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“The Help,” Julia Child, Betty Friedan: What did food look like in 1963?
The food depicted in “The Help” — from ambrosia salad and deviled eggs at bridge club to Minny’s special chocolate pie and fried chicken — paints a vivid picture of food in the South in 1963.
And boy does the food look good. When I saw the movie a few weeks ago so I could write the review for tomorrow’s paper (In short? I loved it.), I left the theater with a major craving for fried chicken, but a few days later, I was thinking about the bigger picture of food in 1963, the year the movie is set.
That’s the same year that Julia Child made her television debut in “The French Chef” and Betty Friedan made the (at the time) blasphemous declaration that a woman’s place was not in the kitchen in “The Feminine Mystique.”
This was a turning point for food and cooking as we know it, but I wasn’t around to experience it myself, so I want to know: What do you remember about food in 1963?
What you remember eating, cooking or being served; who cooked it, where they got the ingredients and what dishes from that year still grace your table. I’ll round up the responses for a post next week on Relish Austin, and you can either leave a comment here or email your stories and memories to abroyles@statesman.com.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: Chewing the fat
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By Pam Picard
August 9, 2011 4:53 PM | Link to this
I grew up in South Louisiana near Lake Charles. Everything that graced our table was informed by Cajun, French Creole or East Texas culture (if East Texas can be said to have culture.)
My mamma was an indifferent and unimaginative cook. But man my Daddy could put on a spread.
Southern fried chicken. Fried shrimp. Fried catfish. Hush puppies. Oysters on the half shell. Oysters rockefeller. Seafood jambalaya. Chicken pot pie. Baked beans with bacon and molasses. Barbecue brisket. Barbecue chicken. Barbecue sausage. Barbecue sauce to die for. Chili. Baked ham. Chicken gumbo. Seafood gumbo. Okra gumbo. Crawfish etouffee. Turtle soup. Tuna casserole. Fish courtbouillon.
“Dirty rice.” Cornbread dressing. Oyster dressing. Baked sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Not to be outdone by candied yams. Red beans. String bean casserole. Grits. Garlic cheese grits. Turnip greens. Mustard greens. Macque choux made with fresh corn. Lima beans. Black eyed peas. And once a year I forced myself to eat cabbage - money luck at New Year’s.
Ambrosia. Cheese balls. Cheese rolls. Cheese straws. Lots of jello molds with fruit cocktail and mini marshmallows. LOL
Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Chess Pie. Pecan Pie. Lemon Meringue Pie (my specialty.) Peach cobbler. Blackberry cobbler. Lemon pound cake. Cheesecake.
I still have a Louisiana River Road Cookbook published by the Junior League in1963. My arteries are closing up just reading it.
Let me know if I can help further. I suspect I’m the only relic in the Austin Bloggers group who was there for both the emergence of both Julia Child and Betty Friedan. :-))
By Curt
August 9, 2011 8:08 PM | Link to this
I was 8 years old in 1963 living in San Antonio, Texas.
My mother always made us hot breakfasts. Oatmeal and pancakes with pecans and fresh fruit were a tradition. One thing we ate a lot of as a side dish at supper, and along with breakfast was boiled prunes. (With the pit)
Rarely did we eat fast food, just good old meat and potatoes type meals.
By Ann Denkler
August 10, 2011 8:19 AM | Link to this
I was 6 years old. I remember snacks of white wonder bread with margarine and sugar, lots of jello salads, tuna casserole and apple Brown Betty for dessert. All the casseroles used Campbell’s soups. We’ve come a long way baby!
By staff
August 10, 2011 10:03 AM | Link to this
Pam, Curt and Ann:
Thank you so much for sharing your food memories! I’ve gotten some good emails, too, so this is shaping up to be a nice post for next week.
By Martha Kubala
August 11, 2011 1:35 PM | Link to this
Since I was busy getting married in 1963, I was just beginning to cook & wasn’t doing a good job of the basics, much less anything special. But I remember my mom was making jalapeno cornbread as a specialty dish in Port Neches, TX, and I loved it. I have her recipe; also, the Lakeway cookbook has 2 recipes. Unfortunately, I don’t make it now because my husband doesn’t like cornbread (imagine that!).