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

 

Wheel of Fortune

 

Welcome to Wheel of Fortune! 

 

Pat: Today we have Sandra, who’s from Milwaukee. How are you, Sandra?

Sandra: I’m just dandy, Pat!

Pat: You look like you know your food, Sandra, am I right? 

Sandra: Been eating it all my life, Pat! 

Pat: Sandra, are you ready to play? 

Sandra: I was born ready, Pat! 

Pat: Now, as you know, this special version of the game means you have to correctly name this dish to win the prize, based solely on a picture of the dish. 

Sandra: Gotcha!

Pat: Excellent! OK, Vanna, show us the picture, please. It’s a Hurry Up Main Dish, Sandra! 

Sandra: Oh! I think I know! 

Pat: Already! Wow! I’m impressed!

Sandra: I have four kids and a hungry man, Pat. 

Pat: Say no more! Vanna, will you show us the number of letters in the dish?

 

_{— — — —     — — — —     — — — —}   

 

Sandra: (Spins wheel) I see eggs there, Pat. Is one of the words EGGS?

Pat: Oooh, it’s not! Nice try, Sandra. Spin again!  

Sandra: (Spins wheel) Hmm. So there’s also bacon, and onions, and what looks like chopped peanuts. How about NUTS? 

Pat: Nope! No nuts! 

Sandra: (Spins wheel) There are different textures. One looks like jelly. Oh! I bet one of the words is BOWL!

Pat: Are you sure? That’s a very good guess, wouldn’t you say, Vanna? She’s nodding! But no! It’s not BOWL. Sorry.

Sandra: Well, now I’m stumped, Pat! I’m sure I’ve served this before! I’ll have to buy a clue! 

Pat: The middle word is WITH.

Sandra: Oh. That doesn’t help much. What’s that object in the middle? A kumquat? 

Pat: Why, yes, it’s a kumquat. You sure do know your citrus fruits, Sandra!

Sandra: I’m going to take a wild guess here, Pat. I’m going out on a limb. 

Pat: Any why not? Might as well! 

Sandra: I bet it’s something you need a variety of, like toppings. They look like toppings to me. 

Pat: I think you’re on to something, Sandra!

Sandra: Toppings you’d put on a cracker? That’s a “Hurry up dish!” 

Pat: I see where you’re going with this…. But remember, once you take a guess at the whole name, you have no more chances. Are you sure you want to go for it? 

Sandra: Yes! I’m sure! Is it BITS WITH RITZ?

Pat: …I’m afraid not. I like your style. You were soooo close, wasn’t she, Vanna? 

Vanna: She sure was, Pat.

Pat: Let’s reveal the name for this “Hurry Up Main Dish” Vanna! 

Vanna: (turns letters)

 

TUNA WITH RICE

 

Sandra: What?

Pat: And that concludes today’s game. Thanks for playing, Sandra, you’ve been a great sport. Join us tomorrow, folks, for another game of Wheel of Fortune! 

Tuna With Rice

The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

Portraiture

 

 

In the past, the coolest way to name-check yourself was to subtly paint your reflection in a random object in a portrait. Glass, metal, even pearls — all were glossy enough to serve as mirrors for the artist. Van Eyck and Velázquez were both cheeky lads in this regard, peeking out at the viewer from within complex scenes. But were they inventive enough to use a black olive to accomplish this snappy trick? I think not! 

 

Fast-forward to 1971, and the heyday of food styling fashion that demanded garnishes take center stage, as if the food being portrayed required bling to make it sing. The humble olive took a star turn as a jaunty bauble, its green and red and black globular presence crowning many an otherwise plain Jane dish. Here, they do yeoman’s work of providing compositional scaffolding to create a classic triangle out of a gloopy pink arrangement, much like a tiara on a drunken prom queen. The broccoli bouquet lays at her feet, confused as to its status as chaperone. But it is the black olive, the jewel in the crown, that winks back at us with the photographer’s light reflector, fairly screaming “we’re professionals here!” like the back of the artist’s easel. Meanwhile, the subject, having sat for hours, begins to sag under the lights. “Just a few more shots!” the photographer cries, but the olives stick their tongues out in protest, and the biscuits emit a whispered sigh.

