American and Australian post-war culinary culture : Betty Crocker and Betty King - her Australian lookalike

In the early 1950s, home economist Betty King was invented by registered Australian company, World Foods Pty. Ltd. Modelledon America’s Betty Crocker, a ‘live trademark’ designed to put a human face on large food corporations and attract and teach women to use new appliances and packet mixes (Schapiro 2004:178), Betty King marketed new processed American foods to Australian housewives. Whilst recognising the impact of post war migration from Europe on its food culture and the creation of its national cuisine, Australian collective memory prefers to ignore the impact of America in this period. This paper uses a culinary example to examine how Australian companies adopted sophisticated American marketing methods to promote new American manufactured foods to Australian housewives. It argues that in this way American convenience foods, recipes and cooking techniques, made their way into our cuisine.