“Mention SHORTCAKE… and even the men become interested in this new modern method of cooking.”
This wonderful ad, which I found in my copy of the June 1929 issue of the Women’s Home Companion, has a lot of things that make it worth a look. First, there is the great illustration and color. Second, there is an old-fashioned strawberry shortcake recipe that looks super easy to follow. And third, the message of the ad, which echoes what many of the magazines of the time often suggested, the fact that it was natural for “the man of the house” to dictate a lot of what the woman cooked or how things were done around the house. Here it is treated in a bit of a humorous manner:
“In fact, that’s the only danger about talking about strawberry shortcake and this new modern way of cooking with a choice salad oil.
Because once the man of the house discovers that it’s easy and convenient to make shortcake this way – and discovers also how more than usually good to eat it is – he is going to demand it more often than ever…”
“Wesson Oil, you know, is pure and wholesome. It’s light in color – crystal clear – and exquisitely delicate in flavor. And it gives to whatever you bake with it – cake, muffins, biscuit, cookies, waffles, pie crust – that light, delicate, fine-textured quality that you expect from anything so fine and delicately flavored and good-to-eat as Wesson Oil itself.”
The complete Wesson Oil ad
But regardless, the recipe itself does look pretty simple and quick. It’s interesting to me that the recipe for the cakes includes no sugar at all – that is found only in the sugared berries that we are told to cover the shortcake with. So if you’d like to try your hand at an old-fashioned, vintage dessert, this might be a good one. The recipe is as follows:
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