A-Bombs In the Kitchen (Emeril Says, "Bam!")

by Stephen J. Gertz

"I am become Death, the destroyer of appetites" 

(J. Robert Oppenheimer, Krishna in the Kitchen, p. 48).

Wondering what to serve for that special dinner with family and friends? Bored by Martha Stewart? Rachel Ray outré? Jacque Pépin and Julia Child too mild? Don't want to nuke in the microwave but want to dazzle with a meal that's the bomb?

Look no further than How To Make An Atomic Bomb in Your Own Kitchen, 1951's salute to nuclear physics, the Cold War, and Betty Crocker.

"Written in an interesting, lucid style, this is an essential book for the millions who want to know the basics of atomics."

It's an introduction to molecular gastronomy and culinary physics writ large and long before Ferran Adrià began serving foamed neutrinos at El Bulli or Nathan Myhrvold began publishing Modernist Cuisine.

Everything you need to know about building a nuclear bomb in the privacy of the pantry is here. All that's lacking are centrifuges, so tough to find on the open market without clearance from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or a clandestine connection in North Korea.

Here's an apocryphal recipe, contributed by an anonymous insider at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Fission Fish ala Fermi:

Holy mackerel
Sprig of rosemary
Soupçon of enriched uranium
Dash of plutonium
Split pea atoms 
Cloud of mushrooms
Salt to taste

Wearing lead apron and density 4.2 goggles, add ingredients to well-oiled saucepan. Heat to 1,000,000 Kelvins. Duck and cover for thirty minutes until vaporized. Serve shadow of fish on platter with a spray of cilantro, al fresco.

Fusion cuisine at its finest. Enjoy!

Post-priandal fallout will undoubtedly be a dense shower of post-mortem praise, with memories lasting the half-life of your average radioactive isotope.

"Dinner's ready!"

It pains me to admit that How To Make An Atomic Bomb In Your Own Kitchen is light to non-existent on cooking, heavy on education for the 'Fifties justifiably freaked-out set but presented in a peaceful manner because atomic energy is, after all, our fiend friend.
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BALE, Bob. How To Make an Atomic Bomb in Your Own Kitchen (Well, Practically). New York: Frederick Fell Inc,. 1951. First edition. Octavo. 191, [1]  pp. Cloth. Dust jacket.

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Image courtesy of Coconut Rose Rare Books and Autographs, currently offering this volume, with our thanks.
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Bring Me The Head Of St. Lawrence Of Rome, Patron Saint Of Librarians

By Stephen J. Gertz

Martyrs roasting on an open fire,

Larry's last words bravely won:

Though it's been said many times many ways,

"Stick a fork in me, I'm done."

He's a patron saint of librarians because he sacrificed his life to save Church documents. He's the patron saint of cooks because he knew what it was like to be on the wrong end of a basting brush. And he's the patron saint of comedians because he was dying onstage yet still riffed a wisecrack.

The only Church deacon (of seven) to survive the Emperor Valerian's persecution in 258, St. Lawrence was afterward soon arrested for refusing to turn over Church treasures. By legend he was grilled to death and is said to have had the presence of mind to joke to his torturers, "I'm done on this side; turn me over."

There but for a consonant a myth is born. In the early twentieth century historian Rev. Patrick Healy postulated that the tradition was based upon a simple error. The Church formula for announcing the death of a martyr, Passus est ("he suffered," i.e. was martyred) was mangled, the "P" early lost in transcription, and Assus est - "He roasted" -  became the received truth. Not that Healy's hypothesis was accepted. It threw cold water on St. Lawrence; the faithful prefer the fire.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend" (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance).

"His charred body was claimed by the Christians, and his mummified skull is still in the care of the popes. At the Vatican on the tenth of August every year they expose in its golden reliquary the head of Saint Lawrence that still, in the distorted mouth, in the burned bone of the skull, shows the agony he suffered to defend the archives of the popes" (Maria Luisa Ambrosini and Mary Willis, The Secret Archives of the Vatican. New York: 1996, p. 27).

Another apocryphal story, by way of Father Jacques Marquette, is that St. Lawrence inspired the classic Julie London hit tune Cry Me a River before being beheaded (his likely demise).



It is not true, however, that the story of St. Lawrence inspired Peter Greenaway's  1989 cinematic salute to roast human, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
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Image of St. Lawrence courtesy of Infolit, with our thanks.
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Betty Crocker's Ancestors: Vintage Advertising Cookbooks

by Stephen J. Gertz

Magic Cookbook and Housekeepers Guide
Toronto: E. W. Gillett, Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?)
5 1/2 x 3 1/4 in. Wrappers.  62pp.

