American Advertising Cookbooks

American Advertising Cookbooks, How Corporations Taught Us To Love Spam, Bananas, and Jell&ndashO explores the world of Twentieth Century food culture combining historical cookbook images and intelligent research into an entertaining and accessible history of American food.

American Advertising Cookbooks: How Corporations Taught Us to Love Spam, Bananas, and Jell-O is a deeply researched and entertaining survey of twentieth century American food. Connecting cultural, social, and geopolitical aspects, author Christina Ward (Preservation: The Art & Science of Canning , Fermentation, and Dehydration, Process 2017) uses her expertise to tell the fascinating and often infuriating story of American culinary culture.

Readers will learn of the role bananas played in the Iran-Contra scandal, how Sigmund Freud's nephew decided Carmen Miranda would wear fruit on her head, and how Puritans built an empire on pineapples. American food history is rife with crackpots, do-gooders, con men, and scientists all trying to build a better America-while some were getting rich in the process.

Loaded with full-color images, Ward pulls recipes and images from her vast collection of cookbooks and a wide swath of historical advertisements to show the influence of corporations on our food trends. Though easy to mock, once you learn the true history, you will never look at Jell-O the same way again!

American Advertising Cookbooks, How Corporations Taught Us To Love Bananas, Spam, and Jell&ndashO features full-color images and essays uncovering the origins of popular foods. Makes a great gift for everyone interested in food history, graphic design, advertising, and American history.

“"Lavishly illustrated with images and recipes from Ward's own collection of cooking ephemera, American Advertising Cookbooks is, at varying points, both mouth-watering (Dr. Pepper chicken!) and stomach-churning (ham bananas in cheese sauce), but never less than deliciously mind-blowing. Beyond just the food itself, though, Ward profiles the chefs, scientists, ad men, and madmen who permanently whet U.S. appetites. She also exposes the untold role that pineapples played at the onset of the American colonies being settled, how bananas sparked armed conflict throughout the 20th Century, and the intense psychology that goes into dressing up ad mascots. " Mike McPadden- Merry Jane Magazine”

"Able to connect to history, culture, anthropology, outsider art, and renegade music, Christina Ward is the Greil Marcus of food." Desiree Pointer Mace, author of Teacher Practice Online: Sharing Wisdom, Opening Doors on Preservation-The Art and Science of Canning, Fermentation and Dehydration
"With its deeply researched advice, some historical background about food preservation and recipes--from garlic jelly and mak kimchi to spicy Guinness Stout mustard and green tomato pie filling-- Preservation is a treasure." Edible Door Magazine on Preservation-The Art and Science of Canning, Fermentation and Dehydration
"The book is flawlessly arranged, with careful summaries of the material and cautionary tales: After all, we are dealing here with matters of potential sickness, life and death. But the reader never feels daunted - preservation is a social process, like all labor, and Ms. Ward gives you the confidence to begin with the clearest possible step-by-step instructions. And it is also a very funny book. Even if you never pickle a single tomato, Preservation not only preserves the mind but spikes it with a healthy dose of vinegar and the sweetness of a nightjar's song." CounterPunch Magazine on Preservation-The Art and Science of Canning, Fermentation and Dehydration

Christina Ward teaches notoriously raucous preservation classes and serves as a volunteer mentor to urban farmers, small-scale food producers, and question answerer for people all over the country trying to save their pickles from disaster. Her work focuses on the history the foods we eat and the stories of the people who make that food taste good. She is a contributing writer to Serious Eats, resident food expert for Fox6 Real Milwaukee (television), and former columnist for Edible Milwaukee. She has also written for Remedy Quarterly, Put An Egg On It!, and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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