by Susan Marks
Guests clamored for samples from the popular Tasting Bar, where home economists set out their day’s work. From there it was on to the formal dining room, three times bigger than in Betty’s previous kitchen, but consistent with its early American design. With its paneling salvaged from a New England house of the 1750s, rustic open-hearth fireplace, antique chairs, dough box, and old pewter utensils, the room was a “surprising contrast to the up-to-the-minute kitchens.”
Tours of Betty’s Kitchens were free of charge, but high demand meant appointments were required. Between the years of 1948 and 1953, at least 26,519 visitors signed the guest book, which is likely not a full accounting. But the volumes of visitors did not alter the Kitchens’ focus—testing recipes. By 1949, it was estimated that more than a billion copies of Betty Crocker’s tested recipes were distributed yearly. The continuous high demand for recipes and new General Mills products kept Betty’s staff increasing and the Kitchens active beyond capacity.
Home of Betty Crocker
In 1958, the Betty Crocker Kitchens relocated to the sprawling grounds of General Mills’ new headquarters in the Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley. Betty welcomed a new round of guests: “Come into our kitchen and see how we test and develop recipes, work on new products and perfect quicker, easier methods to help you in your homemaking.” The new Kitchens—Homemaker Kitchen (a Terrace Kitchen look-alike), Kamera Kitchen, Quality Kitchen, and Experimental Kitchens—were similar in structure and design to their culinary predecessors. The formal dining room once again entertained visitors while recipe testing and food preparation continued in the surrounding kitchens.
Of the sixty workers at the Betty Crocker Kitchens, more than half were home economists. The rest performed administrative duties, conducted tours, and kept up with consumer correspondence. As the 1950s drew to a close, Betty wasn’t as popular around the post office as she had been in previous years. Where at her peak she had received 4,000 to 5,000 letters a day, she now got about 10,000 a month. That total remained impressive by any standard, but especially considering that Betty’s radio and television programming had ended years before.
The American Home Economics Association made a pilgrimage to Betty’s Kitchens circa 1965.
Betty in Red
“Food is perhaps America’s biggest weapon in the Cold War,” pronounced Life magazine in January 1955. In 1959, Betty and her Kitchens ventured behind the Iron Curtain to put that theory to the test. As leaders in America’s $73 billion food industry, General Mills and General Foods were invited by the U.S. government to participate in a U.S. Trade and Cultural Fair in Moscow. More than seven tons of food, including cake mixes, frozen fruits, juices, and vegetables were shipped for use during the six-week demonstration of sped-up meal preparation, American style—“quick ’n’ easy,” “heat and serve.”
From eleven in the morning until nine at night, both companies staged continuous presentations in their joint exhibition space in Sokolniki Park. The Model Kitchen fascinated and entertained a steady stream of Russian visitors, many of whom watched a cake-baking demonstration from start to finish, which could be as long as two hours, including cool-down time. Interpreters kept busy answering questions directed at home economists about pastel-tinted macaroons, colored icing, birthday candles, and paper baking cups for muffins. The Russian government did not allow any sampling of the food, but occasionally a brownie or two would disappear when no one was looking.
Some fairgoers were so impressed with the demonstrations that they showered the home economists with flowers. Premier Nikita Khrushchev, on the other hand, disapproved wholeheartedly. The Model Kitchen was the setting for the infamous “Kitchen Debate” between him and Vice President Richard Nixon. The politicians exchanged angry words over the gleaming kitchen appliances, which Nixon touted as a “showcase for democracy,” explaining, “We have many different manufacturers and many different kinds of washing machines so that the housewives have a choice.” Khrushchev countered, with the full chill of the Cold War, “Many of the things you have shown us are interesting but are not needed in life.”
