Do you think they're trying to get a message across?

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

I count the word "digestible" occurring fifteen times in this ad.

Comments

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

Between this and the ads we've seen for another shortening (Spry or something like that?) I'm wondering what the deal was with 'indigestible' food back then.

[hooverdam.livejournal.com]

They had to convince housewives to switch from butter or lard. Vegetable shortening's actually a pretty important product in the history of advertising--it was one of the first products that was marketed based on extensive consumer research. The comic book style ads we're seeing heralding how light and digestible the product is are directly related to the questions housewives had about this new shortening.

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Laura Shapiro, in her book Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, observes that Crisco was regarded as a breakthrough for a number of reasons -- including that with it, the cook could achieve a perfectly white, absolutely flavorless white sauce. Ordinary white sauce, made from two tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of flour, and a cup of milk -- essentially an unflavored Béchamel, as Shapiro points out -- was an essential ingredient in American cooking of a century ago ("There was virtually no cooked food that at one time or another was not hidden, purified, enriched, or ennobled with white sauce"); but it could never be perfect in color, and always had that intrusive quality of flavor. But, "With the Crisco white sauce, scientific cookery arrived at a food substance from which virtually everything had been stripped except a certain number of nutrients and the color white."

[tamburlaine.livejournal.com]

Not even kidding, this is sort of thrilling. I think I'm gonna buy this book.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

Just requested this book from the library - it sounds fascinating. Thanks for the heads-up!

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Highly, highly recommended.

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

But is butter "indigestible" I've never seemed to have a problem with it.