The (Kill)Joy of Cooking

18th February 2009

posted in Body Politic, Food Culture, Food History |

A few people have emailed me about Brian Wansink’s new study of how contemporary cookbook recipes are making us fatter. The timing of these reports is kind of ironic — I read about it yesterday before going to pick up a lot of vintage cookbooks that I’d won in an estate auction. (I bid on this lot mostly because it promised a 1963 McCall’s cookbook, but ended up hitting pay dirt — there are at least two dozen vintage cookbooks in the collection, some going back to the 1930s. The collection also includes some contemporary cookbooks, including the odd pairing of “Mrs. Fields’ I love Chocolate Cookbook” with that of four diabetes cookbooks. If anyone wants any of these, let me know — I have no need for them. )

There are some very obvious problems with Wansink’s study, just as there were with his last study. I plan to go more in depth on these issues in another post when I have the time to be more detailed and analytical, but as someone who has an extensive vintage cookbook collection (I now have more than 100 vintage cookbooks, most from the 1930s – 1960s) and who studies cookbooks critically, there are some very obvious and glaring discrepancies:

- The study is based on recipes found in The Joy of Cooking, which was first published in 1931… you know, two years after the Stock Market crash and during the depression when people were literally starving and looking for ways to reduce food costs. The 1931 and 1936 Joy of Cooking editions were, like most cookbooks of this time, hardly representative of the body politic — they were geared at white, middle-class “frugal” cooks and included ways to prepare lower-calorie “mock” dishes. Most recipes in subsequent editions of The Joy of Cooking are revisions and variations of recipes featured in the original 1931 edition.

- Of the 18 recipes included in the study, most are either meat-based or dessert. The third Joy of Cooking edition came during WWII, when the U.S. had instituted strict food rationing. Most cookbooks of this time included ways on how to cook without sugar or with sugar substitutes, as well as substitutes for calorie-dense meat.

Wansink’s study has its merits, but I don’t think he can make any sweeping claims that his observations of just 18 recipes from seven editions of one cookbook are firmly representative of 70 years of evolving American diets and preferences. Since I happen to have so many vintage cookbooks lying around, I plan to conduct my own study and will blog the results soon.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Body Politic, Food Culture, Food History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On February 18th, 2009, thordora said:

Wow. Can’t wait to see what you come up with! I love older cookbooks, and I’m usually dumbfounded by the fatty stuff in many of them.

posted on February 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

2 On February 18th, 2009, DaniFae said:

There are a lot of reasons that this study seems flawed, especially comparing depression era food, to modern food, and only using one cookbook.

Though, thinking of older cookbooks, reminded me of something, tied to another obesity epidemic claim, the sizes of packaged food increaseing. My mom’s 1970′s Betty Crocker cookbook has a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, that calld for “2 6oz Packages of Chocolate Chips.” Chocolate chips are normally sold in 12oz packages now, yes the package size increased, but how many chocolate chips in the cookies has not. It makes me wonder if there’s any other foods like that out there.

posted on February 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

3 On February 18th, 2009, Brigid Keely said:

DaniFae, my grandmother’s fudge recipe calls for packaged ingredients like that. The packaging size has changed for chips, chocolate bars, and something else that I can’t remember.

posted on February 18th, 2009 at 3:05 pm

4 On February 18th, 2009, Rachel said:

Not only has packaging sizes changed, so too has food itself. Today’s food contains a lot of processed ingredients and additives that food of the early twentieth century did not. Processed foods didn’t even really come about until the late forties/early fifties. These additives and ingredients can be significant in the evaluation of food nutritional counts.

Keep in mind, Wansink’s own study shows that portion sizes haven’t changed much, only the food itself. Nevertheless, he measured the nutritional counts of foods from earlier years using the same rubric as he does for contemporary food. To be most accurate, he’d have to evaluate the foods of earlier recipes using nutritional guides from that time. And yes, such scales do exist, even though it was not required of food manufacturers to include nutritional information on food labels. Nutrition as a science emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century and by WWII, the role of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients were well understood and promoted.

posted on February 18th, 2009 at 3:31 pm

5 On February 18th, 2009, Carrie said:

Wow- I don’t know a lot about the history of cooking (usually because I’m crawling out from a pile of dishes from what is hopefully more recent efforts), but I didn’t think about the relationship between JoC and WWII, the Great Depression, etc.

On an off note, have you read the book “Julie and Julia”? It’s about a woman who makes every one of Julia Child’s recipes from her Joy of French Cooking cookbook in one year. It’s fantastic.

posted on February 18th, 2009 at 3:55 pm

6 On February 18th, 2009, Bree said:

Rachel, I’m interested in the Mrs. Fields cookbook.

Some of the recipes they chose to analyze are pretty rich with a high caloric content anyway, and I think it’s a safe bet that these foods (beef stroganoff, apple pie, brownies, sugar cookies, waffles, mac & cheese, goulash and Spanish rice) are things that the average person doesn’t consume on a daily basis.