Follow the Red Spoons
Back on American soil, Betty’s kitchens once again outgrew their space. In August 1966, General Mills launched their grand reopening in a new wing of the headquarters. Open to the public—who were directed to “Follow the Red Spoons” toward the newly renamed Betty Crocker Kitchens of the World—the elaborate, two-week celebration included a commemorative filmstrip, refreshments, and guided tours of seven separate kitchens representing seven regions famous for their cuisine. The California Kitchen, in shades of vermilion, pale lavender, and sky blue, celebrated western outdoor living with its hooded barbecue grill, garden tools, and hanging plants festooned over a white brick-patterned floor and latticework. The window in the Mediterranean Kitchen “looked out” on a mural of Italy’s famous Amalfi Drive. Mediterranean had a faux wine cellar, and sea-green ceramic tile complemented the bright blue floors.
Housing the Betty Crocker antique collection, the New England Kitchen continued the tradition of kitchens past with chestnut cabinetry, a beamed ceiling, oak plank floor, and a fireplace oven. The Latin American “Kitchen of the Sun” was awash in yellow, vibrant pink, oranges, and foliage greens. A sunny motif and Spanish mission arches completed the theme. By contrast, the simple Scandinavian Kitchen drew its effect from natural wood beams and lobster-colored countertops. The cabinets were painted in a shrimp-bisque hue identical to the hand-stenciled border designs representing Scandinavian crafts, decorative eggs, bread, straw brooms, and pottery.
The New Orleans Kitchen evoked the French Quarter with ornate black patio lanterns and a black grillwork gate opening to a painted garden scene. Cabinets were in hyacinth blue, the wallcovering chintz. The Oriental Kitchen’s colors were inspired by the cobalt blue and white of Asian porcelains. The vinyl floor resembled a stone path and the orange Japanese apothecary chest allegedly dated back to the 1840s. Bamboo ceiling, teakwood furnishings, and a “view” of a cherry tree in full bloom added a “touch of Oriental beauty.” While a Camera-Ready Kitchen had been installed in another part of the building, an eighth Kitchen, unthemed, was used for food demonstrations for General Mills’ marketing executives and advertising agencies. All eight kitchens had the same floor plan; they boasted gas and electric ranges and several microwave ovens. Refrigerators and freezers were concealed behind decorative panels.
In 1977, the Betty Crocker Kitchens of the World gave way to the Betty Crocker American Family Kitchens, including new American themes: Chinatown Kitchen, Williamsburg Kitchen, Pennsylvania Dutch Kitchen, Hawaiian Kitchen, Arizona Desert Kitchen, and Cape Cod Kitchen. Over the next several years the Kitchens occasionally changed names and underwent renovations, keeping pace with America’s changing eating habits. But on January 15, 1985, the unthinkable happened. The Betty Crocker Kitchens closed their doors to the public, seemingly forever. The decision reflected the increasing difficulty of preserving the confidentiality of General Mills’ product research while providing high-quality tours. In the period just before the closing, as many as five kitchens would have to be closed off during any given tour to protect product development secrets, leaving visitors with a not-so-behind-the-scenes perspective.
One of Betty Crocker’s several American-themed kitchens in 1977.
The press took the Kitchens closing hard. One local journalist wrote of a chill wind blowing from General Mills with the news of the closing. “We don’t harbor such cozy images of any other food company’s kitchens, probably because only in Betty Crocker did we find a corporate symbol who was also a friend. I don’t identify with the Pillsbury Doughboy, nor would I think of writing him for a recipe. But Betty Crocker is mother, teacher, big sister and grandmother rolled into one—a member of the family—and somehow I always expected her door to be open.” As about eighteen “Crockettes” hung up their docent smocks, the Kitchens turned entirely toward recipe and product testing.
Yet echoes o
f the Kitchens lingered. Sylvia Paine, who had never been inside, was in mourning for the loss. “Reports from the few people I know who visited the seven kitchens leave me yearning. They speak of the Hawaiian room, the Southwestern room, of multiple microwave ovens and of clever magnetic strips to hold recipes at eye level. They recall glamorous women measuring everything with precision, cooking colorful, imaginative meals from scratch.”
Even though Betty’s home remained off limits to the public, honored guests were occasionally invited to the inner sanctum. One such guest, Ms. Eddie Murphy of Buena Park, California, experienced a baking dream of a lifetime in 1996. As one of seventy-five finalists in the “Spirit of Betty Crocker” contest, Murphy was invited on an insiders’ tour of Betty’s Kitchens. “Everything is color coordinated,” Murphy said, recalling the kitchens. “It smelled heavenly—chocolate, baked goods.”
Kitchens Redux
In the fall of 2003, the Betty Crocker Kitchens welcomed visitors once again. The 2001 merger of General Mills and Pillsbury had necessitated a completely new kitchen facility to reflect the melding of the Betty Crocker Kitchens and Pillsbury Test Kitchens staff. And after two years of development, planning, and construction, and the spending of millions of dollars, General Mills couldn’t help but show off Betty’s new home, America’s most technologically and conceptually advanced kitchen showcase. Several times a year, the Kitchens host an open house, complete with tours and a cooking lesson from Betty’s expert staff.
Betty’s newest Kitchens occupy a grand total of 13,595 square feet at General Mills’ headquarters. In a wing of their very own, twenty home economists and eight technicians test 50,000 recipes a year. Built to withstand eight hours of baking and cooking daily, Betty Crocker Kitchens are truly extraordinary, with 19 fully equipped kitchens, 18 tons of polished Kashmir White granite countertops, over 1,500 linear feet of custom-built cabinets in a West African makore-wood veneer, 18 refrigerators, 15 freezers, 50 ovens, 6 speed-cook ovens, 22 microwaves, 31 cook-tops (250 total burners!), and 19 dishwashers (14 conventional and 5 flash models).
Five of the largest kitchens occupy a two-story atrium and look out on the company’s vast courtyard. These kitchens are devoted to recipe development for Pillsbury and Betty Crocker cookbooks and supermarket magazines. A dozen adjacent kitchens are used for product testing and development, with one dedicated to Pillsbury Bake-Off recipes. One kitchen designed for media broadcasts features nonreflective countertops and cabinetry. Betty’s dining room comes equipped with a demonstration kitchen and a gallery of her portraits through the years. The Kitchens also include America’s largest corporate cookbook library. Home economists conduct recipe and food trend research using the 9,000 titles, which occupy 1,260 feet of high-density, easy-access rolling bookshelves.
Betty Crocker’s newly remodeled kitchens in 2003.
Geographic themes, polka dots, tie-back curtains, fake scenery, and antiques have given way to a muted but sophisticated decorating style. The colorful exception is a dignified glass mosaic wall, where a blue panel to represent Pillsbury matches a red representing Betty Crocker. Otherwise, form follows function, with wireless PC portals and discreet pop-up ventilation systems. With wide aisles and open design that foster collaboration, clutterless workspaces, and shock-absorbent flooring in Marmoleum, the entire facility is ergonomically designed to accommodate every need of the Betty Crocker Kitchens staff. But even as the immaculate appliances glimmer and glint, they can’t stop the passage of time. Unlike Betty herself, her home will be only about ten years old when it begins to show the sorrowful signs of age.
Chapter Seven Strangely Familiar
Chocolate Joy Cake
( … like creamy fudge … so smooth and velvety … )
3 sq. chocolate (3 oz.)
3 tsp. baking powder
½ cup hot water
¼ tsp. soda
½ cup shortening
½ tsp. salt
1⅔ cups sugar
1 cup sour milk or
3 eggs
buttermilk
2 cups GOLD MEDAL “Kitchen-tested” Flour
METHOD—Mix shaved chocolate with hot water and cook to thick paste, stirring constantly … about 3 to 5 minutes. Set aside to cool. Cream shortening, add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Beat eggs well and blend into the creamed mixture. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and blend well. Sift flour once before measuring. Sift flour, baking powder, soda and salt together and add to the creamed mixture alternately with the sour milk. Pour into well greased and floured layer pans. Bake. When cake is cool, spread Chocolate Icing between the layers and over top and sides of cake. Time—Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Temperature—350° F, moderate oven. Size of Pans—Two 9-inch round layer pans.
CHOCOLATE ICING
6 tbsp. shortening
1 egg yolk
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
4 tbsp. cocoa
3 to 4 tbsp. hot water
METHOD—Cream shortening and blend in the egg yolk. Sift sugar and cocoa together and add alternately with the hot water. Beat until smooth.
