American Advertising Cookbooks

"Bananas in Ham with Cheese Sauce? Meat Salad made of ground bologna and gelatin? Spend any time on the internet, and yo... (more)

"Bananas in Ham with Cheese Sauce? Meat Salad made of ground bologna and gelatin? Spend any time on the internet, and you're bound to come across gross recipes from the past. How did anyone with a single taste bud in their mouth come up with this stuff? American Advertising Cookbooks: How Corporations Taught Us to Love SPAM, Bananas, and Jell-O is a deeply researched and entertaining survey of American food history, connecting cultural, social, and geopolitical events. Author Christina Ward (Preservation: The Art & Science of Canning, Fermentation, and Dehydration, Process 2017) uses her vast collection of cookbooks to tell the fascinating, often infuriating story of corporate greed and advertising and the manipulation of American cuisine. Academic researchers have published histories of American food and politics, but Ward brings all these elements together to tell the larger story of why we eat what we do. Did you know... That the pilgrims still influence our food today? Bananas are responsible for coups and wars in Central America? Sugar was marketed as a 'diet' food?"-- back cover. (less)