Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff.
Speaker 1: I've never told you a protection of I heart radios
Speaker 1: have stuff work. Oh that's gonna make me hungry. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very rare that we do episodes on this show
Speaker 1: that I have crapings them. I'm gonna need some pancakes
Speaker 1: now that we've been talking about them. I could go
Speaker 1: for pancakes. I have a pancakes wherever. We need to
Speaker 1: go to the Pancakes Social Right near us. There is
Speaker 1: a pancake restaurant in here. I've never been to it.
Speaker 1: Not a sponsor, just located near us. On lists list listen.
Speaker 1: You say, well, then we must go. Well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to persevere it through this. First. I wanted to talk.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, are you a cook, Samantha. Well,
Speaker 1: I am a box or an instructions kind of cooker.
Speaker 1: So essentially, if you hand me tell something and tell
Speaker 1: me to do it this way, then I'm like, cool,
Speaker 1: let me do that. But I'm also one of those
Speaker 1: worriers when it comes to cooking, so I will overcook
Speaker 1: almost everything, yes, because I don't want to die or
Speaker 1: have some kind of body malfunctions. Because of my dinner
Speaker 1: or I don't want anyone else to experience that. So
Speaker 1: chicken is always gonna be a little more cook than not. Um. Fish, Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably a little more cooked than not. Now, steak I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good with. But it's like ground bee ground truck
Speaker 1: ground turkey. Yeah, I'm gonna probably overcook back quite a bit,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna add a lot of spices to it. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at when it comes to baking, because
Speaker 1: you have to follow those instructions. There's no real way
Speaker 1: to like navigate away from that without making a complete
Speaker 1: disaster unless you are trained or having right It's good.
Speaker 1: But even with baking, like you have to have a
Speaker 1: certain amount of liquid to go with all of the
Speaker 1: dry or you're gonna have something really bad if you
Speaker 1: have expired things which I figured out, like baking powder
Speaker 1: or baking soda. You know that it messes up things
Speaker 1: as well, so that I have kind of figured out.
Speaker 1: But I'm also one of those that, oh, I did it,
Speaker 1: and then I try again. I screwed it up somehow,
Speaker 1: like it turned out so well last time, and no
Speaker 1: one believes me. It's the humidity I always blame that.
Speaker 1: I love cooking, I'm the opposite of you. Right, you
Speaker 1: make full on festive mills. I do those out of
Speaker 1: boxes once again, like everything comes out of a macaroni
Speaker 1: cheese box or canned veggies that I'm going to reheat somehow. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I love it. I don't necessarily love the obligation
Speaker 1: of it. It was something I struggled with for a
Speaker 1: while when I was like, I'm a feminis, Now should
Speaker 1: I cook for other people? The answer is yes, but
Speaker 1: it's fine if you like to do it then yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but I I am. I'm risky perhaps with my behavior cooking.
Speaker 1: I don't overcook ill on the edge of yes, that's
Speaker 1: that's an that makes I'm not gonna eat with other people.
Speaker 1: Come okay, then I won't risk your health. You're not
Speaker 1: going to make one of those. I was like, look,
Speaker 1: chicken medium, well or medium? I'm like, what the hell's
Speaker 1: wrong with you? You're gonna die. I won't impose my
Speaker 1: behavior upon you or any of my uncooked but you know,
Speaker 1: my first experiences. Maybe that's what this is why I
Speaker 1: like like box things. Is from my easy bake ovin.
Speaker 1: All you do is add water and then you stick
Speaker 1: it into the light bulb. I wanted an easy bake
Speaker 1: oven so badly, and I got it as a gift
Speaker 1: when I was seven, way too old. Friends, I haven't
Speaker 1: asked for this shares, so I just got it and
Speaker 1: kind of put it away and donorated it. Uh. Look,
Speaker 1: I love those sugary paper tasting cookies so much. Well,
Speaker 1: I was very jealous of you. I didn't know you,
Speaker 1: but I used to um and my French class we
Speaker 1: had a day where everyone will bring in desserts and
Speaker 1: at the time, I wasn't that into cooking, and I
Speaker 1: would bring in a Duncan Hinz brownie mix brownie box
Speaker 1: mix every year and people loved it, and they would
Speaker 1: always ask me the recipe and I would act all coy.
Speaker 1: Oh it's secret recipe. As far as I know, no
Speaker 1: one ever figured it out. Oh you're a commercial. Well
Speaker 1: that's what they do in commercials. Yeah, it's a family recipe.
Speaker 1: And I used to look around it is like a
Speaker 1: box of something. Yeah, people were so they wanted it
Speaker 1: so badly. I even had one of my schoolmates mom
Speaker 1: asked me for it. Well, you know a little, but
Speaker 1: we're not talking about Duncan Hines to day. Who is
Speaker 1: a real person. We're talking about some famous female faces
Speaker 1: on food products, which is one big famous box product.
