MAD

MID 20th CENTURY FOOD a peculiar place the past  from weird & wonderful 1950s - 1980s cookbooks

[madmeals]

[madmeals]

Mid Century Modern crockery collection, National Gallery of Victoria

[bookofwonders]

The Scuffletown, Virginia, wine appreciation and racquetball society prepare for take-off.

[grooveland]

[bilbao-song]

Better Homes and Gardens, 1977.

[danismm]

Portable Globe House for Well-Rounded Living, 1961 

[madmeals]

IKEA food hall; it’s a throwback to a midcentury department store cafeteria. Supergraphics / Marimekko look to the Cider Äpple (sparkling apple juice really, IKEA used to sell alcohol but not any more).

[madmeals]

Before shots of houses I'm working on.

[design-is-fine]

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Frankfurt Kitchen, introduced 1927. Photo: Anja Jahn, Museum für Angewandte Kunst 

The museum shows a newly renovated „Frankfurter Küche“, one of the first fitted kitchens. The austrian architect (the first one of her country) designed it for the social housing project „Das Neue Frankfurt“ by Ernst May, 30 variants were available, no larger than six to seven sq.m., over 10.000 units were made. Schütte-Lihotzky had a „kitchen lab“ in mind. The model on show is a further developed version, including a lockable drawer to keep the household money. The usability was once stated at 30 to 35 years, this one worked for 90 years.

[madmeals]

Salad газет Not retro despite the look. UZBEK CUISINE, O'QITUVCHI NMIU 2011

[oldschoolsciencefiction]

Tired of the drudgery of lugging out that three pound cookbook you bought for $2.50? The Late Retrofuture has you covered with this 100 pound Honeywell H316 kitchen computer.

For the paltry sum of $10,000 – close to $80,000 in 2017 dollars – you can have the Kitchen of the Future. Just take the two week course that teaches you how to input data using toggle switches – I’m not making this up – and you can kiss that cheap and practical cookbook goodbye.

[oldschoolsciencefiction]

Look at this late-Retrofuture domestic concept: the “Kitchen Satellite”. The design is by Luigi Colani, a man with an Italian-sounding name who is a German of Kurdish descent.

As an industrial designer, Colani knew what the public wanted in a kitchen: terrifically cramped, orange, plastic, and spherical. Inexplicably, this didn’t catch on.

I bet there’s a tiny cabinet in there somewhere with a canister of Tang.

[adelphe]

Ladies’ Home Journal vol. LXVII no. 1, January 1951

[madmeals]

40s Art Deco Streamline Moderne house in Melbourne, ground floor was a function centre, don't know who designed it.

[madmeals]

New kitchen but in 50s style, a bit incongruous in a renovated 40s streamline moderne art deco house, but fun.

[madmeals]

Chestnuts suck me in, then I regret buying them, anticipating burnt fingers peeling them. These were sold to me as an easy peel chestnut, and they were! Only slightly burnt fingers. Stephanie Alexander's Cooks Companion is my go to cookbook when I buy something novel. Published 1996 so a bit younger than mid century.

[madmeals]

Borrowed some 80s restaurant guides, seeing which restaurants are still open now.

The Food Lovers Guide to France, Patricia Wells, 1984 Lou Marques restaurant, Hôtel Jules César, Arles then and now.