I find it interesting that the researcher believes that today’s cookbooks is contributing to the so-called obesity epidemic; I thought most modern day cooking focused more on low-fat, low-calorie dishes.

posted on February 18th, 2009 at 4:57 pm

7 On February 18th, 2009, Rachel said:

Great — send me your address via email (see contact page above) and I’ll send it to you. It’s from 1994, so the woman on the cover has awful teased hair, but the cookie recipes sound yummy! I might photocopy a few before I send out to you.

posted on February 18th, 2009 at 5:27 pm

8 On February 19th, 2009, Alexandra Lynch said:

I find that the older cookbooks I have (A 1961 Joy of Cooking and an 1896 Fannie Farmer) are about achieving the effect you want with what you have and using up what you have (waste not, want not, and all that.)

On the other hand, as a cook I believe in real fats where real fats are called for, and don’t eat them every single day.

posted on February 19th, 2009 at 1:04 am

9 On February 19th, 2009, Godless Heathen said:

The automatic assumption that foods richer in calories and fats are bad is also problematic. Families on a strict budget need to get their caloric load for as little money as possible. If serving sizes are staying the same but calories are going up, that means families are getting more nutrition for their money. Of course, the thought of people wanting to actually nourish themselves with food has probably eluded Wankstain, who seems to believe we all only eat to get fat at him.

posted on February 19th, 2009 at 9:43 am

10 On February 19th, 2009, Piffle said:

Mac and cheese is a pretty everyday food for our family, I probably make it once or twice a month; it’s simple and nutritious, particularly if you add tomatoes and sausage or ham. On those days I forget to get something out to thaw, it’s generally mac and cheese, grits with cheese, or a salad for dinner.

posted on February 19th, 2009 at 11:54 am

11 On February 19th, 2009, LadyGrey said:

The main reason why mac and cheese is NOT an everyday food for me now is because we ate it so much growing up. (Sometimes made before my mom went to work in the evening, then reheated later, which is not the most appetizing form the food can take!) I agree that it’s a cheap, easy way to feed a large family, which is why we had it a lot and why I got tired of it.

posted on February 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

12 On February 19th, 2009, Rachel said:

I love mac & cheese, but I’ve only had it about twice in the past five years. It was a staple growing up because it was so cheap — we’d add hot dogs to it. My younger brother and I both still prefer the really cheap box kind with the powder cheese over that of the pricey Kraft or the organic Annie’s brands. It’s not very healthy for me, which is why I don’t eat it more often, but the cheap stuff is oh so good.

posted on February 19th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

13 On February 19th, 2009, deeleigh said:

Another thing I never hear mentioned is that meals used to be multi-course, and always served with bread. These days, we come home from work, make a 1-pot meal, and don’t serve bread with it. Of course we’re going to eat more of that one dish.

posted on February 19th, 2009 at 11:38 pm

14 On February 20th, 2009, Is it fate or is it Google-fu? » The-F-Word.org said:

[...] antiques in my pajamas — this is where I got the awesome set of vintage cookbooks mentioned here. It inspired me to find other auction houses that have finally made friends with the digital age [...]

posted on February 20th, 2009 at 2:12 pm

15 On May 14th, 2009, Pepper said:

I have been studying food since I was 10 years old & was involved in the hospitality industry for over 10 years. I also have a 90 year old mother who was alive during the ’20s & ’30s. What Wansink said is dead on! Because people have become accustomed to huge portions of grossly nutritionally poor foods in restaurants (just go to Eat This Not That & you’ll see most restaurant meals & supermarket foods are high in calories, fat, cholesterol, salt & sugar) food manufactors & cookbook authors have responded by decreasing the number or portions while increasing the number of unhealthy ingredients. Do people eat healthy? Sure some do but for every person who eats a salad there are 10 who want the 8 oz. fatty burger with deep fried fries & a sugar laden Coke. Yes, it’s true 80 years ago people ate a lot more carbs and fat but they were also most likely working 10 hour days at hard labor. And desserts were a once a week treat on Sunday and unlike today children rarely ever drank a soda or ate a french fry. And people never ate out unless it was a special occasion or they were travelling. It wasn’t just a money issue but custom as well. There was most likely a stay at home person who could cook dinner. Plus up till the ’20s eating out was something only rich people & travellers did. And as for the Depression affecting peoples eating habits, the fact is most people in the early 20th century were working class & could never afford steak or other luxury foods. The Depression only made the affluent eat what everyone else was eating. Plus remember foods in those days did not have the chemicals & preservatives that foods today do. Most were in fact organically home grown or raised without hormones. Quite frankly with some exceptions eating a 1930s diet is a lot more healthy then eating todays diet of processed high in calories, high in fat, high in sugar & salt restaurant & frozen meals.

posted on May 14th, 2009 at 11:49 am