Speaker 1: What Betty Crocker, she has all those box products, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: Betty Crocker, Antemima and Mrs Butterworth. Briefly, um, and since
Speaker 1: this is a time of a lot of cooking for
Speaker 1: many of us, we thought it would be time like maybe, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I will be bringing some kind of dessert to my
Speaker 1: friends giving friends Christmas. Thing for friends Christmas, Yes, feast
Speaker 1: mus Oh. I like what they named it because we
Speaker 1: also do like people all whatever white elephant thing dirties,
Speaker 1: and I think that might be a different thing. Maybe. No,
Speaker 1: I think this. Someone's gonna tell me something else. Don't
Speaker 1: send me anything, don't send me pictures, don't send any
Speaker 1: dirty Santa pictures. Please, Antic you know it's really good. No,
Speaker 1: I'm the one who message here with the impacts. Don't
Speaker 1: do it. And I just want to say before we
Speaker 1: get into this that when I was researching it, I
Speaker 1: got a ton of results, like the top five sexiest
Speaker 1: food icons. Just made me think, why does the green
Speaker 1: emma and then have to be sexy because the legend
Speaker 1: and duh that if you're eating it. It's gonna make
Speaker 1: you horny. Yes, because always I grew up knowing this,
Speaker 1: and we were all felt a little naughty. We'd save
Speaker 1: the green for the last. I don't think it worked, though,
Speaker 1: I would be shocked. I have never heard this. Wow,
Speaker 1: we knew this growing up, the green amine, the things
Speaker 1: you know when you're a kid, the things you believe.
Speaker 1: I think you're so witty when you're a kid. And
Speaker 1: then the red eminem's were poison. Oh no, I didn't
Speaker 1: hear that. The brown eminems are like whatever. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I like, of course, I actually really like the yellow ones.
Speaker 1: This is a real journalistic deep keep going, now, Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about Betty Crocker. There's a fascinating history
Speaker 1: here until she was dethroned by Flow of the insurance.
Speaker 1: What insurance is that progressive has like ten representatives and
Speaker 1: one of them is that? And yeah, okay, so Flow.
Speaker 1: Betty Crocker was the most famous fictional female in the US,
Speaker 1: according to ad Week. New York Daily News article listed
Speaker 1: her alongside Barbie, Santa Claus and Uncle Sam as one
Speaker 1: of the world's most influential fictional figures. Over two hundred
Speaker 1: grocery products carry her name. These days, Betty Crocker graces
Speaker 1: many boxes of cake mix and canned icing, but she
Speaker 1: used to be someone women could contact for cooking advice.
Speaker 1: Dear Betty Crocker, my cake won't rise. Dear Betty Crocker,
Speaker 1: was the secret to fluffy pancakes. Dear Betty Crocker, I
Speaker 1: need a good pie recipe. Betty Crocker not only provided
Speaker 1: the answers to cooking questions like these, she was also
Speaker 1: a proponent of trying new things in the kitchen, and
Speaker 1: she would be there as a safety net if something
Speaker 1: went wrong. But now for the important question, is she
Speaker 1: a real person? And the answers Nope. The Washburn and
Speaker 1: Crosby Company, a flour milling which would go on to
Speaker 1: become General Mills, developed the character of Betty Crocker as
Speaker 1: a part of an advertising campaign. So Washburn Crosby got started.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty entered the International Milling Competition with their
Speaker 1: new Flower, and they won the gold Medal. They were
Speaker 1: so thrilled that they changed the name of their product
Speaker 1: to Gold Medal Flower, which still exists and the number
Speaker 1: one selling brand of flower to this day. The company
Speaker 1: decided to run an ad for Gold Medal Flower in
Speaker 1: the Saturday Evening Post. The ad consisted of a jigsaw
Speaker 1: puzzle of a small town square, and the prize for
Speaker 1: correctly solving the puzzle and sending it in was a
Speaker 1: gold medal flower shaped in cushion, which I actually would
Speaker 1: really like myself, even though I don't so Wait is
Speaker 1: it like a shape of the actual Over thirty thousand
Speaker 1: people sent completed puzzles to Washburn and Crosby, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them included baking questions. To the company's surprise,
Speaker 1: the smallesh advertising department, composed entirely of men and led
Speaker 1: by Samuel Gale, had dealt with customer questions and completes previously.
Speaker 1: They would direct these questions to the women who worked
Speaker 1: at the Gold Medal Home service staff. However, Gail wasn't
Speaker 1: a fan of using his name when he signed off
Speaker 1: on this advice. He suspected the customers would rather get
Speaker 1: advice from a woman, who, of course did most of
Speaker 1: the cooking and the home at the time. Gunder norm's
Speaker 1: being what they were. The very fact that these men
Speaker 1: consulted women before answering questions reinforces that um, that whole
Speaker 1: thing that whole idea, and most people writing in were women.
