according to the publisher:"There was a time when customized meat forks and devices with specialized slicing action were the marks of a well-equipped kitchen. Conscious cooks in the 1950s equipped their drawers and cupboards with the latest and greatest doohickeys, thingamajigs, and must-have products. From the Saucy Stovetop Butter Melter to the Chop-o-Matic, if there was a vegetable to chop or meat to be carved, there was a device to make it better and easier! Atomic Kitchen presents a gallery of gadgets, features, and cooking devices that appeared and, in some cases, disappeared during the creative cooking of the 1950s. Accompanied by vibrant, original packaging and vintage advertisements, you'll marvel at the ingenuity of the minds that brought you the Weenie Wheel, Bean-X Bean Slicer, Cookie Gun, and much more."
what's most puzzling (and simultaneously striking) is the word, "atomic." how can a word that originally connoted mass human destruction on a catacylsmic level suddenly be used to casually talk about spaces within the home - a private, closed space where the family believed it was kept safe from the unfamiliar world outside? how might the home be interpreted as a symbol of maintaining domestic, national security in the face of a potential nuclear attack from the soviet union? at what point does "atomic" signal "kitsch," the mushroom cloud become a wearable vestige of the masses that were excluded from the firsthand horrors of hiroshima and nagasaki?
No comments:
Post a Comment