The Man Who Taught Newfoundland How To Can

Published on May 18, 2018May 24, 2018 by In The Vintage Kitchen4 Comments

It’s been known by names such as The Island of Cod, Vinland, Land of the Fish and Terre Neuve. You’ll know it as Newfoundland. Walter Winfred Chenoweth knew it as the island of the can. Or the canning jar to be specific. That’s where he taught local inhabitants how to preserve harvests from the garden and the sea in glass jars for future consumption.

Walter Chenoweth (1872 -1945) was a professor and department head of Horticultural Manufactures at Massachusetts Agricultural College, now known as the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Born in Grundy County, Missouri in 1872, Walter spent his entire professional career, researching, testing and educating others on agriculture and the science of growing fruit, mostly at MAC where he was a member of the staff from 1912-1941.

Walter hard at work in the lab. Photo courtesy of the Special Collections Library at the University of Massachusetts

Through years of trial and error, scientific study and hands-on testing, Walter became an expert in the area of food sciences, especially food preservation. In 1929, he went overseas to Newfoundland where he set up canning stations and taught classes to local inhabitants and British colonizers.

Newfoundland in the early 1900’s. Photo courtesy of the Town of St. Anthony

At the time of Walter’s trip, Newfoundland was in peril. Suffering drastically from results of the Great Depression and a financially crippled local government, the people of Newfoundland were in a state of crisis. The train line that ran through the province ate up all the government’s resources. Vast holes were poked in the salt cod industry – Newfoundland’s main export- via trade halts due to the Depression and via competition from other countries like Iceland, who were developing more efficient fishing methods. These two factors meant that the local government couldn’t take care of its people financially and the sea couldn’t keep its villages afloat as far as income.

Early 20th-century travel photographs of Newfoundland. Photo Courtesy of the Town of St. Anthony.

Collaborating with British medical doctor Wilfred Grenfell (1865-1940) who was trying to stop the spread of contagious diseases and malnutrition in Newfoundland’s fishing villages, Walter Chenoweth lent aid in the best way he knew how. Through preservation. For a year, Walter worked to make local inhabitants and newcomers more self-sufficient through food storage. By setting up canning station facilities around the island he taught all who were willing to learn how to can fruits, vegetables, fish, meat and poultry so that no food would be wasted or left behind to spoil.

This was an important skill for islanders to master in their subarctic climate. With a slim gardening window of just 2-3 months, planting, growing, harvesting and preserving had to be done quickly and correctly to ensure beneficial results. Handled inappropriately, jarred foods could cause serious illness and even death due to bacteria. Stressing proper sterilization methods and practices to ensure safe food preservation, Walter taught islanders every aspect of canning from equipment to techniques, precautions to recipes.

Vintage Wheaton canning jar available in the shop.

In addition to common jarred items like wild blueberry jam and pickled vegetables, Walter also taught the islanders how to can freshly caught fish, boiled chicken, and roasted meat. These teachings came at a fortuitous time. Two years later, after Walter was back home in Massachusetts, two-thirds of island workers would become unemployed due to the unstable trade markets and the local government’s lack of proper financial planning. Food would become scarce, morale would plummet and families would resort to inventive measures in order to stay alive. Canning skills would become an important component of survival.

Trading became an active currency when money was scarce. Here, families trade household items for clothes from a Grenfell mission nurse. Photo courtesy of thetelegram.com

During that time of island-wide poverty and hunger, the only formal aid that would be offered by the local government was a meager food dole consisting of molasses, flour, cornmeal, fatback, split peas, and cocoa. This care package provided only half of a person’s daily caloric intake. Preserved food helped bridge the gap between the dole and starvation. Eventually, through fortitude and endurance, the island got back on its feet and money started flowing again into communities thanks to jobs and resources needed for WWII.