Speaker 1: The amount of questions the company received as a part
Speaker 1: of the contest really emphasized the need for a woman
Speaker 1: to answer these questions, so a woman people would trust,
Speaker 1: So they invented a fictional woman to fill their needs,
Speaker 1: Betty Crocker. Her last name was actually borrowed from William G. Crocker,
Speaker 1: who at the time had just retired as the director
Speaker 1: of Washburn Crosby. The first name was chosen because it
Speaker 1: sounded all American, both cheery and unthreatening. With the name
Speaker 1: decided upon, they needed a signature a female employees were
Speaker 1: called upon to submit their ideas. The winning signature was
Speaker 1: Secretary Florence Limbard's, so any letter answering a customers question
Speaker 1: would be signed Betty Crocker quote unquote. People were even
Speaker 1: trained to match the signature. Such was the demand for
Speaker 1: Betty Crocker, the company created the Betty Crocker Kitchens cooking
Speaker 1: schools that they sponsored throughout the country. Women who worked
Speaker 1: in the home department at the company who were involved
Speaker 1: in answering mal addressed to Betty were called the Croquettes.
Speaker 1: The Crockett which is really kind of gross sounding I
Speaker 1: don't know why. For three years, Betty Crocker existed primarily
Speaker 1: and written format or in name at these schools. That
Speaker 1: changed in when she debuted on Washburn Crosby's new radio
Speaker 1: cooking show on Minneapolis w c c O, which stood
Speaker 1: for Washburn Crosby Company. This was a station they saved,
Speaker 1: the company saved from bankruptcy. The show was called Betty
Speaker 1: Crocker Cooking School of the Air. Graduates of the on
Speaker 1: air school sent in reports to be graded by Betty Crocker.
Speaker 1: That first year there were two hunt thirty eight graduates.
Speaker 1: The show was written and hosted by home economist Marjorie
Speaker 1: Child hosted. The show pretty quickly went nationwide after that,
Speaker 1: and each region had their own Betty Crocker voice. The
Speaker 1: scripts were written at the company's national headquarters. It had
Speaker 1: featured prominent guests like Joan Crawford and Carrie Grant In
Speaker 1: The radio show became a part of the new NBC network,
Speaker 1: where it would remain for twenty four years. Over a
Speaker 1: million listeners enrolled into the on air cooking show over
Speaker 1: that time. So when Hustard was later asked about the
Speaker 1: whole thing, she said, it is very interesting to me
Speaker 1: to look back now and realize how concerned I was
Speaker 1: about the welfare of women as homemakers and their feelings
Speaker 1: of self respect. Women needed a champion here where millions
Speaker 1: of them staying at home alone, doing a job with children, cooking, cleaning,
Speaker 1: on minimal budgets, the whole depressing mess of it. They
Speaker 1: needed someone to remind them that they had value. Very smart.
Speaker 1: The first grocery item bearing Betty Crocker's name was a
Speaker 1: super mix in and the cake Mix appeared a few
Speaker 1: years later in n and then in nineteen fifty, Betty
Speaker 1: Crocker's picture cookbook hit the shelves. It sold two million
Speaker 1: copies in its first two years and has sold over
Speaker 1: sixty million copies since, and it's still available under the
Speaker 1: name the Betty Crocker Cookbook Do They Really Uh? It
Speaker 1: is sometimes referred to as the Kitchen Bible or Big
Speaker 1: Red Recipes complete with pictures. That was a new thing
Speaker 1: that was very exciting at the time. It was another
Speaker 1: way to make cooking less intimidating. In Fortune magazine named
Speaker 1: her the second most popular woman in the United States
Speaker 1: behind Eleanor Roosevelt. They also outed her as a fraud.
Speaker 1: She wasn't a real person, but nobody seemed to carry
Speaker 1: out uh and this whole thing on to her nickname,
Speaker 1: The First Lady of Food. Surveys from this time period
Speaker 1: found that nine out of ten women were familiar with
Speaker 1: Betty Crocker. She was getting about five thousand letters a day,
Speaker 1: according to Susan Marks in her book Finding Betty Crocker,
Speaker 1: The Secret Life of America's First a Lady of Food.
Speaker 1: People who visited the headquarters to find out Betty Crocker
Speaker 1: wasn't real often started crying, and the company even kept
Speaker 1: tissues at hand for this. Yeah, I guess that's really
Speaker 1: heart piking, and I think we forget too. There was
Speaker 1: no Internet at this time. Um, you're really dependent on
Speaker 1: either people you knew in your life teaching you or
Speaker 1: sharing the recipes with you or recipe books. And if
Speaker 1: you're trying to mix things up, especially on a budget,
Speaker 1: which women were pretty judged for at that time, how
Speaker 1: fancy of a thing can you make? This cheap thing?
