And she was one of the first-we could, I guess, call her one of the first cooking teachers in broadcasting.īETTY CROCKER: Many of you have had our Christmas cookie recipes of former years, and we have some fine new ones for you. She actually started on the radio, and like Aunt Sammy was played by many different actresses. Similarly, a figure that’s much more well known was Betty Crocker. And the “she” was not just one person, but several different actors around the country adopting regional accents. GRABER: Well, she wasn’t actually a person.ĬOLLINS: It was a program delivered by an arm of the USDA. GRABER: One of the not remotely glamorous stars was a woman named Aunt Sammy, who we can only imagine was supposed to be the wife of Uncle Sam.
It was all teaching housewives how to economize and optimize and generally do all their chores better. TWILLEY: The stars of these very first food shows were hardly stars in today’s sense. GRABER: Kathleen Collins is a librarian and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and she’s the author of the book Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows.
So that’s where we saw food instruction before TV was even a twinkle in the eye. It was a really easy way for programs to be created, because they were easy and cheap, they were they were obvious outlets for advertising, for sponsorship, for food products and appliances. KATHLEEN COLLINS: Almost as soon as a radio came into being in the 1920s in the US, food radio came into being. GRABER: The first thing to know about the very earliest food TV is that it wasn’t actually on TV, it was on the radio. Even I barely remember those wild and wonderful days. Which sounds medieval, but believe us when we say: TVs used to not have remotes! You had to literally spin a dial. And this episode, we’re taking a spin around the dial. GRABER: That’s right, you’re listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. TWILLEY: And how has it changed us? Us all, not just us Gastropod. GRABER: Um, Freddie Mercury wasn’t alive when televisions were first invented. TWILLEY: What was the very first food TV show-Bake-Off’s long lost ancestor? Would we even recognize it? Were they making Freddie Mercury heads out of cake back then? But this got us wondering: what is it about food TV that is so incredibly captivating? Why do we care about watching other people cook and eat? TWILLEY: Probably the kids are watching it on TikTok too. GRABER: It’s not even just the Food Network-in America, you can watch food TV on PBS, the Travel Channel, Netflix, YouTube… You can, if you want, watch food on the small screen all day long and all night too. But as it turns out, there is more than cake on our TV screens. Geoff thought I was having an emotional breakdown. TWILLEY: I nearly cried when I watched it.
GRABER: Oh my god, I can picture this as you say it-that Freddie Mercury head was amazing. TWILLEY: I’ll be honest, I could actually watch people making cake sculptures of Freddie Mercury’s head all day. All I need is cake.ĬYNTHIA GRABER: It’s such an integral part of Gastropod that we basically created an entire episode that let us hang out and fangirl with Bake Off stars-if you haven’t heard it you should definitely check out The Great Gastropod Pudding-Off. If you know me, you know that Bake Off is my food TV. NICOLA TWILLEY: They may be nervous but I am in nirvana when a new season of Bake Off begins. KATE: I think I was about to give birth the last time I felt this nervous. However, there is a trick to making it perfect. MAN: Here’s a grilling tip from Bobby Flay.īOBBY FLAY: What could be better than lobster on the grill? I just love the rich, creamy flavor. JULIA CHILD: Julia Child presents, the chicken sisters! Miss Broiler, Miss Fryer, Miss Roaster, Miss Caponette, Miss Stewer, and old madam hen. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.
This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode, TV Dinners, first released on February 2, 2021.