Customer Reviews

Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food

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Betty Crocker may hold the distinction of being the first "virtual" corporate employee in American history. She has been seen and heard by millions on radio and TV. She has corresponded with uncounted thousands of America's 20th centaury housewives. In 1945, she was voted in a survey as the second most admired woman in the US after Eleanor Roosevelt. All pretty heady stuff for someone who doesn't actually exist.

Betty Crocker was the invention of a corporate marketing effort. This is the story of how and why she was created and how, once created, she became one of the most successful marketing campaigns in American corporate history.

One wouldn't think on the face of it that this story would make much of a book. One would be wrong. This is a fascinating story that chronicles not only the Betty Crocker story but also the development of corporate marketing in the US in the 1900's in general. The book also, along the way, provides a lot of insight into the mechanics of a modern food processing conglomerate as well as the ways in which American's were convinced to include a lot of processed foods into their diet by these conglomerates.

It is an interesting, entertaining and somewhat nostalgic story. The times and issues that were the crucible for the creation of Betty are unimaginably bucolic in nature by today's standards. This is not only a book about Betty, but about our parents and grandparents as well.

There are some shortcomings-the author tends to skip over things and becomes a bit too folksy at times, but these are quibbles-this, against all my expectations, proved to be a very enjoyable read. Highly recommended to one and all.

I enjoyed Susan Marks's "Finding Betty Crocker" a great deal, but cannot give it five stars.As a former professional cook, and still a devoted follower of food, a lot of her material is familiar, and other writers, (especially Jean Anderson and Sylvia Lovegren) have explored Betty's background. Marks has no new insights about the shift from scratch cooking to package/mix cooking starting in the 1950s. The real value of this book is in the earliest chapters, when Marks speaks about the pioneering Betty Crocker radio programs, including the "Cooking School of The Air," which ran from 1924 to 1948. Betty was of real help in the Depression of the 1930s, and the Second World War. A fascinating element in the chapter of how Betty has been illustrated through the years is Norman Rockwell's image of Betty. A near miss, in my belief. My favourite Betty is the one from 1965, sometimes called the "Presidential" Betty, for her slight resemblance to Jacquline Kennedy.This book is worth reading, but I firmly believe that four stars are sufficient.

While Susan Marks' liberal use of uppity prose in this book helped keep my mind from my lackluster summer, I don't think "Finding Betty Crocker" performs to its fullest capacity. Marks goes to great lengths showing how Betty Crocker was a staple of '50s kitchen kitsch who served a greater purpose: helping millions of everyday women cope during the Depression and World War II. I walked away from this book with a greater understanding of why my grandmother and great-aunts spoke so fondly of their favorite anonymous homemaker. Marks' prose, however cheery, walks the fine line between nonfiction and public relations: she never mentions the role Betty Crocker and General Mills played in telling millions of U.S. housewives that culinary perfection would equal marital bliss during the mid-20th century or covering up a scientific study that showed white bread to be less healthy than perceived. If Marks had gone deeper with these issues and scrapped a 20-page chapter describing the various Betty Crocker Test Kitchens, I think this book would have been much stronger. That said, however, I could really go for some Devil's Food right now! I guess Susan has done her job.

There's quite a bit of historical information in this book, but for the most part Marks keeps it a fun read. The letters she's chosen to include from Crocker's fans are funny and sometimes touching, and tell much about the power of this corporate icon.

When I got this book,I started reading it right away and it was so interesting that I could'nt put it down. It brought back so many good memories to me. Times I spent with my grandmother in the kitchen and watching her use her Betty Crocker cookbook and making such delicious recipes from it. I highly recommend this special book.

Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food is the true story behind a commercial icon of 1950's homemaking - Betty Crocker. Created in 1921 as a "friend to homemakers" for the Washburn Crosby Company (a forerunner of modern-day General Mills), "Betty Crocker" was in fact the collective women of the Home Service Department who signed Betty's name. Betty Crocker's local radio show on WCCO expanded, as audiences across the nation learned to appreciate her money-saving recipes and wrote her nearly 5,000 fan letters a day. An amazing look at an enduring culinary and marketing history figure, illustrated with vintage black-and-white photographs.

This is a delightful book! Susan Marks has researched it well, and tells the story of the selling of American women with clarity and humor. That our mothers were so shamelessly manipulated is appalling, but many good meals came out of it, and, in all honesty, Betty Crocker inspired many women to branch out and create their own recipes using mixes and prepared foods as a basis. It was a very pleasant read and a marvelous depiction of a period in the evolution of American women.

Over eight decades, Betty Crocker has been one of the most recognizable American advertising icons. Marks' book focuses not just on the image of Betty Crocker, but on her relationship with the American housewife and how she shaped the face of American homemaking. Betty's recipes revolutionized homemaking, and she called for standard pan size and baking temperatures while recommending that only high quality Gold Medal flour be used in baking. Later, Betty's mixes made the homemaker move away from scratch cooking and toward a standard, pre-packaged baking product.

I was fascinated by the Betty Crocker radio program and by the letters from homemakers to Betty. Marks' book is comprehensive, full of excellent illustrations of advertisements, recipes, magazine spreads, letters, and more, and it makes for gripping reading.

A truly eye-opening look at the making of an American icon. I think we tend today to brush off or mock such kitchen staples as Betty Crocker, but it was amazing to read about the impact a fictional character had on the morale and skills of several generations of cooks, bakers, and homemakers, for good or ill. In some ways, she promoted a Stepford wife-like lifestyle for her followers, yet with the introduction of Betty Crocker's one-step and quick-step baking mixes and other time-saving food mixes, she freed women from the stove.

One thing's for certain: We know who to blame for the obesity epidemic we're currently suffering. Dieticians, nutritionists, and psychologists are having to fight against decades of "Love is food" advertising, perpetrated for the most part by Betty Crocker and her ilk. The overwhelming number of pamphlets and cookbooks produced in the name of Betty Crocker, enticing and exhorting wives and mothers to show their love to their families with delicious food has been pervasive for the better part of a century. No wonder, then, that many people turn to food for comfort. After all, Betty Crocker says it's okay, and that's okay for me!

Okay, so I may be exaggerating...slightly. However, reading this book definitely makes one aware of how our culture became food-obsessed, and how the creation of a fictional spokeswoman for a once-small flour company became the heart and soul of America's kitchens.

I suppose there's a book coming out for the male counterpart to Betty Crocker, Mr. Duncan Hines. What, there's no Duncan Hines? Well, then surely we'll get biographies of Mr. Clean or the Tidy Bowl Man next then. As if decades of fooling a guillible mass-consumer market weren't enough, here "she" goes again by getting those to buy into "her" biography hook, line and sinker. What fun. Enjoy this garbage if you are into it. Otherwise, avoid.