Speaker 1: That's why we got things like aspects. Um, that is
Speaker 1: a lot of stress, and I'm sure it was very
Speaker 1: comforting to have someone you could call and who just
Speaker 1: be someone you could talk to about it at the
Speaker 1: behest of the U S Office of War Information in
Speaker 1: Betty Crocker spent four months on the radio show Our
Speaker 1: Nations rations aimed at helping listeners be creative and resourceful
Speaker 1: when it came to cooking with rationed foods and parallel
Speaker 1: there was a Betty Crocker pamphlet about the same thing,
Speaker 1: called Your Share. Seven million copies of it were distributed.
Speaker 1: A second pamphlet, Through Highway to Good Nutrition, was recognized
Speaker 1: by the American Red Cross for contributing to the national interest.
Speaker 1: Well that's big so. In nineteen fifty one, the advent
Speaker 1: of televisions in home across the U S. Met Washburn
Speaker 1: and Crosby needed to find someone to be the face
Speaker 1: and voice of Betty Crocker. They hired actress Adelaide Halloway
Speaker 1: for the role. Betty Crocker showed up a handful of
Speaker 1: television programs at the time, including Betty Crocker Television Show
Speaker 1: and The Betty Crocker Star Mattenee. There were illustrations previously.
Speaker 1: The first official portrait, completed in nineteen thirty six, was
Speaker 1: a composite of the faces of the women who worked
Speaker 1: in Washburn and Crosby's Home Service Department by NASA McMain.
Speaker 1: It didn't change for two decades. The image has since
Speaker 1: been updated seven times to reflect current taste. In eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, she was depicted as sort of a Jackie
Speaker 1: Kennedy esque, but in general she stayed pretty much the same.
Speaker 1: A white woman with brown hair around the age of
Speaker 1: thirty two, wearing red and white. A nine condition by
Speaker 1: painter John Stewart Ingle did image her with olive skin
Speaker 1: in an attempt to make her more inclusive. He created
Speaker 1: this portrail based on seventy five images of women. General
Speaker 1: Mills thought captured the spirit of Betty Crocker. By observing
Speaker 1: the evolution of Betty Crocker, we can get an idea
Speaker 1: of the evolution of American women, yeah, and especially how
Speaker 1: we perceived them. From a nineteen fifty four to nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven high school seniors competed for scholarships around their
Speaker 1: skills in homeck and the Betty Crocker searched for the
Speaker 1: All American Homemaker of Tomorrow. The Betty Crocker monthly recipe
Speaker 1: magazine debuted in nineteen seventy two called Sphere. The Betty
Speaker 1: Crocker magazine. I found an excellent archive of all of them,
Speaker 1: and people are still into this magazine. They remember this
Speaker 1: recipe that so good, and they try to find it
Speaker 1: on the archive. In the comment section, you can see
Speaker 1: people helping each other out about just researching the levels
Speaker 1: of ingredients and recipes. I wonder how that has changed
Speaker 1: over time. Yes, challenge, fascinating, Let's do this, don't tep me.
Speaker 1: The magazine opened with this quote, as women were lucky
Speaker 1: to be alive right now amid the universal tumult. It's
Speaker 1: more than ever a woman's world, with twentieth century reality
Speaker 1: located somewhere between the swooning vapors of Victorian forebears and
Speaker 1: the militant fervor of women's lib Wow. There's just some
Speaker 1: really big extremes. So seven can I be the swooning
Speaker 1: victorianka cool? So nowadays she has a website full of
Speaker 1: recipes and advice. When the Betty Crocker iPad app debuted
Speaker 1: in two thousand ten, it was among the most popular
Speaker 1: free apps. Betty Crocker pamplets are available in grocery stores.
Speaker 1: Still really yeah wow. In two thousand fourteen, she got
Speaker 1: some media attention when the company started supplying same sex
Speaker 1: wedding cakes in a Minnesota, their home state, when gay
Speaker 1: marriage was legalized, the company gifted the first three gay
Speaker 1: couples married in Minnesota with gifts and a wedding cake.
Speaker 1: In the same year, her website launched thirty cakes for
Speaker 1: thirty days of Ramadan. The Middle East is the brand's
Speaker 1: second largest market. A two thousand and sixty update of
Speaker 1: her cook book added an entire chapter for vegetarians and
Speaker 1: recipes like Chicken to Jane. It's also been translated into Spanish.
