HOME & LIVING
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2022
THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD — B3
The more I clean my kitchen, the dirtier it gets
By DANIEL NEMAN
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Scientists will tell you
that matter can neither be
created nor destroyed.
I disagree.
Wednesdays are my
busiest days. On Wednes-
days I cook the food that
has to be done at the last
minute, a photographer
comes over to take the
lovely pictures you see of
the food, and then I typi-
cally write the story that
accompanies the photo-
graphs of the food.
It’s a long day, and that
doesn’t even include the
cleaning. The cleaning is
the worst part.
The cleaning is when
matter spontaneously gen-
erates itself, and science be
damned.
On one recent
Wednesday, I used nearly
every sauté pan that I
own, plus most of the
pots and perhaps a dozen
dishes. I used several cut-
ting boards, a multitude
of knives, waxed paper,
plastic wrap, fresh pro-
duce, and, now that I look
at a photo of the carnage, a
tape measure.
I also, incidentally,
cooked a total of 28 eggs.
That doesn’t really have
much to do with the sub-
ject at hand because I
quickly disposed of the
shells, but I still fi nd it
startling.
The more immediate
point that I want to make
is that between the time
the photographer left and
the time I started to write,
I cleaned for perhaps 15 or
20 minutes. In that time I
entirely fi lled a large dish-
washer with dishes and
silverware.
And when I looked
around the kitchen, it was
every bit as dirty as it
had been before I started
cleaning. Maybe dirtier.
Somehow, I was living
inside a horror fi lm. The
mess is coming from
inside the house!
It was like one of those
zombie fl icks where every-
where you look there are
more and more zombies, or
dishes.
It was like seeing
time-lapse photography
of kudzu moving relent-
lessly across the southern
states and it just. Can’t. Be.
Stopped.
It was like looking
down at my leg and seeing
gangrene’s inexorable,
deadly upward spread. But
with pots and pans.
How is this even pos-
sible? Logically, if you
have a certain number of
dishes and many of them
are in the dishwasher,
there should be fewer on
the counter. And yet I have
the photographic evidence
that proves otherwise.
Scientists will also
tell you that energy also
can neither be created
nor destroyed. Again, I
disagree.
When I began to tackle
the mountains of food and
dish detritus, I had a cer-
tain level of energy. Let’s
call it about 50% of my
usual energy store; all
the cooking and photo-
graphing takes a lot out of
me even though I am not
the one with the camera.
Fifteen or 20 minutes
later, my energy level was
well into the red. That fi rst
bit of cleaning had only
taken a minor amount
of eff ort, yet my energy
dropped by at least 35 or
40 percent.
In that respect, it
reminds me of my phone.
I really need to get a new
battery. And so does my
phone.
Every time a pile of
dishes grows even while
I am washing them, I am
reminded more and more
of why people like to
go out to eat. It isn’t the
cooking that they mind so
much, it is the cleaning.
If my theory of the
Unequal Expenditure of
Energy is correct, then
millions of people who
dine out in restaurants are
fully charged and ready to
tackle any kitchen cleaning
chores that need to be
done.
They are welcome to
stop by my house. Any
Wednesday will do.
At 100, why Bett y Crocker is still a household name
Crocker’s International
Cookbook.” The following
year came the release of
Chinese and Mexican
cookbooks.
Always up on the latest
technology, a number
of Betty Crocker micro-
wave cookbooks were also
released in the decade as
residential use of the appli-
ance skyrocketed.
By BROOKS JOHNSON
Minneapolis Star Tribune
burn-Crosby Co., a prede-
cessor to General Mills,
ran a contest in the Sat-
urday Evening Post pro-
moting Gold Medal Flour
that inadvertently produced
some market research.
In addition to completed
puzzles, letters poured in
asking for baking advice,
and the company concocted
a character to answer them.
“Betty” was chosen for its
friendliness; “Crocker” was
the last name of a retired
company board member.
And in 1924 Betty was
given a voice — and later
a variety of voices — with
a daytime radio program.
“Betty Crocker Cooking
School of the Air” debuted
on WCCO (the station’s call
sign named after its then-
owner, Washburn-Crosby
Co.). The show was picked
up by NBC and would run
for more than two decades.
