1967, General Mills
Editor & Author: Betty Crocker
Project by Gianna Schiavo
The cookbook I chose was “So Quick with New Bisquick”, a Betty Crocker cookbook. The description gives readers the first few clues about what the cookbook aims to achieve. The cookbook promises “foods for family meals”, “parties and outdoor cooking”, and “simple adaptations of foreign recipes”, forming this idea of an “All-American” household using this cookbook. Published in 1967, this cookbook came at a time when women were transitioning out of the home and into the workforce. Women no longer had time to slave over a kitchen stove all day. Women needed “quick”, easy, accessible meals that they could make for their families. Crocker, as the cookbook creator, was reaching women and marketing to the idea of a career woman who still had a family at home. She calls this the “free and easy era of cooking and baking”. Women didn’t want to be chained to the stove all day anymore, and this cookbook utilizes this changing social idea of women in the workforce and gives women an avenue to pursue their careers while, at the time, most importantly, still taking care of their families. This cookbook is full of simple, traditionally American, convenient meals that further emphasize this idea of convenience in women’s lives. Crocker is appealing to readers as a friend simply sharing a recipe, which could be attributed to the sense of community among women that became prevalent during second-wave feminism.
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