General Electric Gets Artistic in the Kitchen

Today, let's go back to a time when modern technology could fix any problem! The General Electric Kitchen Institute offered up The New Art of Buying, Preserving and Preparing Foods in 1935 as a way to help drum up business for their stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers, mixers, etc.

This was a fancy book for the time, as it has full color pages scattered throughout rather than just one on the cover. Of course, the most prominent pictures are not of the food, but of the awe-inspiring G-E kitchen.

I love the promise that "Kitchen work will become kitchen play in the new guest room of your home... your General Electric Kitchen." I'm sure all the farmers who had to cook up big dinners for their 18 kids plus the farm hands thought of their labor as "kitchen play" once they had electric appliances.

It would definitely be worthwhile to get rid of the old kitchen since doing things the old-fashioned way resulted in "lost youth and beauty, and impaired health."

I thought the passage of time resulted in lost youth, but what do I know? The only selling point I'd have needed would have been the knowledge that I wouldn't have to tend a fire or drippy ice blocks in the ice box.

I prefer the look of the more colorful old-fashioned kitchen to this boring all-white room, but the bland electric appliances will each help "pay for the next through actual savings effected." It's not entirely clear how that will happen, but modern electric is magic!

I love the color pictures of the food too. Of course, there are a lot of chilled recipes to show off the new fridge.

Maybe the family will be excited about eating a wonky heart of cat food and liver spots afloat on a sea of radish roses and shredded iceberg lettuce.

If they can't be persuaded that Molded Chicken Salad is a delicacy, maybe they would prefer a spotted alien bug with a couple dozen legs, its green guts spilling out of a hole chopped in the middle.

Okay, maybe you can talk the kids into this one, as it's the ever-popular 24-Hour Salad, a fine excuse to pretend that eating a mound of marshmallows and whipped cream is good for you.

Step 4 is a bit of a puzzle, as I had no idea what Emrelettes and Rubyettes were. Based on the picture, I assumed they were a brand of maraschino cherries, but Emrelettes are peeled seedless grapes that have been dyed green and flavored with creme de menthe. Rubyettes were peeled grapes with red food coloring and cherry flavor. So that's one mystery solved.

My favorite picture might just be of the Grapefruit and Orange Cocktail.

I just love it because the one on the right looks like it has a color-reversed image of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors growing out of the middle.

If you want an actually horrifying recipe, though, this frozen salad might fit the bill, even though it didn't merit a picture.

Most of it sounds fine-- Cream cheese! Pineapple! Whipped cream! Pecans!-- but any combination of these things that also includes salad dressing, Maraschino cherries, and green peppers is asking for trouble.

And the least appealing photo may be the evidence for why there were so few vegetarians back in the day. I'm not entirely sure what is on this plate, as it's not explained, but here is the delicacy known as Vegetable Plate Individual Service.

Dinner should not be mounds of steamed cauliflower, carrots, and lima beans with a heaping helping of pond slime. Even the cute little tomato hollowed out to accommodate additional carrots, limas, and pond slime does not help. This is just sad.

Thanks for admiring the "new art" of modern electric cookery with me! Now I'll get back to hoping modern technology will help make my world happier and more convenient, even though I know it will probably just result in a new way for bots to inundate us with propaganda and scams....