1930s
By this point Betty
Crocker’s popularity had
inspired a number of other
fi ctional spokeswomen at
rival companies, including
Ann Pillsbury, Kay Kellogg
and General Food’s Frances
Lee Barton. None loomed
as large as Betty. In 1945
Betty Crocker was named
CRAFT NIGHT!
Want to add sweet simple style to
your entryway? Come on down
February 8th @5:30 PM and
customize a 10x48 inch porch sign!
Grab a friend and get your craft on
with Sherree’s Custom Signs!
The short-lived “Betty
Crocker Show” premiered
on CBS in 1950, one of sev-
eral programs to feature
Adelaide Hawley Cumming
as the “First Lady of Food”
over the next 15 years.
Also in 1950, “Betty
Crocker’s Picture Cook
Book” aka the “Betty
Crocker Cookbook” aka
“Big Red” was released.
Millions of copies have
been sold.
“This was the fi rst time
a cookbook had step-by-
step instructions,” Jaramillo
said. “Before then, the way
you learned to cook was
generation to generation.”
1960s
Betty Crocker’s fi rst
product in the grocery
aisles was a pea soup mix
released in 1941, followed
soon by cake mixes. In the
late 1960s, Betty’s name
started gracing the box of
a hot new toy credited with
instilling a love of baking
in a new generation: the
Easy-Bake Oven.
She also received two
portrait makeovers during
this fast-changing decade.
“The changing faces of
Betty Crocker are a barom-
eter of shifting concepts of
domesticity and women’s
role as homemakers in the
twentieth-century United
States,” wrote Adema, the
culinary anthropologist.
1980s
Though largely associ-
ated with baking — and
particularly the classic
layer cake — Betty
Crocker added some global
fl air with the 1980 “Betty
2000s
Betty continued
embracing digital media,
with recipe software and
an electronic cookbook
released in the early aughts.
The use of Betty
Crocker portraits was
eventually phased out as
changing demographics
were refl ected in changing
messaging.
Today
The pandemic caused a
massive spike in at-home
eating and baking, a trend
that is continuing into Bet-
ty’s 101st year.
With the help of social
media infl uencers and
other modern tactics to
reach consumers, Jara-
millo said she is confi dent
new generations of cooks
and bakers will embrace
the brand.
“A lot of people have
either re-discovered the joy
of baking or have gotten
into baking,” she said. “As
long as we continue to pro-
vide inspiration, we should
be able to celebrate 200
years of Betty Crocker.”
Featuring the
EOU Chamber Choir & EOU Music Department
W
G
E
O
V
’
TY
E
R NUMBER
1940s
1950s
tinuing to crave conve-
nience, which was one
of the brand’s key selling
points over the years, Betty
Crocker’s Hamburger
Helper was launched. Tuna
Helper and Chicken Helper
would follow, helping
entrench a new category of
food: the boxed dinner.
“With one pan, one
pound of hamburger
and one package, Ham-
burger Helper revolu-
tionized dinner,” General
Mills wrote in a history
of the brand now known
as Helper.
OU
Betty was offi cially per-
sonifi ed for the fi rst time
beyond a voice and a sig-
nature: A painted portrait
released in 1936 was the
fi rst of eight diff erent faces
for the brand over the next
60 years.
Throughout the Great
Depression and into the
war years, Betty’s advice
to bakers and homemakers
increasingly focused on
stretching limited food sup-
plies. A free booklet proved
“a saving grace for many
Americans, and its sound
advice won national rec-
ognition among nutrition-
ists and social workers,”
Susan Marks-Kerst wrote
for Hennepin History mag-
azine in 1999.
the second-best-known
woman in America after
Eleanor Roosevelt.
“In part she fl ourished
because General Mills,
unlike many of the other
companies with live trade-
marks, recognized the
value of her widely trusted
persona and poured con-
siderable resources into
promoting her,” culi-
nary historian Laura Sha-
piro wrote in a 2005 essay,
“Betty Crocker and the
Woman in the Kitchen.”
Da
&
In 1921, the Wash-
Betty Crocker-TNS
Betty Crocker’s likeness has changed numerous times over the years.