When Walter returned back home to Amherst, he compiled fifteen years of hands-on experience into a book called Food Preservation, which he published in 1930…

Part cookbook, part instructional guide and part natural science lesson it contained all aspects of the food canning process beginning with the understanding of how bacteria grew in 1765…

Lazzaro Spallanzani…an Italian priest, biologist and physiologist who discovered that air trapped in glass tubes caused the growth of bacteria.

and how that led to the eventual creation of foods kept in sealed shelf-stable jars. In between the anatomy of vegetables, lists of equipment, instructions on canning methods, and advice on troubleshooting, shelving considerations, and cleanliness factors, Walter included a host of recipes explaining how to preserve summer’s bounty for next winter’s nourishment. He explained how to build canning stations, storage rooms and simple farm factories to accommodate production. Everything from cider to syrup, carrots to kerosine, fruits to fermentation were tackled. At the time of publication, Food Preservation was the most concise book ever written on the topic of canning and was so thorough it became the go-to teaching tool in food science classrooms for decades.

Table of Contents for Food Preservation by W.W. Chenoweth

A once celebrated, but now forgotten pioneer in his field, Walter’s contributions to the people of Newfoundland has been long overshadowed by the lifetime efforts of Dr. Grenfell. It’s easy to understand how that happened – Grenfell made a HUGE impact on the island by building hospitals and schools and by bringing worldwide attention to the hardships of an isolated community.

Dr. Grenfell and his wife, Anne. photo courtesy of Grenfell Historic Properties.

Walter’s story in Newfoundland may not have been as lengthy nor as flashy as Grenfell’s but, like the products Walter represented, he gave the gift of long-term sustenance to a sea-island in need of a salve. What’s wonderful about a jar of pickled beets or canned tomatoes from last summer? It’s not just an example of previous effort spent, it’s a symbol of security, an innate assurance that the past is vital to the future. That’s what Walter really gave the people of Newfoundland in their darkest hours – a promise that good things were coming soon.

Walter Winfred Chenoweth. Image courtesy of Credo Library at the the University of Massachusetts Amherst

Cheers to Walter for teaching us how to enjoy our harvests year round and to the people of Newfoundland for never giving up.

—

Find Walter’s Food Preservation book in the shop here. Find the vintage Wheaton canning jar featured in this post here.

Gender Discrimination in the 1940s: Why a Correspondent Turned From War to Cookbooks

Published on March 7, 2018July 10, 2022 by In The Vintage Kitchen15 Comments

In Sweden, in 1939, as Nazi troops began their invasion of Norway, a young American journalist staying in Stockholm began delivering eyewitness accounts of the historic event. She was 28 years old and the only correspondent in that section of the world broadcasting live stories for CBS Radio. Her name was Betty Wason and her vantage point was intimate. Her reports were well-written, authentic, and timely in the transmission of details. She was brave, dedicated, and determined, eventually getting close to Nazi troops in Norway in order to tell the stories of wounded British soldiers and all that they had seen. She was a woman alone in a war zone, a thoughtful writer in a chaotic environment, and a new traveler out discovering foreign lands. But for all the things Betty was, there was one thing she wasn’t. She was not a man.

And that affected everything.

Gender discrimination runs rampant in every field throughout history, except maybe one…. radio news broadcasting in the 1930s and the 1940s. Mainly because there wasn’t any argument against the discrimination. Things were simply done and not done and there were rules to abide by. One of those rules concerned women. Women simply did not, were not, allowed to read the news over the air. It was firmly believed that the feminine register could not convey the seriousness and importance of hard-hitting news stories. Instead, women’s voices were relegated only to entertainment-type shows… cooking lessons, homemaking stories, commercial ads and literature readings. Anything more serious or historically significant was left up to men to communicate on-air. This proved a problem, for our gal Betty.

Growing up in Indiana in the 1920s, Betty was a creative spirit from the start with interests in music, art and fashion design. After graduating from Perdue University with a degree in home economics in the early 1930s, Betty bounced around a few jobs in her home state before realizing she wanted a more exotic life than Indiana could provide. As a young woman full of vivaciousness and adventure and a desire to see the world, Betty went to New York and settled into a two-year job working at McCall’s magazine. But even in the exciting city of New York, her wanderlust could not be quelled. Europe was calling and Betty wanted to travel.