Speaker 1: Other books have been added to the enterprise as well,
Speaker 1: like Betty Crocker's Home Indian Cooking. Two fifty books with
Speaker 1: her name have been published at General Mills headquarters in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: There's a Betty Crocker available for questions seven. So now,
Speaker 1: if you go there will be a Betty Crocker. If
Speaker 1: you go looking for Betty Crocker, someone will be there. Wait, so, like,
Speaker 1: did they just all change it out? I guess that's
Speaker 1: a shift. There's shifts, sure, sure, sure, what had to
Speaker 1: be on the night shift. I would love to interview
Speaker 1: someone who've been Betty Crocker. Does anybody know anyone that's
Speaker 1: been Betty Crocker. Please let us know we need to
Speaker 1: interview Betty Probles. We can we have a ten minute
Speaker 1: session where people sending in questions. Yes, I would love
Speaker 1: to think it would be awesome. Yeah. I have to
Speaker 1: say the story of Betty Crocker was a lot more
Speaker 1: interesting than I thought it was going. Very interesting. It's
Speaker 1: also a great It just shows how we've changed and
Speaker 1: it's interesting to look at it through this character as
Speaker 1: kudos to them progressing over time. Yes, well, we have
Speaker 1: some other food characters to talk about, but first we
Speaker 1: have a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 1: we're back. Thank you sponsoring. Oh is it time for
Speaker 1: the sexy syrups? Apparently Samantha doesn't agree with my characterization
Speaker 1: of syrups, but I find most commercials to pick them
Speaker 1: as sexy. I see all. I think it is sticky
Speaker 1: and I don't like it. Well, don't I mean not
Speaker 1: to get too into sex in this episode, But isn't
Speaker 1: that a thing people put like honey or syrup and
Speaker 1: people's bodies don't all alright? All I could think it
Speaker 1: was like, well, we agree to disagree, sexy Tom, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying they are sexy. I'm just saying they're depicted
Speaker 1: as sexy. Yes, And so we're talking about Aunt Jemima.
Speaker 1: This discussion around sexy syrup goes back to my question
Speaker 1: of why everyone, every character we're talking about is somehow
Speaker 1: related to pancakes and syrup. I didn't find the answer
Speaker 1: to that, but we're going to talk about Yes, an Jemima.
Speaker 1: She is the face of a line of pancake mixes
Speaker 1: and syrups. To get to the bottom of Aunt Jemima's history,
Speaker 1: we have to go back to eighteen ninety and a
Speaker 1: former slave by the name of Nancy Green, then living
Speaker 1: in Chicago after being born into slavery in thirty four
Speaker 1: in Kentucky. The original creators of the mascot, Charles Rutt
Speaker 1: and Charles Underword, came up with her look of an
Speaker 1: apron and bandana in eighteen eighty nine. They had just
Speaker 1: purchased Pearl Milling Company and they were looking for something
Speaker 1: to someone to represent their new idea of a self
Speaker 1: rising pancake flower that only required water. And this is
Speaker 1: one of the first mixes available in the US. They
Speaker 1: drew inspiration for this character from a minstrel show that
Speaker 1: was popular at the time and just a refresher. Minstrel
Speaker 1: shows where a popular nineteenth century and later form of
Speaker 1: American entertainment in which white actors and black face portrayed
Speaker 1: black people as lazy, stupid, easily frightened, and highly superstitious.
Speaker 1: A popular song of these minstrel shows was penned in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five by a black performer, Billy Currsands, and
Speaker 1: it was called Old Aunt Jemima and Minstrel Shows. It
Speaker 1: was performed by people in black face, and a white
Speaker 1: man portrayed Aunt Jemima as a slave on a Southern plantation.
Speaker 1: He wore the look that they ended up going with.
Speaker 1: The two original creators of Aunt Geo Mama's character in
Speaker 1: regards to selling a food product sold a company the
Speaker 1: same year they came up with her to RT Davis.
Speaker 1: He found Nancy Green and with her created the Antjemima brand.
Speaker 1: People were intensely curious about the true identity of Anti Mima,
Speaker 1: so much so that the police were called to control
Speaker 1: the crowd at the Antemma exhibit at the World's Colombian Exposition.
Speaker 1: Green served thousands of people that visited the exhibit. Pancakes
Speaker 1: and people reportedly were so charmed by her kind demeanor
Speaker 1: that she was awarded for her show woman shift at
Speaker 1: the exhibition. As a result of her extremely successful appearance there,
Speaker 1: the company received fifty thou orders for their pancake mix
Speaker 1: in the wake of it. They renamed their company to
Speaker 1: Aunt Jemima Mills Company in nineteen fourteen, and they were
Speaker 1: so impressed with Green's performance they offered her a lifetime
Speaker 1: position as their spokesperson as sales of their products continued
Speaker 1: to soar. However, that came to an rupt end in
Speaker 1: when she lost her life in a car crash. The owner,
Speaker 1: Artie Davis, was forced to sell the company to Quaker
Speaker 1: Oats due to financial issues. Soon after, Anna Robinson was
Speaker 1: tapped to be the new face of ant Jemima, a
Speaker 1: portrait now appearing on packages. She also appeared at the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three World's Fair, which was followed by Chicago
Speaker 1: based blue singer and actress Edith Wilson. She became the
Speaker 1: first person to appear as the character in commercials, and
Speaker 1: at this time as still included racial dialects like Isa.