 

Crusty Salmon Shortcakes

The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

‘Murica

Because nothing screams patriotism like hatchets embedded in cupcakes to recall the evisceration of the landscape and genocide of the Natives who lived in it by white people.

Oh, wait — this is supposed to be Washington’s cherry tree. My bad.

Children’s Parties Card #24 Patriotic Birthday Party, Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

The Ides of Salad

Ista quidem vis est

Post-war Europe, licking its wounds, decided that the best way to scour the past was to design the future to look completely different; less socially divisive, more socialist. To replace the ruined grand palaces that represented the classist states, architects embraced Brutalism, a no-frills, utilitarian approach that foregrounded structure and raw materials over classic proportions and beauty. This was a style that purported to celebrate the common man, unadorned by the baggage of history, a tough, and no-nonsense kind of person who saw buildings for what they were: simply structures in which to conduct the necessary business of life. After all, look where tradition and beauty had gotten them: homicidally complacent about the sanctity of life. 

 

Thus was Europe re-born in the image of a concrete God — hulking, angular, and utterly dispossessed of mirth. Public institutions in particular became expressions of civic self-hatred, soulless arenas in which cold-war politics were practiced with the dedication of termites, whose grandiose houses were grotesque cannibalizations of those they replaced. 

 

The word brutal comes to us from the brute, the animal valued only for its obedient power, and which came to mean savage, cruel, and unfeeling — just like the architecture whose name it employs. To be brutal is to be a bully who slays you without conscience, just because he can. 

 

Which brings us to this 1971 Brutalist version of the Caesar salad: a glass bowl filled solely with the undressed top half of a lettuce, into which two salad tongs have been plunged, as if to bring the point home — who needs taste, when literal tastelessness will do. Why, this is violence indeed.

Salads For Every Occasion Card #13 Caesar Salad, Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

See also: Making A Boob of Yourself

Pizza Potatoes — For When You Simply Don’t Give A F*ck

The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library series from 1971 is a plastic time capsule of grotesque food photography.

Their food stylists and photographers never met a dish they didn’t shoot on a table set with a dizzying array of additional food accompaniments or props. A heavy emphasis was placed on hardware: the serving dishes, drinking vessels and various pouring devices which crowded their place settings. The food was never enough to speak for itself, always requiring the elaborate costume such clutter provides to suggest an appeal.

The dishes are always shot from an angle which places the card reader at the table — from a diner’s eye-level. The scenes are brightly, but artificially lit and appear to feature real food with a minimum of styling, which on occasion is sorely missed, such as when an element melts, creating an unappetizing look.

Although each and every card is a brightly colored catastrophe, one recipe distinguishes itself as a close-up which should not have been. In Pizza Potatoes, all we see is a gooey mess in a white bowl, with a curve of red tablecloth beyond it, chosen, clearly, to accent the pepperoni swamped by cheese. The interior of the dish is crusted at the edges and gives the impression of a difficult clean-up.

This is not a dish which lends itself to beauty or detail. With our faces just inches from the rim of the bowl, it feels as if we’re leaning in for a sniff. A swampy morass of melted cheese looks like a greasy heart attack, and there’s no hint of a salad to provide any relief. This is a recipe for pizza toppings on top of potato, after all — all of which come from packages supplied by General Mills.

Budget Casseroles Card #25 Pizza Potatoes, Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

Making A Boob Of Yourself

Margot’s new tits were the only topic of conversation. She’d used part of her divorce settlement to get herself a pair of double-Ds. You couldn’t miss them and that was the point. Wow, you thought, when they entered a room. Just, wow. That’s just the swelling, Margot said.