Betty broadened her
reach to the World Wide
Web in 1996 when betty-
crocker.com was fi rst regis-
tered. Early snapshots of the
website from the Internet
Archive show that while the
imagery and functionality
has been upgraded over the
years, the goal of the site
was always to help people
in the kitchen with recipe
ideas and ways to contact
Betty.
The fi nal updated por-
trait of Betty Crocker is
also released in 1996. It
was painted from a com-
puter-generated com-
posite image of 75 women
“of diverse backgrounds
and ages who embody the
characteristics of Betty
Crocker,” the company said.
Betty kept pace with
the times by adding smart-
phone apps and a full suite
of social media accounts
to connect with con-
sumers. Bettycrocker.
com remained one of the
most-visited food websites
in a category crowded with
recipe blogs.
“What Betty Crocker
does diff erently is, every
time we put out food ideas,
we make it foolproof,”
Jaramillo said. “Even if
you make a little mistake,
it will still turn out OK.”
g
Son
1920s
1990s
2010s
Popular
How does a brand
remain a household name
for a century?
Betty Crocker has
a simple recipe: Keep
changing.
In October, the icon
became a centenarian
and has now wrapped up
her 100th holiday baking
season. General Mills, the
company that owns her
likeness, intends to keep
her relevant another cen-
tury by embracing more
diverse cooks and bakers
and fi nding new ways
to reach them in their
kitchens.
“Betty Crocker remains
relevant because she and
her product lines adapt to
shifting political, social and
economic currents,” culi-
nary anthropologist Pau-
line Adema wrote in the
encyclopedia “American
Icons.” “Her tenacity in
the American imagination
— and in our kitchens —
attests to her timelessness
as a merged corporate and
domestic icon.”
In 1921, Betty’s signa-
ture started appearing on
response letters to home
bakers seeking kitchen
advice.
Then she was on radio
shows, cookbooks, cake
mixes and her own website.
In 2021, thou-
sands of Instagram
posts featuring photo-
genic bakes were tagged
#CallMeBettyCrocker.
“Betty has been asso-
ciated with that pride and
accomplishment in the
kitchen,” said Maria Jara-
millo, director of the Meals
& Baking business unit
at General Mills, which
includes Betty Crocker.
“How can we make sure the
next generations have that
knowledge of how to bake,
how to cook, so it’s truly
inclusive for everyone?”
Marketing food to the
largest possible audience,
as Betty Crocker does, is
increasingly diffi cult amid
a “commoditization” of
many popular products,
said Doug Jeske, president
of Meyocks, a branding and
marketing agency.
Increasingly, marketers
are using what’s called
“mentor branding,” Leske
said. It’s a way for the com-
pany to ingratiate itself
with customers by off ering
them more information,
inspiration and even advo-
cate for their interests.
“Of course, Betty
Crocker was a mentor even
before she was a product
brand, so the folks at Gen-
eral Mills have been on to
something for a long time,”
Leske said.
“The community of
bakers and makers is a lot
more diverse right now.
It would be impossible to
represent that with a por-
trait,” Jaramillo said. “So
we now use the iconic red
spoon to be more inclusive
and be more inviting.”
n ce
Show
1970s
With consumers con-
Family Friendly Location
New Menu!
Bar Bites, Wood Stone Pizza
and More!
RSVP to 541-620-1874 by Jan. 31st. We will design your sign
prior to the party! Cost - $30 and a bottle of wine. The bottle
MON-TUES CLOSED
of wine will be donated to Oregon Women in Timber for their
WED-SAT 11-9 • SUN 11-7
annual auction at the Oregon Logging Conference in February
Payment due at booking
1106 Adams Avenue Suite 100 • 541 663-9010 • tapthatgrowlers.com
ONLY 35 SPOTS AVAILABLE
McKenzie Theatre
Fri., Feb. 4 - 7:30 p.m.
Sat., Feb. 5 - 3:00 and 7:30 p.m.
Masks required for all audience members
Adults $8.00 Seniors/Students $7.00
Group tickets are $6 each when you purchase 10 or more. Group tickets must be
purchased in person only.
Tickets available at Red Cross Drug, The EOU Bookstore and online at eou.edu/music
Advanced ticket purchase is highly recommended.
For more information,
contact Peter Wordelman at 541-962-3352
Presented by: