Betty Crocker's New Picture Cook Book

Sometime last year, my mother came for a visit and brought me her Betty Crocker New Picture Cook Book. This was the cookbook that we used growing up. We, refers to the female members of our household which was me and my mother. I don’t ever remember my father or my brothers picking up Betty Crocker. They could have cared less about that cookbook. Of course they cared greatly about the benefits of our use of it. My mother is a very good cook so it primarily functioned as a reference book in the same way a writer would use a dictionary or thesaurus. She was more than a proficient cook but from time to time had to look something up or was in search of a new recipe, especially side dishes. Karen…hand me that Betty Crocker. I used it a lot when baking cookies except for chocolate chip and oatmeal since recipes were always on the packaging.

Mom's Betty Crocker New Picture Cook Book was published in 1961. It is the third printing of the first edition. I’m not sure exactly what that means since the first Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook came out in 1950. The cook book poignantly captures a generation seemingly from a long time ago. People presented themselves more formally back then as aprons were worn in the kitchen by women in skirts and tables were set for dinner. Betty was actually a popular name.

On the first page the Betty Crocker New Picture Cook Book there is an announcement about a new kind of flour called “Instantized Flour”. It then goes on to tell how to use instantized flour and the advantages of its use. You gotta love these four advantages:
1. It pours like salt; it’s easy to measure.
2. It feels clean. It’s dust free.
3. It disperses instantly in liquids to smooth the way for lump-proof mixing.
4. It does not pack down, so measurements are always uniform
The cookbook has been held together for several years by an irregular-sized blue rubber band. When my mother brought it to me she thought I might have some ideas about putting it back together again. Maybe I could have it re bound or take each page and put it in a plastic cover and then into a notebook. I did none of those things. I have shown it to a few friends and periodically look through it. I really have no intention of disturbing it in any way or doing anything to try to preserve it. It mostly sits on the top of my counter in view. I like it there.