Vintage 1930’s travel posters to Czechoslovakia show the beauty and attraction of foreign travel. This was one of the countries Betty would visit and report from.

Not having the financial means to live abroad without working, Betty contacted TransRadio Press who was willing to pay young journalists overseas for eyewitness stories concerning World War II. A brief stint in Europe trying to make a go of it as a correspondent didn’t yield enough money for Betty to live on, so she came back to New York only to try again less than a year later. On her second go-around though, she worked with CBS who was desperate to get any and all international news they could get their hands on in regards to the war. That’s when Betty headed to Sweden, just before Hitler arrived in Norway.

Betty’s contact at CBS was Paul White who was in charge of news broadcasting.

There were many male war correspondents living and working overseas at this time, but they were mainly focused on print pieces suitable for newspapers and magazine readers. Radio was becoming more and more popular in terms of delivering news, but the seasoned overseas reporters, so focused on their writing, were out of the loop on the fact that radio news was rising in popularity. There was a niche market blooming in quick, short news briefs for ears instead of eyes and Betty saw an opportunity to be a part of it.

Since Betty was the only correspondent in the Scandinavian region, she was recording and filing her own reports for CBS and being paid on a weekly basis. But quickly, CBS determined that Betty’s voice was a problem (too light, too feminine, too high in pitch). It was believed, even in times of war, especially in times of war, that radio listeners didn’t want to hear a delicate voice reporting on death and destruction. Her reporting content was strong though, so CBS said that she had to find a male counterpart to step in as the voice in front of her work.

Betty was upset that she couldn’t speak the words that she was writing, but she wanted to keep her job, so she trained Winston Burdett, an American newly arrived in Stockholm, in the art of journalism for a radio audience, and he read her reports for her. Incidentally, she trained Burdett so well that she wound up working herself right out of Sweden. Burdett was after all a man and now (thanks to Betty) a good broadcaster.

Winston went on to have a lengthy career as a broadcast journalist at CBS. In 1955, he admitted to being a communist spy during the 1930s and 1940s when Betty worked with him.

Trying to find another unique vantage point like she had in Stockholm, Betty went to the Balkan Islands, and to Turkey before settling in Greece where she again sent reports home to CBS. Again, CBS said she needed a male counterpart to vocally relay her stories. And again Betty complied, this time working with a male Embassy secretary, who, at least, introduced himself on-air as “Phil Brown speaking for Betty Wason.”

Betty Wason in Greece. She made her own uniform to appear more professional since there was no dress code for correspondents. Photo courtesy of Hard News: Women in Broadcast Journalism.

As the Nazis occupied Greece, Betty’s bravery was called upon again as she reported eyewitness occurrences on a regular basis through her Embassy mouthpiece. While there, she endured house arrest under Nazi supervision for two months before the regime flew her and several other journalists to Europe for questioning. Concerned that Betty might be a spy, the Nazis detained her for an additional week by herself before eventually allowing her to fly back home to the US, where she was greeted with fanfare for having endured captivity and detainment.

Invigorated by the attention she received upon returning home and by the contributions she had made to broadcast journalism overseas, Betty naturally went to the CBS offices in New York to inquire after more work or a new assignment. Shockingly, executives at CBS refused to acknowledge that she played any significant part in the broadcasting realm overseas and denounced her requests for more story assignments. In an instant, Betty was dismissed like she had never been a part of the reporting team in the first place. Immediately, her work was marginalized even though CBS had been using her content repeatedly throughout the war, finding it valuable enough at the time to pay her for it. But upon Betty’s return, none of that seemed to matter. Had Betty been a man she would have been offered a position like Winston Burdett or handed a new assignment and sent to another corner of the globe. She would have been encouraged and supported by her colleagues and eventually been able to dispel the ridiculous notion that women couldn’t vocally report the news. But that didn’t happen.

After being turned away by CBS, Betty left New York and went on to Washinton DC, where she joined forces with other women in broadcasting, collaborating on various news shows and continuing on with her writing. Those few years of dangerous foreign reporting and her budding career of broadcast journalism didn’t turn out the way Betty expected, but ultimately, good things came out of this redirection in her life. Her ability to believe in her own talents and to creatively work around roadblocks with persistence and perseverance led her to a fulfilling career as a writer, on her own terms.

A sampling of Betty’s cookbooks published from the 1950s-1980s

Inspired by her travels and her curiosity to learn more about local cultures and customs, Betty was devoted to exploring the history and the food scene in all the countries she visited, each eventually yielding their own distinct cookbook. Through her explorations in The Art of Spanish Cooking, The Art of German Cooking… of Vegetable Cooking… of Mediterranean Cooking… Betty wanted readers to experience the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of her favorite places. That genuine, awestruck wonder led to over 20 beautifully written books that pull readers (and home cooks!) in from page one…

How I wish I were about to fly to Greece again, to relive once more that special thrill of seeing from the sky the ragged ochre shoreline with its-jewel-like border of turqouise merging into the royal blue of the Aegean…(from the introduction of her Greek cookbook)

In the Vintage Kitchen, we were introduced to Betty through her Greek cookbook simply titled Betty Wason’s Greek Cookbook, a stained and splattered edition worthy of its adventurous war correspondent author.

If a cookbook could ever be a travel guide, it would be Betty’s style of approaching food. Not only does she include authentic recipes, but she writes about them with the eye of a curious tourist learning a country in detail. In her Greek Cookbook, published in 1969, in addition to 200 recipes, she also included a state-by-state reference guide on where to buy authentic Greek ingredients in the US, a glossary of Greek terms, and special tips and tricks to make sure that the cooking experience remained as easily replicated as possible.

Yesterday, it was Betty’s birthday and today it is International Women’s Day. We couldn’t think of a better post to publish than this one on the forgotten lady of broadcast journalism and now the remembered author of important vintage cookbooks. In celebration, we made her recipe for Spanakopeta from her Greek cookbook. With spinach now coming into season, it is an ideal dish for Spring and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser for upcoming holidays like Easter and Mother’s Day. If you have never had Spanakopeta before, it is similar to quiche…. a mixture of cheese and spinach and herbs stuffed between two layers of phyllo dough.

Betty Wason’s recipe for Spanakopeta, A Greek version of Spinach Pie

It’s light in texture and constitution so it can be enjoyed as a side dish or a small dinner or a brunch accompaniment. Betty suggested that it could be served hot or at room temperature, which makes picnic basketing an option too. It reheats well and can sit in the fridge for a few days without getting soggy so if you are a make-ahead meal planner this recipe will be effortlessly easy and valuable.

Betty Wason’s SPANAKOPETA

Serves 6

12 phyllo pastry sheets

2 pounds fresh or frozen spinach (we used fresh)

1 teaspoon fresh dill, minced and chopped

2 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced

Salt to taste (optional)

2 eggs

1/2 lb. Gruyere-type cheese, feta cheese or dry pot cheese (* see notes)

1/2 cup melted butter or olive oil (we combined 1/4 cup of each)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

If frozen spinach is used, cook as directed on package and drain well. If fresh spinach is used, wash and clean the leaves to remove any traces of dirt and pat dry. Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Do not add any butter, oil or water to the pan. Working in batches, add as many large handfuls of spinach as will fit reasonably in the pan and toss with a wooden spoon until all spinach is wilted (about 2-3 minutes per batch). You may have to do this step in several batches depending on the size of your pan. Spread each cooked batch of spinach out on a cookie sheet to cool.

Once all the spinach is cooked, it will look like this…

At this point, you’ll need to wring as much water out of the spinach as possible. The easiest way to do this is to grab clumps in your hand and wring them out forming tightly packed meatball-like shapes. The drier the spinach the better so wring as much water out as you can.

