World's First Cooking Video?

Could be! It's a comedy short from 1933 (in faded two-strip Technicolor-- that's why the food is all sort of bilious green) in which a chef helps a ditzy housewife make dinner for hubby and guests. An interesting picture of American domesticity from its time, amid much corny humor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fokp0KERDho

Mike,

At least 2 years earlier, Stymie proved to the rich kid that "ham and eggs can talk" with an iron skillet and some kitchen skills.

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/m ... _id=225659

They're saying 'Hello' to my stomach right now.

A clip (unfortunately, it ends just before the money line, recited above).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2-TUKAnT_I

Note the Tabasco product placement.

Mike G wrote:Could be! It's a comedy short from 1933 (in faded two-strip Technicolor-- that's why the food is all sort of bilious green) in which a chef helps a ditzy housewife make dinner for hubby and guests. An interesting picture of American domesticity from its time, amid much corny humor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fokp0KERDho

"Zowie, what a poor duck has to go through these days"

HI,

Watching the OP submitted video, there were a few things from a culinary poiint of view worth commenting: 1) Molasses spooned into the baked apples. Molasses these days seems largely confined to gingerbread cookies and baked beans. I never would have considered them an addition to baked apples. 2) The use of allspice is another fading spice, though it is present in pumpkin pie. Generously seasoning a duck with allspice is news to me. I then checked out epicurious to find over 400 recipes with an allspice component.

I have read the triplet of American seasoning as salt, pepper and nutmeg. I guess the nutmeg got lost somewhere, though I have read this statement in European cookbooks talking about the American table.

This was a cool find! I can't wait to see the other later.

Regards,

Molasses these days seems largely confined to gingerbread cookies and baked beans

One of my favorite uses for molasses is as a condiment on freshly baked biscuits; something I was introduced to during my short residency in the Biscuit Belt. I believe it was most commonly sorghum molasses.

As a kid, I also liked molasses right out of the bottle.

Not to be overly literal, but if it was "Photographed by Technicolor process" is it really a "video" (as opposed to a "film" or a "movie")?

Great find - loved it.

Here's another Pete Smith Specialty on the subject of cooking. This one's in three-strip Technicolor so at least the food looks a little more appetizing. Otherwise, it's a fun slice of what American cookery and entertaining was like circa 1937-- be sure you watch all the way to the dessert!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3_hbPJ2B5I

The star, Prudence Penny, was a pseudonymous housewife-advice columnist (get it-- prudence with your pennies?) for the Hearst papers. Interestingly, each major city had its own Prudence Penny and it was actually the Chicago one, Leona Malek, who was the most famous; the credits of this short seem to imply that it's not Malek but a different LA Prudence Penny who's in the film, though. (There was even at least one man, a chef and writer named Hyman Goldberg who was New York's Prudence Penny for a time.) Anyway, here's some more about "Prudence Penny" in all her Doctor Who-like incarnations:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html
http://www.digmodern.com/product/412980
http://www.wrvmuseum.org/journal/journal_ftbr_0404.htm

"What about decorating your insides with a hunk of this?"

So there are a couple of tricks in that that I'm curious about. Does peanut butter really get rid of a burnt taste? Can you really scrub a carrot to the same degree of peeledness as with a peeler?

What a hoot those films are. The narrative was hilarious.

And as awful as they made those women look, I've actually known people who were that helpless in the kitchen.