From New Editions of Old Favorites Men Like, by Betty Crocker, 1938
Betty Crocker made a name for herself long before she got a face. In Betty’s days as a radio star, hearing was believing—believing that Betty was a person genuinely helpful with cooking and other domestic matters. Her modern sensibilities were the perfect complement to her old-fashioned manners. She was even a bit glamorous, keeping company as she did with Hollywood movie stars. At the same time, Betty was a bit of mystery, because no one could be sure what she looked like.
Bettys We Hardly Knew
Three faces of Betty emerged during her first decade, in the service of radio and product promotions. With slight variations, her youthful visage—its oval shape recalling a Victorian cameo silhouette; her short marcelled hair a nod to the modern professionalism of the home economics movement—smiled from magazine ads and recipe booklets for Gold Medal Flour, Softas Silk Cake Flour, and Bisquick. A 1930 painting on brick showed Betty speaking into her mike: “Baking secrets by radio.”
Yet even as the Betty Crocker persona boosted sales of General Mills products, an enigma factor remained. Consumers, many of whom knew Betty best from her voice over the radio, hoped for a greater intimacy with the homemakers’ heroine. More and more of the thousands of daily letters to Betty Crocker included requests for her photograph. The Home Service staff found themselves “creatively” sidestepping the issue with the explanation that Betty Crocker didn’t like having her photograph taken. By the mid-1930s, the stage was set to finally put an official face with the household name.
Ageless Thirty-two
To commemorate the momentous occasion of Betty’s fifteenth anniversary in 1936, General Mills commissioned a portrait from the New York commercial artist Neysa McMein, best known for her work with McCall’s. From 1923 through 1937, McMein contributed monthly covers for the magazine and wrote opinion pieces as well. In 1926, “two of the nation’s most prominent mothers”—McMein and the famous dancer Irene Castle (who set the bobbed-hair trend in America)—staged a debate in McCall’s pages. The question: “Ought mothers give up careers for ba-bies?” Neysa McMein, whose married name was Baragwanath, answered a definitive no. “I am too much addicted both to motherhood and to paid work to stand by and see either of them cheated,” McMein, one of the nation’s “most prominent moth-ers,” passionately decreed. “I will wait right here while you name me six reasons a woman can’t divide her life fairly between them.”
While Betty Crocker, in her own fashion, would go on to echo McMein’s support for women’s work outside the home, there the association ended. McMein was an urban sophisticate who didn’t know how to cook, hosted a nightly salon in her studio across from Carnegie Hall, and kept a whiskey still in her bathroom. Yet, with her midwestern roots, she was attracted to the challenge of interpreting the homemaking expert from America’s heartland, already idealized by millions for
qualities they had never actually seen.
One of several early, unofficial Betty Crocker portraits.
However, capturing the essence of Betty proved a formidable endeavor, even for the likes of McMein. Her first attempt was met with a lukewarm reception from General Mills executives. According to Betty lore, McMein’s revisions took an unusual tack: she made a composite of several physical features of the Gold Medal Home Service staff. This portrait was enthusiastically approved, then unveiled with great ceremony in November of 1936. McMein’s Betty debuted on a national scale in a magazine ad offering an anniversary gift—free copies of “Betty Crocker’s 15 Prize Recipes.” Approximately 5 million customers took the company up on its offer, receiving not only the booklet but a coupon “good for one colored reproduction of Betty Crocker’s new painting by Neysa McMein, famous magazine cover artist.”
An unofficial Betty Crocker portrait (1925), used in her radio show advertisements.
In McMein’s rendition, Betty Crocker’s head and shoulders emerge from a cloudy canvas background in a style that recalls colonial portraiture. Her face is regal, with tight bow lips and haunting slate-blue eyes; her short dark hair is streaked with gray. According to the General Mills historian James Gray, McMein gave Betty “a fine Nordic brow and shape of skull, a jaw of slightly Slavic resolution and features that might be claimed contentedly by various European groups—eyes, Irish; nose, classic Roman—the perfect composite of the twentieth-century American woman.”