Next, on a cutting board roughly chop each of the spinach balls. Mix in the dill, parsley, and salt to taste and toss until combined. I found there to be enough natural salt in the spinach and the cheese, so we didn’t add any extra salt to this dish at all, but season it to your preference.

Add one egg to the spinach and herbs and toss to combine. Grate the cheese. We can only find Gruyere at our grocery store occasionally, so I used Danish Fontina which is similar. Other options are Jarlsberg, Swiss or Feta.

Add the second egg to the grated cheese and mix to combine.

Butter a square 9×9 baking dish and place 6 sheets of phyllo pastry in the bottom. Brush each sheet with the olive oil and/or butter. Then add the spinach, and top with the cheese.

Cover with six more sheets of phyllo, each brushed in butter/olive oil. Don’t forget to brush the top layer.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes until pastry is golden. Remove from the oven, let cool until the dish can be handled,

then turn out upside down on a baking sheet and return it to the oven so that the undercrust can become crisp and golden (about 15-20 minutes).

Remove from the oven, flip back over and cut into squares. Serve while hot or wait for it to cool to room temperature. We served our spanakopeta with a glass of sauvignon blanc and a simple side salad tossed in olive oil and lemon juice. Other additional sides that would be lovely with this include hard-boiled eggs, olives, mixed nuts, prosciutto, or roasted sweet potatoes.

Light, airy, and full of subtle flavors that are a little bit nutty (the cheese), a little bit zesty (the herbs) and a little bit earthy (the spinach), Betty’s spanakopeta is packed full of good, healthy nutrients, providing a simple introduction to the lovely world of Greek food.

It’s a good-for-your-spirit food mirroring Betty’s healthy outlook on life. She cast aside all the bitterness and resentment that could have filled her up in the post-CBS days and instead stuffed her life full of light, bright joy that enriched her spirit and fed her soul. Cheers and happy birthday to Betty for continuing to inspire women around the world with your writing.

Interested in learning more about Betty and her Greek recipes? Find her cookbook in the Vintage Kitchen shop here.

Cocktails and A Movie: Discussing Censorship, Bar Nuts and Breen on the Set of Casablanca

Published on October 13, 2017January 14, 2022 by In The Vintage Kitchen15 Comments

This week’s post has us traveling all the way back to a cosmopolitan city in exotic 1940s North Africa, thanks to a lovely invitation from the Pure Entertainment Preservation Society. This weekend, October 13th – 15th marks the date of the Great Breening Blogathon featuring Joseph Breen, an influential, but seldom remembered figure in filmmaking during the glamorous days of old Hollywood.

Joseph was the enforcer behind the Production Code Administration, set up during the 1930s, which acted as a morality censor for all film scripts, scenes, and storylines in the motion picture industry. Bolstered by his own Catholic beliefs and the bishops who originally wrote the code, Joseph was not interested in seeing sexy, sensual imagery on the big screen and the PCA wasn’t interested in exposing such immorality to the American movie-going public. The thought of being subjected to plotlines involving extra-marital affairs, obscene language, excessive violence, or varying degrees of nudity was offensive. Family-friendly American-made films were not the place for such suggestive behavior according to Joseph and the PCA.

With line-by-line lists of can’t-do’s and won’t-permits attached to each script that the PCA reviewed, screenwriters and directors were challenged with creative ways to express characters’ motives and actions while also keeping their plots plausible and compelling. How do you portray magnetic chemistry without showing a steamy, passionate kiss? How do you elude to compromising situations without showing corrupt scandals? How do you make your central location not look or sound like the most unethical, debaucherous place in the world yet still convey to watchers that shady dealings are happening right and left? And ultimately, how do you tell one of the most romantic and dramatic love stories of all time without showing anyone caught up in the physical throes of passion?

The answer is Casablanca.