But they pretty much remained the same size, even six weeks later, when she threw her Boob-Job Pot-Luck. It was part celebration, part a chance for her to show off, and part an advertisement for her plastic surgeon, who promised to be there to answer any questions us ladies might have about joining the Double-D club. I don’t think any of us had any intention of fixing our tits, but who could resist? Her surgeon was rumored to be a real stud.

Most people brought variations on the boob theme: half grapefruits with a maraschino cherry in the center; rounds of bologna with a perky olive each. Someone brought to watermelons. Val brought pears and went around asking people if they got the joke. But Pat’s contribution stole the show: cylindrical blobs of cheese, fruit, sour cream and marshmallow which had been frozen into shape and served on a bed of lettuce with a single raspberry on the top.

When the party started, they sat there on the table hard as rock, which would have posed a problem for anyone brave enough to try to eat one, but once we were in full swing, they’d begin to soften. It was a very warm day. By the time we left, there they sat, each raspberry sitting amid a lumpy puddle of what looked like puke. Not even Pat ate one.

The plastic surgeon was a stud, by the way. Margot ended up marrying him. They divorced when he got caught having an affair with another patient. I’m not sure what Margot looks like today. Neither does Margot.

Salads For Every Occasion Card #5 Frozen Salads, Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

See also: The Ides of Salad

An International Incident

In order to make the World Cake for this children’s party, you’re going to need to start well ahead of time and have all your wits about you to avoid World War III.

First, you need to buy two round baking dishes. Sorry: first you need to source two round baking dishes and then figure out how to buy them. Good luck with that.

Next, you have to arrange the initiations. This involves creating  circular invites with plenty of precise instructions. You must “ask each child to dress in the costume of a special country or be ready to tell about one.” Realizing immediately that this proposition is likely to result in the faux pas of two or more children arriving dressed or prepared to tell about the same country, the good folks at Betty Crocker then advise: “it is a good idea to assign countries to the children to avoid duplication.” At this point you must get down on your knees and thank your lucky stars that Betty Crocker does not have a say in International Relations. They don’t even use the phrase “good idea” ironically.

At this point, before you’ve written out those invites, you must sit down and think about which child will represent which country. How ethnographically or politically correct are you going to be? And if you assign the ancestral home of one child, but an utterly alien one to another, what message will that send? What if some kid doesn’t want to be Zimbabwe? And if you avoid this problem by assigning each child random countries, how are they going to know what to wear?

This is when you break open that bottle of Scotch, because you’ve belatedly realized that costumes can’t be assigned to countries, as if countries were singular culturally heterogeneous and sported a “costume.” Come to think of it, how will the whole “tell about it” option go down? Will those party-goers dressed normally be forced to recite facts and figures about their assigned country before they’re allowed in? What if they haven’t done their homework? Pour yourself another glass: you’ve just realized you assigned homework as a condition of attending your kid’s party. You have utterly failed at parenting.

However, you’ve bought the two round baking dishes and cut out 12 globe-shaped invites, so you’re committed. There’s no way out. You consider the games suggestion: “hold a mini-Olympics” and remembered that one of the guests has a broken leg and another has asthma. The “shoe-kicking contest” they also suggest is out then, whatever that entailed.

You decide, three drinks in, to forego the whole United Nations parade, and just focus on the cake, and send out the invites and go to bed.

On the day of the party, you make the cake (not that hard, as it turns out), but discover, to your horror, that you have no idea how to draw an outline of the continents in chocolate icing piped from an envelope onto a spherical cake. You have a hard enough time doing this with a pencil on paper. There is no room for error. Can you pipe and consult a map at the same time? Can you stop the icing from oozing out of the envelope while you do so?

You decide to make the best of a bad situation by disguising the truth of your incompetence by decorating the entire cake in squiggles instead.

You console yourself with the thought that no-one will care.

Children’s Parties Card #6 Far Away Places, Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

See Also: A SNAFU In The Jungle, Raggedy Ann Revisited, Horrorscope