The New Art

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

This is a book that was produced in 1933 and accompanied the purchase of large general electric kitchen appliances. It was both an instructional volume and, of course, one massive ad.



The fridge came with those glass pans you see on the shelves. And the elderly people I got the book from actually had some of the glass pans. They told me that they'd had their entire kitchen done by General Electric in the 1930's and then redone by the same company in the 1970's. So, when I saw it, the kitchen was all Avocado Green. The appliances still work, though.

There's a lot you can do with the fridge.


That's just what I want to do. Cozy up on chairs in front of my fridge and serve canapés. I guess you can, can't you now? There's that fridge that has a TV in its front and the window doors.

I kind of like the colors of the GE oven. Why didn't it match the fridge, which was white?


So here's the oven, which turns out to be remarkably unlike the modern-day oven and somewhat more resembling the old wood-fired range. The clock on the top to the side was not a clock but actually a functioning timer for the oven. And over on the left you might see a lever that controlled the oven's heat...

Using the oven produced this:


I don't think they sell chickens that look like that anymore. I'm not all that clear about that round-eye of beef, either. Maybe the least said is soonest mended regarding the quality of the meat shown in these photographs. I don't think the poultry board of the beef association passed these things, that's for sure.

And then, of course, after all that effortless work you may just want to scald your own head off in the new-age electric dishwasher.

Why, I think Maisy is about to demonstrate right now.

Comments

[fifteensixty.livejournal.com]

God, there were just decades and decades where food looked absolutely hideous and inedible in photographs. I know someone who is a food photographer, and it's just incredible the lengths they go to these days to make food look good in photos.

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it must be a cool job.

[fifteensixty.livejournal.com]

Oh I agree. It's absolutely fascinating, just very exacting. They use a lot of unconventional tricks to make food look good.

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

Heh, tasty-looking and inedible.

[atomic-seamonki.livejournal.com]

My favorite trick is the old instant-mashed-potatoes-as-ice-cream for chocolate syrup ads. If you look on the labels of Hershey's that's exactly what those are. :P

And the double recipe of jello so the squares stay looking neat in the glass, and the single-slice roasting of turkey, etc etc.

Interesting and yes probably very exacting indeed

[my-arienette.livejournal.com]

And Elmers glue for the milk in Cereal!! I remember watching a Dateline fun little news report on it, and I was amazed.
..I was also like 7.

[atomic-seamonki.livejournal.com]

I think that's where I saw it too :>

It's gotta be good coming from the General Electric Kitchen institute.

[albear.livejournal.com]

The roast beef and vegetables with the hard boiled eggs looks so appetizing! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! (Just kidding, No, HELL no!) Comer on, did it really come from the MENTAL institute?

Re: It's gotta be good coming from the General Electric Kitchen institute.

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

That was a chicken turkey that had lived a long and productive life.

[kartusch.livejournal.com]

I love the aesthetics of old stoves like that. I would love a modern one that looks like that. (I am apperently going brain dead and can only type sentences that end in "like that")

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not so sure. They were wide and bacame very hot. That silver thing in the back is the "thrift cooker" and is like a crock pot. Clean-up I am told, was something else.

[kartusch.livejournal.com]

true which is why I would like a modern one that looks like that without all the un-modern quirks of a real one. Though really a built in crock-pot sounds cool in a crazy way.

[rozebud.livejournal.com]

You can actually buy vintage stoves that have been fitted out with mod cons like automatic burner lighting (as opposed to having to light a match every time you want to boil water). Pricey, but available!

[kartusch.livejournal.com]

The last house I lived in the in-counter gas-stovetop had blown a fuse and we had to light a match every time we wanted to boil water. That is not something I miss at all. Oh the joys of owning a house.

Yep.

[rozebud.livejournal.com]

I always worry about blowing myself up when I have to light a gas stove...

Yeah, home ownership is a great thing... we're going to spend loads of money this year, and won't see ANY of it from the inside of the house. New roof, repointing the brick, electrical and plumbing work is all slated to occur soon. And yet, my kitchen and bath STILL need a sledgehammer before they look good...

[evillart.livejournal.com]

I saw that very same model of stove in an antique shop window today in downtown Marietta GA. It's sitting in the window next to an old fashioned washing machine, with the external wringer.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

You don't have to use a match to light a gas stove. Most European stoves don't have pilot lights, which saves a fair amount of energy. You use a handheld sparker (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=7964408) that generates a spark to ignite the gas but contains no fuel of its own. The one in the link is very fancy and uses batteries. The one I have at home is much simpler and works purely on friction. I do think that stove is very pretty, though.

I think some of the drab look of the food photos just comes from the way the images degrade over time. Reds are always the most unstable, and they're the most important color for meats. And that scrawny turkey is more like what birds look like when they aren't pumped full of hormones. I'm thinking that those white spheres around the roast beef are more likely peeled turnips than hard boiled eggs, since the recipe title suggests that everything was roasted together.

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

Nah, that's not due to color; those are some terrible-looking examples of meat. The turkey especially is a sad case that wouldn't be sold in the US today. We expect our turkeys to be nearly spherical.

I had a gas stove and used a sparker to save the gas. Nothing ever could make me trust the damned thing. One too many houses blowing sky-high when I was a kid for me ever not to jump halfway through the roof whenever it lit.