The Celebrity Cooks of the First Years of Television
Ofélia Anunciato, Brazilian television from 1958 on
Nora Daza Philippine television from the 1960s
Over the last month, with the help of many, many colleagues, I have been collecting brief biographies, u-tube videos, and books published by the women who achieved celebrity status in early television cooking shows around the world. Take a look at the ever-growing (now more than 25) list of early female cooking show stars, from Israel to Argentina, from Vietnam to Greece, as well as what has as yet been written about them.
Given that I have never watched cooking shows on television, I have been surprised how much I have enjoyed this exercise. I feel it has given me some grip on what women in many different parts of the world were actually cooking in the second half of the twentieth century.
This is a contrast with reading English-language cookbooks, usually authored by expatriates and emigres, that purport to be guides to “ethnic” cuisines. They tend to offer an ossified set of recipes that supposedly constitute some national cooking canon.
Who Were the Early Celebrity Cooks on Television?
Although a few countries experimented with television earlier, it was in the the mid 1950s that television gained significant audiences in the wealthier countries of the world, most other countries following suit by the end of the century.
To fill programing time, I imagine, and to appeal to women viewers, the powers-that-were tried out various women as cooking teachers or demonstrators. Quite a number had a background in home economics, others did not, simply happening to work in the studio in some capacity or to be friends of the programmers.
Very quickly, one woman usually emerged who had the right touch. She had a compelling story to tell about what her viewers could or should cook. She was authoritative without being bossy. She could talk and cook at the same time, while dealing with the inevitable accidents in unrehearsed live shows. Usually a national, in some cases she (Taiwan, Cuba, Greece) she was born outside the country but to parents of national origin.
There were places without cooking shows and their celebrity cooks. In the communist world, early state-controlled television shunned cooking shows (Soviet Union and mainland China), except in the fringes (Estonia and Cuba). In countries where electricity had not penetrated beyond the cities, or where war or poverty ruled (Vietnam until later, much of Africa), televisions, let alone cooking shows were out of the question.
What Did the Early Celebrity Cooks Convey?
In many ways, these early celebrity cooks conveyed much the same story that the authors of “kitchen bibles” had done a century earlier. That is, that the housewife could be a heroine in her own home by preparing a national-cosmopolitan-affordable-accessible-nutritious cuisine.
National because the show engendered national pride, bringing together national recipes, sometimes already codified earlier in kitchen bibles, sometimes elevating dishes hitherto ignored by the wealthy (Puerto Rico), sometimes gluing together recipes of very diverse origin with an overlay of French technique (Israel), sometimes identifying as regional cuisines hitherto not thought of as parts of a national cuisine (Taiwan), sometimes helping preserve national cuisines through hard times (Estonia, Cuba).
Cosmopolitan (like kitchen bibles earlier) because the housewife was part of a larger world in which she could conjure with new dishes or ingredients (pasta and pizza in Norway, cauliflower in Mexico, canned pineapple in Germany, cakes almost everywhere). And she could handle the new kinds of pans and gadgets as well as new electric or gas ovens.
Affordable because the world was much poorer than it now is and even in the wealthiest of countries fewer ingredients were available, the basics were more expensive, and the housewife still paid for other necessities and luxuries (education for children, a telephone, a day trip, or the television itself) by careful budgeting of food.
Accessible in the sense that that if some recipes stretched the audience none were beyond their reach at least on special occasions so they could be heroines to their family and friends.
Nutritious because even if not explicitly talking about nutritional theory, these cooks were very aware that the women in their audience had to feed their families on a day-to-day basis
The very persona of these cooks conveyed this message. Almost without exception, they wore aprons, at least part of the time. By and large, they wore modern, western dress although there were exceptions. Few were cute or beautiful; rather they tended to matronly. Although invested with the glamor of television, they were recognizably from the same world as the housewife herself.
The kitchens they cooked in completed the story. Almost interchangeable, the kitchens were modern, lined with cabinets, with stove tops that turned on and off with a knob or button, and a gas or electric oven. (One exception was the wok and brazier used in the early series of cooking shows in Taiwan).
What Was the Impact of These Early Television Cooks?
Everything suggests that the impact of these cooks was enormous. Their shows ran for years, often for decades. They became household names. Each produced large numbers of books, which time and again are described as among the best sellers in the second half of the century or even all time. They wrote for magazines. They were honored by governments.
My suspicion is that this influence is due to the fact that they spoke to women who had to re-re-invent their cooking
— after the devastation and rationing of World War II or Civil War or revolution
— during the early years of nationhood
— because they were moving up the social scale into the middle class
— because they were moving from country to city
— or because they belonged to a hitherto unrepresented group
The Demise of the Home Cook on Television
The home cooks had rivals on television from the start, the male cooks who demonstrated a tricky, expensive, aspirational gastronomy, almost invariably French. The French part has dropped out. Cooking programs as entertainment has not.
One final thought. Although many of the women cooks are referred to as the Julia Child of their nation, I think Julia Child is a rather different phenomenon. She did not demonstrate either American cooking or home cooking. Her meals were always oriented to the dinner party rather than the family table. And enormous as her influence was on the middle class, I tend to think that the comparative influence of many of these other cooks in their countries was yet greater.
___________________
I’m not envisioning a book on celebrity women cooks. Someone should, though. Meantime, I’d love more names.
This makes me think of my grandmother, who graduated from the University of Toronto in 1912 with a degree in Home Economics. She spent the next five years working at a major Canadian food company, developing recipes for home cooks. I had always thought of her as being rather one of a kind, but it’s fun to realize that this sort of career path was growing so widely. I wonder if she would have tried for TV if it had been available earlier in her career. Always remarkable to learn how much earlier things happened than we usually think. Thanks.