Many noteworthy movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood were questioned by Joseph and the PCA. The Outlaw (Howard Hughes’ 1943 western) showed too much of Jane Russell’s cleavage; the “damn” in Rhett Butler’s famous “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” line in Gone With the Wind was flagged for unnecessary profanity; and the fact that Casablanca’s Ilsa was married at the time she first met Rick was altogether too salacious for the PCA to greenlight. All three movies managed to overcome these sticky spots eventually, but not without some major behind-the-scenes defense tactics for creative license.

The PCA and Joseph’s staunch deployment of it was frustrating but important to movie studios because it balanced political correctness with the expectations of what movie audiences wanted to see. What was considered entertaining and appropriate to movie-goers in mainstream America in the 1930s and 1940s was laughter, light-hearted romance, and noble sentiment. So if movie studios wanted to sell tickets, they had to comply with what watchers wanted to see. And the PCA was there to make sure that decorum and good manners reigned supreme as far as what was being showcased on the big screen.

On the morality level, Casablanca in particular, seemed like it was doomed from the beginning. It was set primarily in a bar, Rick’s Cafe Americain, where alcohol continuously flowed. It was fueled by desperation with characters willing to do anything and everything to garner exit visas to leave the country. It contained a smoldering, forbidden romance, murder, and contempt for government officials. All major issues when it came to the Production Code Administration.

By the time the script came back from the PCA review office, it contained several red flags and numerous notations from Joseph Breen. No bed was ever to be shown in Rick’s apartment, (such an object would have signaled an intimate encounter with Ilsa). The dubious character of Captain Renault (who was in charge of granting exit visas from Casablanca) was not allowed to verbally suggest or show that he was granting visas to women only in exchange for sex. And Rick and Ilsa’s fated love affair? Joseph found it highly immoral that Ilsa met and fell in love with Rick years before in Paris while she was married to her husband Victor Lazlo. This long-simmering love business between Ilsa and Rick had to be cleaned up in order for the movie to go on. Even though sex does sell, in conservative 1940’s America these scandelous situations were considered way too over-the-top for the eyes and minds of mainstream movie-going audiences.

The smoldering attraction between Rick and Ilsa.

So how did Casablanca’s production team manage to get around such roadblocks and ultimately propel the film towards three Academy Award wins and iconic movie status? Through good writing and good direction and good acting. So much of the storyline that seemed PCA in-appropriate – the excessive drinking, seduction, womanizing and volatile emotions were so expertly staged and nuanced that the script eventually passed approval with Joseph Breen. Once Humphrey Bogart (Rick), Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa), and Claude Rains (Captain Renault) delivered their performances there was no mistaking the precarious situations that the scriptwriters originally intended. Movie audiences still got the idea loud and clear even if wasn’t visually or audibly spelled out.

In today’s depict-anything-you-want movie plot experience, it seems so foreign to have such a morality cloud like Joseph Breen hovering over a film production. But I wonder if the beauty and ultimate success of Casablanca came in the act of being challenged to subtly hint at each impropriety. Perhaps that is what makes it timeless and still translatable in today’s cinematic scope. It leaves room for our own imaginations to sort out and further dissect the specifics of the relationships between characters.

I’m not a big fan of censoring art in any way. I think you lose the point of it then. I once lived in a town where plays were censored for language or risque content and it felt very limiting. Art is intended to provoke reaction and expand horizons so I’m not sure if Joseph Breen and I would have been on the same page in the philosophy department, but his impact on Casablanca was influential, so maybe his enforcement of the Production Code Administration ultimately helped the movie in the long-run.

For all the spicy current passing between Ilsa and Rick throughout the movie, there is not a lot of spicy food being passed around Rick’s cafe. Originally I thought it would be fun to write a dinner and a movie post and feature some aromatic Moroccan food of the likes that would have been served at Rick’s. But apparently, the main thing on the menu at Cafe Americain, the bestseller of all bestsellers, was a cocktail or two or three or half a bottle. Champagne, bourbon, scotch, gin, whiskey are present in almost every scene. Alcohol swishes and swirls and sits in glasses while Rick broods, Captain Renault schemes, and Ilsa builds courage. So in lieu of a traditional North African dinner, here in the Vintage Kitchen, we are staying true to the spirit of Casablanca by serving up a food accompaniment with this post that pairs best with your favorite cocktail…Sweet Spiced Nuts circa 1967.

