baking

Kate Smith Hour CBS

It seems somewhat fitting, as the Memorial Weekend approaches, for my hand to find Kate Smith’s Favorite Recipes, a vintage baking booklet featuring the famous singer & General Foods Corporation’s Swans Down Cake Flour and Calumet Baking Powder — sponsors of Smith’s radio shows.

Why? Because Kate Smith was the one who, on Armistice Day, November 10, 1938, (the twentieth anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I), introduced Americans to Irving Berlin’s God Bless America.

The song quickly became a new, if unofficial, national anthem and if Kate’s introduction of the song, subsequent recording, and continued performances of it on nearly every radio broadcast through December 1940 (during the temporary “ban” of public performances of ASCAP songs) didn’t leave her indelible mark on the song as “hers,” temporary exclusive performance rights to the song sure secured it.

Kate’s rendition of God Bless America also made her a permanent part of hockey history — at least as far as the Philadelphia Flyers are concerned.

Anyway, if Kate doesn’t seem “All American” enough for you, consider the typical qualities of this booklet, copyrighted in 1939. It features the popular singer along with the to-be-expected recipes, baking tips, & true corporate greed — product placements for Swans Down Cake Flour & Calumet Baking Powder in photographs as well as specific recipe ingredients. That’s to be expected, right? But still, there’s something a bit weirder than that…

And I don’t just mean the comedic use of what I call “too many roll-y poll-y Kate heads” to remind the bakers (and now, we collectors) that this booklet was a Kate Smith affair either.

Kate Smith Head

Another Roll-y Poll-y Smith Head

This vintage baking cookbook doesn’t have single pie recipe. That’s weird. At least to me. Until you consider that General Foods Corporation, makers of Swans Down Cake Flour & Calumet Baking Powder, didn’t want folks to think of making pies — and therefore other baking products. Then my Easy Bake oven light goes on.

But still, that’s not as American as things get with this vintage booklet.

Kate was a big catch in this promotional marriage. And I don’t just mean her body size, but her popularity with Americans (millions listened to her radio shows). However, you certainly can’t ignore her physical size either.

“I know I’m fat and I know my hair is straight, but I can sing,” Kate Smith admitted on more than one occasion. That statement was more than acceptance of her non-pinup body-type in a culture which has always placed a premium on looks. Especially with its female pop sensations. Even if radio was the dealio back then. Understandably, Kate didn’t want to be dismissed as the butt of fat jokes — but she didn’t seem to mind making belittling jokes at her own expense once her huge talent was recognized. Even if her big stature was used to milk promotional dollars. …Maybe she just enjoyed the delicious irony of getting paid to hawk what the skinny girls couldn’t?

But you have to wonder how the amply-endowed Smith felt being photographed surrounded by a bevy of baking beauties…

Kate Smith & Baking Beauties

Or how the single Smith felt pandering to “typical female instincts” by posing with her business partner, Ted Collins, with text discussing how to “make men rave” with baked goods…

Kate Smith & Ted Collins In Vintage Baking Booklet

OK, so maybe Kate just had a really good sense of humor. Or a very high tolerance for BS. Maybe she even had both. But you can’t ignore the irony of a woman who would die of diabetes pushing baked goods.

And that, to me, seems to be about as American as it gets. Even Especially in 2009.

One of my fondest childhood memories is of baking cookies. Every holiday season, my sister and I, along with our cousin Lisa, would spend an afternoon baking cookies with Grandma. Being doted on by Grandma was swell enough, but add to it the smell of vanilla, giggling with girls, and warm cookies, and magic is made. These memories led to my collection of kitchen and baking items.

One of the first things I hunted for was a set of brown bowls like grandma had. It wasn’t until I found my set of Mar-Crest Oven Proof Stoneware bowls and brought them home that I considered my first apartment complete.

Next, I was on to vintage cookie cutters. I had to have the tin ones like mom and grandma had. In the process, I gained other cookie cutters. Red plastic Tom & Jerry cookie cutters which were ‘before my time’, copper colored cookie cutters in shapes I’d never seen, some with wooden handles… Some were found at garage sales in baggies with the tin ones I wanted, others taken home just because they were cute. Hey, cookie cutters are practical.

Just like those old rolling pins I had to get.

And the second set of Mar-Crest bowls. (Which came with a Mar-Crest baked bean pot that I have no idea how to use even if I were interested in making beans, which I am not.)

It’s easy to justify buying back my childhood memories, but I must admit somewhere along the line I have stumbled into buying nearly anyone’s childhood baking memories.

For example, we never used a mix master to make our cookie dough. We did all the mixing and creaming by hand (in those lovely brown bowls). But some how I have a dozen vintage mixers.

(I only keep a dozen mixers a time. When I reach more than 13 – a baker’s dozen – I have to sell some off, because what good are they in boxes in the basement? Well, OK, 10 in the basement is fine. But 12? That’s insane… Right?)

But I can’t walk past them at a yard sale & ignore them. I smell the yummy vanilla, hear the sound of giggling girls, and see those girls licking frosting off their spatulas and fingers… And I must take that mixer home and let it live again.

If the end of every summer means the end of garage and yard sales, I mourn-not. For the fall means the beginning of the holiday or baking season.

I don’t bake so much for the sweets, but for the sweet memories I make with my own girls. We use the bowls, cookie cutters, rolling pins and other items which others have used, infusing them with our own giggles and memories. Every year we make the same cookies (from Grandma’s Betty Crocker New Picture Cook Book #13814), so I may not be teaching them very much about baking. But they are learning the love of tradition.

And when my step-daughter says, “I really like these brown bowls” I am awfully glad I got that second set.

Now I just need to get each girl to love mixers — a lot.