In 1474 the Italian humanist Bartolomeo Platina (1421-1481) compiled and published in Rome the first printed and dated cookbook, De honesta voluptate et valetudine, Libri de arte coquinaria, haute cuisine, Libro novo (Of Honorable Pleasure and Health), a monument to medieval and Renaissance cuisine. In Latin, it was reprinted in many subsequent editions, and translated into Italian, German, and French (it was a best-seller in Paris). In 1475 Platina was  named Vatican librarian by Pope Sixtus IV.

Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library.
Fresco by Melozzo da Forlì, c. 1477 (Vatican Museums)

Eleven years later, in 1486, Küchenmeisterei (Cooking Mastery), a book sometimes and erroneously attributed to Gutenberg (out of business since the late 1450s, his print shop taken over by his financial partner, Johann Fust, after a lawsuit in 1455), was published by Peter Wagner (f. 1483-1500) in Nuremberg.

These cook books in print - the earliest known - were successfully sent out into the world for sale at a profit. At some point, however, in the early 1900s, a brilliant marketer decided to publish a recipe book to promote the sale of his product. Very soon, just about every manufacturer of foodstuffs adopted the idea and a minor deluge of small, branded cookbooks in softcover flooded the marketplace.

Reliable Recipes
Chicago: Calumet Baking Powder Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?)
5 1/4" x 8 1/2 in. Wrappers. 80pp.
With colour and b/w illustrations.

The books were free. The point was to spread the word about the superiority of the product and the many ways it could be used to transform the average housewife into a kitchen-to-dinner table goddess and thus win the hearts of husband, children, and dinner guests; the books "encouraged women to diligently and happily cook family meals" (Neuhaus, J. Manly Meals and Mom's Home Cooking: Cookbooks and Gender in Modern America, 2003).

Royal Baker and Pastry Cook
New York: Royal Baking Powder Co., (c. 1902).
8 x 5 in. Wrappers. 42pp.

It was a great way to move merchandise off the shelves, a brilliant stroke of huckster advertising that was highly successful in marketing the slew of new convenience foods and old staples by presenting different and useful recipes that incorporated the product.

Yeast Foam Recipes
(Chicago): (Northwestern Yeast Co.), n.d. (ca. 193-?).
 6 x 3 in. Wrappers with single staple at top.
12pp. With illustrations.

The success of these branded cookbooks reflected the Home Economics movement of the late nineteenth century that continued at full steam into the twentieth century, college women studying "domestic science" to improve the nutrition and health of the family.

Salad Secrets
Montreal: Colman-Keen, 1928.
8 1/4 x 5 1/2 in. Wrappers. 22pp.

A Friend in Need
(Montreal): Church & Dwight, (c. 1924).
5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. Wrappers. 28pp.

"Typical upwardly-aspiring Anglo-American middle class families in the 1910s took cues from meals suggested by period cook books. Technology was moving quickly; foods were readily available, in and out of season. World War I imposed unexpected challenges. Here we catch early glimpses of American discomfit reconciling traditional Old World dishes (read: heritage) with newly formed alliances (read: opportunity). Most American print sources proclaim culinary nationalism (aka the 'melting pot') was summarily celebrated and embraced. For the unity of the country. How else to explain Lasagne with American cheese and Chop Suey with American hamburger?" (Food Timeline.org).

Good Things To Eat
Montreal: Church & Dwight, c. 1924.
5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. Wrappers. 32pp.

The Magic Baking Powder Cookbook
Toronto: E. W. Gillett, Co., n.d. (ca. 193-?).
9 x 6 in. Wrappers. 32pp.

There was the belief "that the application of science to domestic problems could save society from the social disintegration they saw at the turn of the century. This program of science education for women had benefits and limitations. On the positive side, women could pursue science degrees in higher education....

Magic Cookbook and Housekeepers Guide
Toronto: E. W. Gillett Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?).
5 3/4 x 3 1/2 in. Wrappers. (64)pp.

Sixty-Five Delicious Recipes Made With Bread
(Philadelphia): The Fleischmann Co. (yeast), (c. 1919).
7 x 5 in. Wrappers. 32pp. With illustrations.

"...On the negative side, the existence of home economics departments enabled schools to direct women interested in science into a sex‐segregated educational track and sex‐segregated occupations, with relatively low prestige and limited resources" (Paul S. Boyer. Home Economics Movement. The Oxford Companion to United States History).