This recipe comes from the vintage cookbook, A World of Nut Recipes by Morton Gil Clark and features three ingredients essential to Moroccan cooking: cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. This is a super easy recipe to make for cocktail hour, parties, or late-night snacking. The flavors are subtle, accommodating, and interesting and with nut season now in full swing, you have a variety of options to choose from. For this recipe, I used a variety of mixed nuts which included peanuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews, and Brazil nuts but pecans, pistachios, macademias, etc all would make delicious alternatives as well.

Find this cookbook available in the Vintage Kitchen shop here.

Sweet Spiced Nuts

Makes 1 Cup

1 cup nuts

1/4 cup fine granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8th teaspoon ground allspice

1/8th teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 egg (egg white part only)

Place the nuts in a small bowl and pour over them the slightly beaten whites of 1 egg. Mix so that all the nuts are evenly coated. In a separate bowl combine the sugar and spices and then toss with the nuts, mixing well again so that all the nuts are evenly coated. Spread seasoned nuts out into a single layer on a baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes. If you prefer ultra-crunchy nuts bake them about 10-15 minutes longer, but keep your eye on them so they don’t burn. Once done, let them cool on the baking sheet until ready to serve. Pair with your favorite cocktail and some lively conversation.

Pair with your favorite cocktail and some lively conversation. And while you’re at it, raise a toast to Joseph Breen, who made his mark, for better or worse, on one of the world’s most beloved movies of all times. Here’s look’n at you, Joe!

To learn more about Joe Breen and his influence on old Hollywood, catch up with other blogathon related posts here.

For more dinner and movie posts from the Vintage Kitchen, pull up a chair here.

And last but not least, find 200 more pages of interesting nut-related recipes in the World of Nut Recipes cookbook available in the shop here.

On the Set of Get Low: A Moment in the Movies

Published on March 30, 2012February 26, 2022 by In The Vintage KitchenLeave a comment

get-low-movie — Get Low movie posterTwo years ago, there was an open casting call for extras for the film, Get Low, which starred Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray and Lucas Black.

Two years ago, there was an open casting call for extras for the film, Get Low, which starred Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray and Lucas Black. Ms. Jeannie had never been an extra, so she signed up with excitement for her moment in the movies. She thought it might be a fun way to spend an afternoon, but it actually turned out to be a two full days of activity!

Day 1 involved a trip to “wardrobe” which was actually one of the film sets, Gaither Plantation, located near Atlanta.

gaither1_sissy — Gaither Plantation’s main house served as the exterior of Sissy Spacek’s house in the movie.

It was a gorgeous location!

Ms. Jeannie was on set for only ten minutes before she saw Sissy Spacek, coming out of her trailer, just feet away! While on set, the extras were asked not to bring any camera or video equipment and also asked NOT to get autographs from any of the actors.

Wardrobe was set up in one of the outbuildings on the plantation.

gaither_log — The log cabin (on the far left) was the site of wardrobe.

There, Ms. Jeannie met no-nonesense costume designer Julie Weiss, who has worked on a ton of movies including The Time Traveler’s Wife, Secretariat, Frida (see past post about this movie here), American Beauty, Steal Magnolias, Honeymoon in Vegas…so many movies that Ms. Jeannie loves!

Get Low was set in 1930’s Tennessee, so all the extras had to be authentically dressed in period clothing, makeup and hair. Julie was no exchanger of pleasantries, she was on a serious mission to get everyone in and out and dressed appropriately.

