that’s important. This is a recipe collection, after all. 

 

Frank: I’ve got it. She’s fun, right? She’s predictably unpredictable! She’s got a keen imagination. She budgets by — get this — tossing out her plates! Just think of the money she’ll save on dish soap! 

 

Spencer: So what does she serve the meal on, Frank?

 

Frank: On the thing she cooks it in! Tinfoil! 

 

Arthur: Genius. 

 

Foil-Wrapped Dinners

The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971