Bisquick, Glamourous Bisquick!

Did you know that Bisquick is positively glamorous? I can't say that I've ever considered it that exciting, but soon after its introduction, Betty Crocker's 101 Delicious Bisquick Creations as Made and Served by Well-Known Gracious Hostesses; Famous Chefs; Distinguished Epicures and Smart Luminaries of Movieland (General Mills, 1933) tried to convince everyone that Bisquick was every fancy person's secret weapon in the kitchen.

One thing that endears this book to me is that the editors insist that any biscuits made from Bisquick be referred to as "Bisquicks." You can see that in this picture of Gloria Swanson with her favored refreshment for "intimate parties"...

Cheese Bisquicks! Which are biscuits made using the Bisquick recipe with half a cup of grated cheese added to the dough. That's quite the innovation!

The booklet was also surprisingly laid back in its insistence on using Bisquick. The editors were so interested in getting a recipe from Princess Rostislav... 

that they didn't even require that her recipe (assuming that it was even hers, which is a pretty big assumption!) use actual Bisquick.

As long as the Chicken Livers and Mushrooms recipe calls for Gold Medal "Kitchen-tested" Flour and instructs readers to serve the creations over "hot Bisquicks," it's fine.

You might have picked up on my skepticism that the stars of the cookbook actually have anything to do with the recipes attributed to them, and you would be right. Do any of these people actually do their own cooking? And is it really likely that America's Sweetheart, Mary Pickford...

...really adores strawberry shortcake made with Bisquick shortcakes?

Although I have to admit that the picture looks pretty glorious.

Okay, now what if I told you that Claudette Colbert liked almost the exact same thing...

except that she preferred the peach variation?

Seems a bit suspicious to me, even though the illustrator was clearly doing their best to sell it.

The recipes from the chefs just might have been authentic, though.

In true old-cookbook fashion, Chef Philip Roemer refuses to give home cooks much in the way of directions for his Chicken Pie.

You better know how to cut and stew the chicken and make gravy from the stock because he's not going to tell you. I love that the chicken in the pie only has "some of the larger bones" removed, meaning that the filling under the Bisquick dough is just partially deboned chicken with gravy. That's going to be easy to cut and eat! But at least it looks stylish in the artist's conception of the dish.

Bisquick eventually gave up on trying to sell itself as glamorous, as the newer cookbooks tend to focus more on straightforward recipes than the stars who "submitted" them. That makes this a pretty fun window into 1930s marketing strategies.