Speaker 1: Former teacher and actress ethel Ernestine Harper assumed the mantle
Speaker 1: after Wilson. After that, an advertising employee, a Quaker Oates
Speaker 1: named Rosie Hall, took on this position. When she died,
Speaker 1: her grave was deemed as a historical landmark. In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five, Eileen Louise made her first public appearance as
Speaker 1: the mascot of an Jemima restaurant in Disneyland, and A
Speaker 1: Short Harrington also did a stand as an Jebama at
Speaker 1: public events in the New York area. The Antjemima radio
Speaker 1: show ran for from nineteen thirty to nineteen two. Jemima
Speaker 1: was played by a white black face actress who portrayed
Speaker 1: Antjemima and other formats. It was essentially a minstrel show
Speaker 1: for radio. As early as the nineteen fifties, people were
Speaker 1: questioning the races undertones of Aunt Jemima. The n double
Speaker 1: a CP started strongly recommending that schools not invite Antjemima
Speaker 1: to speak at them. Increased public scrutiny led Quaker Oats
Speaker 1: to cancel a television campaign in nineteen sixty seven, around
Speaker 1: the time we got the Civil Rights Act, and ditch
Speaker 1: her name from their Disneyland restaurant. The brand updated Aunt
Speaker 1: Jemima's image in nineteen eighty nine, in an effort to
Speaker 1: avoid criticisms of a mammy stereotype, gone was the headscarfor
Speaker 1: traded out instead for a lace collar and pearl earrings,
Speaker 1: and her skin was lightened. She also gradually got thinner.
Speaker 1: Many historians argue that the mammy stereotype is the stereotype
Speaker 1: of something that never existed, and said it was a
Speaker 1: fiction cooked up by white Southerners to placate themselves around
Speaker 1: relationships between white men enslaved black women. The mammy was
Speaker 1: sexually undesirable and not a threat to white women or
Speaker 1: social norms, happy to serve the white man, and played
Speaker 1: into the narrative that black women were happy to be enslaved.
Speaker 1: According to Kimberly Wallace Sanders in her book Mammy, A
Speaker 1: Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory, quote Antimima's success
Speaker 1: was predicted upon a fascinating interweeding of commerce, memory, and
Speaker 1: racial nostalgia that served as a vehicle of post Civil
Speaker 1: War national consolidation. An African American woman pretending to be
Speaker 1: a slave was pivotal to be the trademarks commercial achievement
Speaker 1: in eighteen It's success revolved around the fantasy of returning
Speaker 1: a black woman to a sanitized version of slavery. The
Speaker 1: anti Mamic character involved the regression of race relations, and
Speaker 1: her character helped usher and a prominent resurgence of the
Speaker 1: happy slave mythology of the Antebellum South. This popular recreation
Speaker 1: of an African American woman's lives stood in direct opposition
Speaker 1: to the efforts of real African American women struggling to
Speaker 1: publicly assert their citizenship. As a symbol of racial harmony,
Speaker 1: An Jemima proved to be preferred version of African American
Speaker 1: womanhood and exultation of slave aucuracy nostalgia. Beginning in Latice
Speaker 1: Night appeared and as for spokespersons for Quaker Oaths very
Speaker 1: briefly presented her as Aunt Jemima herself. As two of
Speaker 1: Harrington's great grandsons were suing Aunt Jemima's parent company, Quaker Oats,
Speaker 1: for two billion for unpaid royalties and damages, Harrington played
Speaker 1: Antemima previously. According to them, their mother and Green Nancy Green,
Speaker 1: were instrumental in developing the self rising pancake mix. Even
Speaker 1: before she was Auntjemima, Harrington had a reputation for her
Speaker 1: delicious pancakes. One of Harrington's great grandsons wrote in the suit,
Speaker 1: Aunt Jemima has become known as one of the most
Speaker 1: exploited and abused women in American history. It's really kind
Speaker 1: of gross. I was wondering how much they paid these women.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, I'm sure it was not at all reasonable. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's a bit of that's a pretty dark history
Speaker 1: for that. Um when we do have a little bit
Speaker 1: more for you, but first we have one more quick
Speaker 1: break for word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor,
Speaker 1: And we're back with Mrs Butterworth. More's up, more syrup.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. So, I didn't even consider her when
Speaker 1: I was originally planning who who do involve in this episode,
Speaker 1: but that the study we mentioned earlier finding Betty Crocker
Speaker 1: is the most recognized woman in the United States or whatever.
