Shore Dinner

It's worth clicking through to appreciate the expressions on the people, at larger size.

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 07, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Cannibalism, Food, Myths and Fairytales, 1960s

Attempts record for fasting

Raymond Tac begins attempt to set world record for fasting

February 1931: Fifty days into a fasting contest, Alf Wilson, of England, had to withdraw from the contest on the advice of his doctor. This left Raymond Tac, of New Zealand, the winner.

However, Tac was eager to keep fasting. So soon after he launched into an attempt to break his personal record of going ninety days and four hours without food — which apparently, at the time, was also a world record.

Tac sealed himself behind a glass wall, through which spectators could view him, having announced that he would live for over three months with mineral water and cigarettes as his only nourishment.

Unfortunately I don't know if Tac succeeded in his attempt to break his record. I haven't been able to find any reports about it. In fact, it's difficult to know what the world record for fasting is since Guinness doesn't maintain an official record for that activity, and there's a number of different claims to the title.

Reno Gazette Journal - Feb 18, 1931

Manitowoc Herald Times - Mar 3, 1931

Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 06, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Food, World Records, 1930s

Follies of the Madmen #294

My favorite part is when this fellow puts his clasped hands to his cheek like a maiden about to faint.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 30, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Food, Stereotypes and Cliches, 1950s

Dessert-Smashing Artist

Artist Mar Cuervo has created an art installation in which she destroys various desserts (cookies, marshmallow peeps, chocolate rabbits, cupcakes, etc.) by smashing them with her hand. She explains:







Gallagher comes to mind as one possible source of inspiration. Perhaps also that woman who smashes her face into bread.

via konbini.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 23, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Art, Food

Inedible Egg Products

Original article here.

Even after reading this article about the big change in export rules for inedible egg products that occured in 1983, I still have no idea what these products are, or what they are used for.

Apparently, the baffling subject is still being thrashed out by the USDA thirty years later.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 17, 2016 - Comments (10)
Category: Food, Eggs, 1980s, Twenty-first Century

Gold & Fizdale

A gay couple who were also a professional piano duo playing classical music, while at the same time writing a food column for Vogue and publishing a cookbook? Nothing weird here, move along now!

Posted By: Paul - Mon Sep 12, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Food, Music, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1980s

UFO Noodles

Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 04, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Aliens, Business, Advertising, Food, Pop Art, Surrealism, Science Fiction, Asia

The Pepsi Cola Shopping Spree of 1964 and 1965

Why don't we have these contests anymore?





Original ad here.



Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Aug 30, 2016 - Comments (8)
Category: Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Family, Food, Advertising, Freebies, Come-ons and Loss Leaders, 1960s

Coco Cod:  Worst Flavor Mashup Ever?

Original ad here.



Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Aug 21, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Food, Advertising, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Children, 1920s

Cockroach Milk

Diploptera punctata, aka the Pacific Beetle Cockroach, is the only known viviparous cockroach, which means that its offspring develop inside its body before it gives birth to them. It bears live young.

While its babies are growing, it nourishes them with a milk protein crystal. Some doctors in India think this cockroach milk crystal would make a "fantastic" protein supplement for humans, since it contains three times the energy of an equivalent mass of dairy milk.

Dr. Subramanian Ramaswamy extols its virtues, "It's time-released food. If you need food that is calorifically high, that is time released, and food that is complete — this is it."

More: Times of India, International Union of Crystallography Journal

Diploptera punctata

Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 03, 2016 - Comments (8)
Category: Food, Insects and Spiders