Twentieth-century technological innovations altered cooking and eating habits in American kitchens. Manufacturers of refrigerators, freezers, electric stoves and ovens, and microwaves touted their devices as “modern” tools whose ease and convenience would improve lives. Advertising cookbooks by food producers and appliance manufacturers promoted their products by offering consumers instructions and recipes on using new foods, implements, or equipment.

However, despite this propaganda, not all technology enhanced the dining experience. Mississippi native bluesman Magic Slim complained: “I’ve got a TV woman, Lord she fixes me TV dinners all the time, I ate so many TV dinners almost about to drive me out of my mind, Anything is better than a TV dinner, I’d rather have a little cornbread and rice.”

See more advertising cookbooks from our collections in eGrove

In the display case:

• Coldspot: the pace setter for modern home conveniences: recipes, menus, household hints / Keller-Crescent Company
• Chafing Dish Possibilities / Fannie Merritt Farmer
• Pyrex prize recipes
• Electric cooking with your Hotpoint automatic range / Hotpoint, Inc.
• Carefree cooking ... Electrically / Edison Electric Institute
• Cook the modern way with the Gibson automatic electric range / Gibson Refrigerator Co.

• Wonders of Microwave Cooking / LSU Cooperative Extension Service
• Hamilton Beach liqui-blender : instructions and tested recipes/ Hamilton Beach Company
• "What Makes Freezer Living Good Living?" (from Freezer living is good living with Coldspot / Sears, Roebuck and Co.)
• T.V. Dinner Blues / Magic Slim & The Teardrops

• Royal baker and pastry cook : a manual of practical receipts for home baking and cooking / Royal Baking Powder Company
• Want something different? : 48 new Jell-o entrées relishes salads desserts/ Jell-O Company
• Souped up recipes from Lipton : tested recipes / from the Lipton Kitchens
• 7-Up goes to a party! : recipes for barbecues, guest dinners, open houses, holiday events / Seven-Up Corporation
• Magical desserts with Whip'n Chill deluxe dessert mix/ General Foods Corporation
• Arm & Hammer Soda Book of Valuable Recipes & Useful Information (1908)