Home Ec was a very forward-looking major in the early twentieth century. Do you have any of the recipes she developed?
Don’t forget they were preceded by radio cooks!
Absolutely Nick. It would be interesting to explore whether they also had global parallels. Some of them made it in to the television age, others not.
Rachel,
Excellent piece on a subject not many write about. Liked the comment on Julia Child, which makes me wonder if there is anyone who represents traditional American cooking [if there be truly such a thing] besides the fictitious Betty Crocker. Now with you-tube and facebook I hope regional American cooks will preserve special old fashioned recipes for posterity. And hope someone does do a book on these un-sung national heroines. This is a step in the right direction. Kudos to you. This is really an important part of food history.
James Beard had a television program earlier than Julia Child and I would not be surprised if that did not offer more traditional American fare. He was always more interested in the American tradition than Child was.
While she wasn’t a TV celebrity outside San Francisco, cookbook author Elena Zelayeta had a cooking show called “It’s Fun to Eat” on KPIX in the late 50s/early 60s. Apparently only one program still exists and it’s undated: https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/189406
The most information I found about the show is by Dana Polan, professor of cinema at NYU, a chapter in a book called How to Watch Television, Thompson and Mittell.
http://cookbooks.about.com/od/5-Questions-For/fl/Great-Academic-Food-Writing-about-a-Blind-Mexican-Chef.htm
Thanks so much, Mary Margaret. It all helps to round out the picture. I’m entering this in the list. There were quite a lot of these regional cooking programs.
It is surprising that Graham Kerr is included as a “famous cook you’ve never heard of” in both Australia and Canada. He may not be remembered in Australia or Canada, but his show, “The Galloping Gourmet,” was extremely popular in the U.S. and it had tremendous influence on subsequent food tv shows. Scores of his “Galloping Gourmet” episodes are available on YouTube (and my students love watching them…)
Dione Lucas is mentioned in the US category of “famous cook you’ve never heard of” and she properly belongs there. She was an ex-pat Englishwoman who wrote The Cordon Bleu Cook Book, founded Le Cordon Bleu restaurant and cooking school in New York, and stared in “To the Queen’s Taste” beginning in 1948 and “The Dione Lucas Cooking Show,” which aired in the US during the 1950s.
Far be it from me to disagree with your assessment of Julia Child–“Her meals were always oriented to the dinner party rather than the family table,” but in my humble opinion, her target was the home cook, not dinner parties. Her influence on American home cooking and food tv was substantial. She gave confidence to many women that they could cook dishes beyond the then popular tuna-noodle casserole, mac and cheese, hot dogs, tv dinners, etc.
Andy, thanks so much. Have a ton to say. Perhaps another blog post.
LOL @ mac and cheese. The Soviet version was po flotskiy, seaman style, with various mystery meat instead of cheese. Although I like the sailor macaroni (any pasta is macaroni if you were born in the USSR) I just might be the only cook in Estonia (thank God we are no longer a part of the Russian Empire no matter what they call their Third Rome nowadays) who enjoys and knows how to cook (or, at least, approximate) good old macncheese once in a while.
Rachel: You might want to include Lena Richard. She was an African American chef from New Orleans who was a regular on WDSU, a local television station, starting in 1949 or 1950. http://lenarichard.blogspot.com/2012/02/introduction.html.
David
Thanks very much David. I may have to start a new thread on regional celebrity cooks!
Back in the late ’50s and early ’60s, my mother and I used to watch a cooking show called “Lyle’s Patio” on WOW-TV in Omaha NE hosted by Lyle DeMoss. One could pick up printed summaries of those shows at local Safeway Stores. He was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame back in 1972 honoring his 40 years of broadcasting. His cookbook “Lyle DeMoss Cook Book” was published the same year and still available (used) on Amazon.
Thank you so much for this, Randall. I am beginning to think that I need to do another post on regional American tv cooking show hosts. Many people have written in about their local hosts in the 50s and 60s.
As a little girl in the 50’s, I remember my mom watching a cooking show with a couple(the Bontempi’s?). The woman would cook and her husband would play the piano and sing. Anyone else remember them?
Wonderful. I found this by googling.
The Bontempi Cookbook
$15.00
by Fedora Bontempi, Prentice-Hall, second printing, 1966. Out of print and hard to find. I didn’t know about this early TV cook: Fedors and her husband Pino, were pioneers of hosting a Saturday cooking show on WOR-TV in New York, starting in 1949. She talked recipes and food, and he commented and –unlikely as it sounds today – sang, since he styled himself an operatic tenor. The show ran 18 years. The dishes offered are mostly Italian, Italian-American or “continental” – Chicken Flambé, Saltimbocca Romanana, Pizziola Beef Slices, Stuffed Veal Breast, Pumpkin Cheese Pie, French Peach Cake. It was probably the first cooking show on TV that emphazied Italian dishes.
Hardback, brown covers, yellow DJ, title on the apine. Condition: Book, VG+, DJ, which shows wear at extremities,traces of price sticker, VG.
My name is viki ferrari and my grandfather owned Tufaro,s Restaurant in Corona ! He was good friends with Pino and Fedora and the used to ckme to the restaurant all the time. Myself and my cousins even appeared on their Tv show.! I’ve been trying to find info and memorabilia but it is so difficult. Any help would be greatly appreciated.!
I’ll ask on my blog next time I have a roundup post.