The Art of Baking Bread
Chicago: Northwestern Yeast Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?)..
8 x 5 in. Wrappers. 16pp. With colour illustrations.

Baumert Cheese Recipes
NP: (F. X. Baumert Co.), (ca. 192-?).
6 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. Wrappers. 30pp.
With colour and b/w illustrations.
"Compliments of Chateau Cheese Co. Ltd. Ottawa"

Amaizo Cook Book
New York: American Maize-Products Co., 1926.
6 x 9 in. Wrappers. 38pp.

The Genesee Pure Food Company, makers of Jell-O, was the first to issue promotional cookbooks in a major way. A product of the Victorian Age, Jell-O was introduced by carpenter and cough syrup manufacturer Pearle B. Wait in 1897. It flopped. In 1899 Wait sold the patent to Orator F. Woodward for $450, and Woodward, a marketing whiz, began to heavily advertise the product. Jell-O remained a minor success until 1904 when Genesee blanketed the nation with salesmen to distribute free Jell-O cookbooks, a pioneering marketing tactic at the time. 

The Jell-O Cook Book
Le Roy, NY: Genesee Pure Food Company, n.d. (c. 1910-15)

"In some years as many as fifteen million booklets were distributed. Noted artists such as Rose O'Neill, Maxfield Parrish, Coles Phillips, Norman Rockwell, Linn Ball, and Angus MacDonald made Jell-O a household word with their colored illustrations" (Le Roy, NY Historical Society).

By 1909, gross sales of Jell-O reached over a million dollars. There was no disputing the power of advertising cookbooks to sell product, and more than a few manufacturers adopted the tactic. By 1913, Jell-O sales had doubled. If there was any doubt left about the magic that these branded cookbooks could conjure for the bottom-line it disappeared in a puff of smoke, and just about every company involved in selling foodstuffs published them.

Betty Crocker's  Picture Cookbook
NY: McGraw-Hill/Genreal Mills, 1950.
First edition.

This ultimately led to the most popular branded cookbook ever published, Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, the brainchild of General Mills which created the fictitious character to pitch their flour, introduced her through promotional cookbook pamphlets, then on the new medium of radio in the country's first cooking show, and later, in 1950, published what would become the most popular cookbook of all time, Betty Crocker's magnum opus. By 1991, in its seventh edition, it had sold twenty-six million copies and an incredible number of General Mills products.

These early advertising cookbooks are fun and not terribly expensive to collect for the info, the illustrations, and their history: vintage slices of American domestic life and womanhood.
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With the exception of the Amaizo, Betty Crocker, and Jello cookbooks, all images courtesy of David Mason Books eList 22/
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Dinner is Served: New Book Provides Entrée to Cannibalism

‘I sautéed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce”
Fresh on the, ahem, heels of Julia & Julie, the new movie by Nora Ephron about Julia Child and her worshipful acolyte-blogger, Julie Powell, comes a new book about the cuisine that dare not speak its name. Master this sort of cooking and the only thing you’ll actually be serving is a prison sentence.

Those who enjoy Bernd Steak well done will salivate over An Intellectual History of Cannibalism by political scientist at the University of Bucharest, and Docent, Department of Social and Moral Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Catalin Avramescu, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth (Princeton University Press, 2009).

The above, scrumptious quotation is from a television interview by Armin Meiwes, the notorious German anthropophagus who was tried and convicted of manslaughter for the death of Bernd Brandes, who Meiwes invited to dinner, killed (by consent!), butchered then dressed, ate, and digested. It was a cautionary tale of watching what you eat and portion control, and feeding the hungry heart – sauté’ed and garnished with an insouciant sprig of insanity.

Avramescu focuses his thesis on the theory and thought of cannibalism, their historical reality irrelevant. “Whether cannibals existed or not is a fact of marginal importance,” he writes. For political scientists, historians of ideas and anthropologists, cannibalism offers a smorgasbord of political and social philosophy to chew on. It’s rich food for thought if not consumption; actual cannibalism interferes with intellectual digestion. Those prone to intellectual heartburn may want to keep some Rolaids around for the read.

The London Review of Books has an excellent review of the book, All Eat All by novelist Jenny Diski. It’s quite a meal about a book that’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Coming Soon: Unpublished book by Julia Child, posthumously issued - Cooking Jacques Pépin.
Bon appetite!

(And Bon Livres).

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