Speaker 1: Mrs Butterworth was behind her, which is interesting. I do like,
Speaker 1: as we're talking, I can see the picture of the
Speaker 1: children talking to the bottle. Yeah, that's what I'm saying
Speaker 1: right now, But I don't remember that commercial pretty distinctly.
Speaker 1: They have a whole wealth of commercials available throughout the
Speaker 1: decades if you would like to see them, So yes,
Speaker 1: let's talk about her. She is now synonymous with a
Speaker 1: brand of box pancake mixes and syrups, although her most
Speaker 1: iconic iteration is as the shape of the pancake syrup
Speaker 1: bottles that shape a bottle in the shape of Mrs
Speaker 1: butter with a woman who was patented in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: Mrs Butterworth is unique in this sense. She was one
Speaker 1: of a few, if not the only, products shaped after
Speaker 1: their namesake. I couldn't really think of anybody else, all right.
Speaker 1: She's sort of a grandmotherly in her shape, a button
Speaker 1: down dress with a collar, a wide skirt. Her hair
Speaker 1: is up in a bun. I suppose the sweetness of
Speaker 1: syrup is sort of symbolic of the sweetness we assume
Speaker 1: women have. She does cross her hands in her lap
Speaker 1: almost yeah and yeah. Since Ginger norms at the time
Speaker 1: place women in charge of all things domestic, including the kitchen,
Speaker 1: she in theory she was a real person would know
Speaker 1: what she was talking about. These are the speculations when
Speaker 1: I was really trying to get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: why why why why just why? Mrs Butterworth's history is
Speaker 1: a bit murky. First off, when you search for Mrs Butterworth.
Speaker 1: One of the first suggested search terms is is Mrs
Speaker 1: Butterworth Black. Rumor has it she was originally modeled after
Speaker 1: actress Thelma Butterfly McQueen, who posed for the iconic bottle
Speaker 1: soon after she wrapped up filming as the mammy character
Speaker 1: Prissy and got into the wind. However, that doesn't really
Speaker 1: square with her first on air appearance, where actress Cliff
Speaker 1: are Cut as Charlie We represented her as an older
Speaker 1: white woman. Actress Mary Kay Bergman went on to later
Speaker 1: provide the voice of Mrs Butterworth, similarly in the style
Speaker 1: of an older white woman. A lot of questions around
Speaker 1: racism and Mrs Butterworth seems system from her proximity to
Speaker 1: and perhaps mimicry of Anjemima. In two thousand nine, Pinnacle
Speaker 1: Foods revealed Mrs Butterworth's first name is Joy. Prior to
Speaker 1: the reveal, the company launched a contest encouraging people to
Speaker 1: guess the name. Two people won five dollars are correctly
Speaker 1: guessing and a case of the syrup. Of course, this
Speaker 1: is interesting because, according to a brand manager, no one
Speaker 1: bothered to ask what the first name was until an
Speaker 1: employee's son asked, this could be because she's fictional, or
Speaker 1: it could be because, at least partly because the most
Speaker 1: important part of her identity is that she's married. Obviously, right,
Speaker 1: what else do you need to know? She's worth is marriage?
Speaker 1: Does her worth is butter marriage? An Onion headline from
Speaker 1: TWI seventeen read Mike Pence asked waiter to remove Mrs
Speaker 1: Butterworth from table until a wife arrives, s poking fun
Speaker 1: at his reluctance flash refusal to be alone with a
Speaker 1: woman other than his wife. Here is the article that's
Speaker 1: really brief, expressing concerns about the propriety of being left
Speaker 1: alone with a certain container of the opposite sex. Vice
Speaker 1: President Mike Pence reportedly asked the waiter Thursday to remove
Speaker 1: Mrs Butterworth from the table until his wife rapped to
Speaker 1: join him at a local diner. Excuse me, sir, would
Speaker 1: you please take this out of my line of sight
Speaker 1: and full my wife gets here, said Pence, who reportedly
Speaker 1: attempted to put the table sugar dispenser and salt and
Speaker 1: pepper shakers between him and the feminine syrup bottle, before
Speaker 1: deciding that even having Mrs Butterworth within arms reach could
Speaker 1: lead him to have impure thoughts. It just would not
Speaker 1: be right for me to sit here alone with a
Speaker 1: woman's shape container, particularly one as shapely as this. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would advise you to do the same for the
Speaker 1: man sitting over there I see is seating very close
Speaker 1: to Mrs Butterworth, even though he appears are we wearing
Speaker 1: a wedding ring? At press time, Pence had to ask
Speaker 1: the wayer to pour syrup on his pancakes for him,
Speaker 1: as it would be unseemingly to handle the curves of
Speaker 1: the plastic woman in such a public place. And she
Speaker 1: like a bell shape she is. But one of the
Speaker 1: second most return search items for me was what happened
Speaker 1: to Mrs Butterworth's boobs? And there's a whole Breddit threat
Speaker 1: about didn't she used to have big boobs? What happened
Speaker 1: to the boobs? I don't remember boobs. Most it wasn't
Speaker 1: looking for them. Maybe I don't know. Most people seem
Speaker 1: to say they were at the shape well. Apparently a
Speaker 1: commercial that came out in early two thousand nineteen depicted
Speaker 1: Colonel Sanders of KFC and Mrs Butterworth. The life size bottle.
