40 Miracles For Your Table, 1930

"The delight of fragrant foods with flavor-- of mellow blends and spices that tempt our appetites! "The fine linens and silver we use, the glassware gleaming with color, these are symbols of the importance we attach to dining well...." Front and back covers of a 38-page promo booklet published by Sprague, Warner & Company, Chicago, IL.

"To the woman who knows good food-- who expresses herself more in the distinguished service of her table than in lavish display."

I think Marsden Hartley must have secretly designed the breakfast delights on these pages. Cool!

Wheel... Of... Salad...! All contestants receive a set of bubblegum pink pre-Fiestaware, plus-- a lifetime supply of green peppers!

The upper left and lower right images, in particular, make me wonder if directors like Roger Corman and Bill Rebane got routinely dragged to ladies' luncheons during their formative years. (Sweetbreads... bleah!)

So... 40 miracles... 500 foods (or thereabouts) and three different label names (Batavia, Ferndell, & Richelieu). While the company itself had yet another double-barrelled name. (See Picture No. 1) No wonder this stuff isn't still on supermarket shelves. Even the people running the company probably couldn't keep track.

Upper left: A tisket, a tasket, the wrong olive's in our basket! Lower left: Twenty vegetable varieties in search of a fish stick or a slice of canned meat. Right: They served the pineapple-cheese-green olive-cherry salad-combo at baby showers, so everyone who attended could feel as pregnant as the hostess.

Top left: Spiced Pickle Jelly Salad. (Whoo-hoo!) Some other unillustrated goodness I had to leave out of the scans: Broiled Tomatoes With Asparagus Tips, Stuffed Orange And Creme De Menthe Pear Salad, Spaghetti In Pimento Cups, Mushrooms In Ramekins, Noodle Ring Filled WIth Chicken And Mushrooms, Sandwich [aka American, I presume] Cheese And Corn, Jellied Fruit Salad With Frozen Mayonnaise... You've probably guessed by now that seasoning is a scarce commodity throughout this booklet, unless by "seasoning" you mean mayo and the liquid from the red [aka Maraschino, I presume] cherry jar.

"'Traditional' Desserts: Fruit cake, plum pudding, and mincemeat... sumptously [sic] made, as you would make them in your own home if you had our facilities-- fresh fruits in plentiful variety-- brandy spirits [hic!]... months of aging that mellow them and give them a rare bouquet..." Sorry I couldn't give you the whole treatise on appetizers, dinners, and Thanksgiving. Maybe next booklet.