It all began with a delivery of organic vegetables from ABQ’s Skarsgard Farms.
http://skarsgardfarms.com A kind, healthy gift from family members.  Thanks!
In the delivery cooler were several bright yellow disc shaped vegetables with scalloped edges like mini UFOs. From some far corner of my brain came the name “patty pan squash.” Was there such a thing and how do you cook it?  I could have googled it, but instead opted for a more homespun approach.  I took down my venerable, classic cookbook, Betty Crocker’s New Picture Cook Book.  “New”- hah!  This tattered tome was copyrighted in 1961, making Betty Crocker (whose name still appears on cake mixes and instant mashed potatoes) really, really old!
That is, if the bright eyed, fortyish lady with neatly coiffed, brown with a touch of gray hair, and a modestly confident smile, was really, really real.  She’s not.  Never was. But even though Betty C. was a figment of General Mills’ marketing imagination, for homemakers in the 50’s and 60’s, she was the quintessentially perfect embodiment of womanhood.  Perfect wife.  Perfect Mother. And most important of all, perfect hostess.  From Baked Alaska to Yorkshire Pudding, Betty was a garnishing genius, mistress of meatloaf, queen of the quesadilla. Ha! Gotcha! There isn’t a quesadilla to be found in the Betty Crocker Cook Book. No arugula or cilantro either.  But, on the other hand, if you want to wow your dinner guests with “Cauliflower Porcupine” (toasted almonds stuck in a cheese sauce covered boiled cauliflower) or offend them with “Squaw Corn,”
(A skillet concoction of bacon,eggs, and canned creamed corn that would disgust a Native American quicker than the “R” word that football team uses), check pages 422 and 423.

Before Martha Stewart, before Rachel Ray, before Betty Friedan, Betty Crocker reigned –
a dinner roll model, a souper star. In my search for a patty pan squash recipe, I began to look closely and critically at the cook book’s familiar, sauce spattered pages. And there it unfolded, like raw jelly-roll dough on a greased cookie sheet, a glimpse of the American woman over 50 years ago. I grinned, at first, at the retro illustrations and the preachy Home Ec/ Ladies Auxiliary tone of the text.
“Bake cake or cookies while washing dishes or cooking dinner.”

“Have a weekly plan for scheduling such tasks as washing, ironing, baking, shopping, cleaning the refrigerator, or washing floors.”

And this gem-
“Have a hobby. Garden, paint pictures, look through magazines for home planning ideas, read a good book, or attend club meetings. Be interested-and you’ll always be interesting!”

The grin gave way to a teeth grinding grimace.

And the pictures- They’re far  more  disquieting than quaint. There are dozens of Betty Crocker Cook Book illustrations of women stirring, saucing, and sautéing their little hearts out, while attired in cocktail dresses, pearls and little frilly aprons.  And in the background, the man of the house with hands clasped behind his back to avoid any suggestion that he might be Heaven Forbid! helping with kitchen chores, beams his avuncular approval at his little woman who (fond pat on the head) really knows the way to a man’s heart. (She’d better! To the moon, Alice!)

And then I came to page 14!  Page 14 is titled, “Kitchen Know -How.” Above a list of common recipe ingredients which may be substituted for others in  an “emergency”, is a drawing of a manicured housewife, all dolled up in a matching necklace and earring set, watching nervously from  the window. A group of executive types in hats and topcoats  are approaching the house.
It’s the hackneyed plot of  many a black and white, small screen sit-com:

Hubby is bringing the boss and a business buddy home…for dinner…at the last minute.

ACTION!
Wife: Heavens to Betsey! What will I do? I’m all out of buttermilk for the biscuits and cornstarch for the gravy. And the dog just knocked over my floral centerpiece!

Husband: (Chest puffed out boastfully)  Yes indeed, Mr. Bigster, my little bride can whip up a banquet in the blink of an eye. You’ll have a feast to remember. (Deep manly chuckle)

FX : The film speeds up to show the frantic housewife measuring, sifting, kneading, chopping, frying, whipping, straining, mixing, ladling, sprinkling, and wiping.
Just as she collapses onto a kitchen stool, husband and guests enter.

Husband: Honey, I’m home!
(Cue full-out laugh track.)

And that’s not all.
On the same page, another illustration.  This time, the happy housewife, again in cocktail dress, pearls, and frilly apron, is checking a recipe and punching numbers into the 60’s version of an ipad – a room sized data processing machine!
The title says it all, “If you are a Good Mathematician you may safely…Reduce Recipes and Increase Recipes.”
Did you catch the “If?”
My goodness! A dressed-up domestic dolly just couldn’t do hard math like multiplying and dividing in her pretty little head, now could she?  I mean, really! Math is man’s work.
And the idea of a woman with the brains to operate data processing equipment- why that’s like gals knowing how to drive…Did ya hear the one about the woman driver, the pig, and the fire hydrant?  Guffaw!
Grimace! Grimace!

Hey, 1961! You can have your cook book and your ladies last – breakfastlunchanddinner first  lifestyle back.
Give me high-fiber, low fat, gluten free, whole grain, microwaveable , lactose intolerant living any day!  Hooray for now when with the exception of Deep South Congressman and some other Neanderthal types, the idea that a woman has a mind, not just a mop and a menu has ceased to shock.
We may not all be Hillary, Mary,Michelle, Sheryl, Indra, or Oprah (to name a few of Forbes magazine’s “100 Most Powerful Women”), but in 53 years, many of us have broken through the scrubbed and polished homebetterbewhereyourheartis ceiling.

Oh, and about the patty pan squash…I may not be a “Good Mathematician,” but I “safely” found a recipe on the internet.

Betty, dearest, you’ve got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do!

Written by: Ronni Sims on June 13, 2014.