Speaker 1: What flirting? Yeah, yeah, so Mrs Butterworth makes the first move,
Speaker 1: so I guess that's progress. She's the one that's coming
Speaker 1: on to him, and they go in for a kiss
Speaker 1: and the commercial ends a cliffhanger none of us ever
Speaker 1: expected to have to contemplate. Ever, No, it cuts instead
Speaker 1: to a covered waffles and add for their fried chicken
Speaker 1: and waffles and another example of the sexualization of food.
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah no, um. This was a sequel to the
Speaker 1: previous ad for the same product that depicted the two
Speaker 1: mascots recreating the scene from the end of Dirty Dancing. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I happened to see that. I wasn't looking for
Speaker 1: this ad. It happened to come up for me when
Speaker 1: I was watching a YouTube video today and it's ghost
Speaker 1: It's the scene from Ghosts Or they are doing the
Speaker 1: clay thing, and I think the wait is a Dirty
Speaker 1: Dancing There is the clay thing. I think there's more
Speaker 1: than one. So they just really like Patrick Swayzy, that's
Speaker 1: what you're trying to tell me? Could be true? Well,
Speaker 1: I learned that they have a Nashville Hot version of
Speaker 1: this now for limited time, so of course I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie that sounds delicious. Okay. First and foremost, however,
Speaker 1: do I want it to be sexualized? No? I don't
Speaker 1: want to think about Colonel Sanders being sexual not that
Speaker 1: do I want to think Mrs Butterworth, you do you
Speaker 1: I want to be I'm telling her to do her thing,
Speaker 1: do your thing. I'm just gonna eat the chicken with syrup.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it is really creepy. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of the Burger King mascot because it's oh they are Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not okay, it's you already know how about life
Speaker 1: size things coming to life, in animate objects coming to live.
Speaker 1: So this is not cool. This is butter coming off. Also,
Speaker 1: I can't even say the words starrup, right, So this
Speaker 1: is a nightmare in itself. There's a lot of layers
Speaker 1: of terror happening. Well, it was a successful ad, I
Speaker 1: would say, because we're talking about it, we remember it.
Speaker 1: But also I've been trying to forget it. You'll never
Speaker 1: forget it. You'll never forget it. There actually wasn't that
Speaker 1: much out there on on Mrs Butterworth. So if any
Speaker 1: listeners happen to have the low down on any of
Speaker 1: the okay, you don't send me pictures. Don't send me
Speaker 1: pictures of whatever you said earlier. I'll take pictures of
Speaker 1: Mrs Butterworth, Okay, I don't want anything about Dirty Santa,
Speaker 1: and everything else is open, I will take it. We
Speaker 1: do have a pretty strong spam filter. Uh. And obviously
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other other things we could
Speaker 1: have talked about when it comes to to food mascots,
Speaker 1: female food mascots like um, The Land of Lakes, Wendy,
Speaker 1: Little Debbie Morton, Salt Girl, Jikida, Banana Sun Maiden from
Speaker 1: the Raisins, the Green Eminem and now the Brown Eminem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well did you know that I tell you? Ever tell
Speaker 1: you the story? Side note about the dude that I
Speaker 1: went on a couple of days with talking about knowing
Speaker 1: Little Debbie the woman and how awful she was. She's real,
Speaker 1: She's apparently real. Yeah, he couldn't lie, But I'm just
Speaker 1: saying he told me the story. I was like, cool, cool,
Speaker 1: A little listener of ours actually have no idea how
Speaker 1: old little Debbie is. Well, if any anybody has information
Speaker 1: on that, will you welcome that as well? And if
Speaker 1: food things are of interests of you, as always, you
Speaker 1: can hear her more of me nording out about food
Speaker 1: over on the Safer Podcast. But if you would like
Speaker 1: to contact this podcast, yes you can. You can email
Speaker 1: us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our superproducer Andrew Howard, have a soaky day.
Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You,
Speaker 1: the production of I Heeart Radios how Stuff Works. For
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