For Ms. Jeannie, Julie choose a red and navy pattern print dress, a red, navy and white plaid coat and a funny looking navy and white hat. Ms. Jeannie managed to sneak a few photos of her outfit up close. Shhh..don’t tell Julie!

getlow_wardobe1 — Lots of pattern mixing going on!

Ms. Jeannie also wore gloves and nylons. And because she wore a pair of vintage looking black loafer type shoes to her wardrobe appointment, Julie gave the thumbs up that they could worn for the movie. You can kind of see them in this picture…

getlow_wardobe2 — The 1930’s woman always wore gloves. Even in rural Tennessee!

After Ms. Jeannie’s outfit satisfied Julie, it was off to be photographed by costume department staff for the continuity files. Clothes were then hung up on hangers with names attached for next day’s shoot.

Day 2:

All the extras had to be on set at 4:30am in Crawfordville, GA which meant a super early morning drive for Ms. Jeannie.

Crawfordville is located about 2 hours east of Atlanta, and is as tiny a town as towns can get. Surprisingly, many movies have been filmed there including Sweet Home Alabama starring Reese Witherspoon.

Apparently movie companies like to film there because it’s historic main street is easily adaptable. The town is so small (population under 800) that film crews can pretty much do whatever they like, set-wise, without displacing a lot of locals.

Here are pictures of Crawfordville’s main street as it looks today…

And here is how it was transformed for the movie. Again Ms. Jeannie was a little sneaky on set with her camera!

getlow_set3 — Dirt was brought in to cover the roads.

getlow_set6 — Fake building facades were installed on one side of the street, but all the other buildings are real store fronts.

That’s Lucas Black sitting on the bench below. The Farmers & Merchant Bank is the actual real bank in Crawfordville.

getlow_set1 — Old cars really helped give it that 1930’s feel.

Many of the cars were loaned for the movie were from an antique car collector that lived nearby. Also, in the photo above, you can see a Panavision movie camera peeking out underneath the awning. Very Hollywood!

Ms. Jeannie’s role in the movie was to walk across the street carrying paper wrapped packages. Here, the crew is preparing for the busy street scene, where Ms. Jeannie will appear.

That’s Robert Duvall standing next to the cart. It’s hard to see, so here’s a close-up. He’s the one with the full beard.

In this scene, Ms. Jeannie crosses the road in front of Robert Duvall, whose hermit character has come to town for the first time in 20 years. The cart is driven by Hollywood’s famous trick mule Grace, who indeed was quite professional! Read more about her many talents here.

Ms. Jeannie had a walking partner too – a fellow extra who has made a professional career out of being an extra for the past 15 years. You can see her in the grey and green below. And that’s Robert Duvall! Up close!

It was nice to have a walking partner for company, because this one scene took about 7 hours to film. Ms. Jeannie and her partner criscrossed the street from every possible angle. It was also super windy that day, so that made some elements tricky for the crew. Julie was on set to keep everyone’s hats secured.

Pictured above is the director, Aaron Schneider talking to Robert Duval. There’s costume designer Julie, in the back left wearing the checkered sweater.

Finally, the scene was shot, and we were all off to the catering hall for dinner.

Bill Murray was the only major actor that ate with the extras. He sat, by himself, but close enough to Ms. Jeannie to make her sort of nervous. She wanted to talk to him, but she suddenly felt speechless. So, much to her disappointment, she lost all her nerve to chat. That was when it struck Ms. Jeannie…it was as awkward for Bill Murray to eat with a room full of strangers as it was for a room full of strangers to eat with Bill Murray. Ms. Jeannie could understand how it could be lonely, on the road, for an actor.

Hours later, in-between scenes, Ms. Jeannie got to personally meet Bill Murray, along with a bunch of other extras. He shook her hand and commented on what an unusual hat she was wearing. He was wearing a super tight suit. Ms. Jeannie wanted to joke about that – but she refrained!

BillMurray_GetLow — This is the outfit Bill Murray was wearing when Ms. Jeannie met him.

Now that they had established a repoire, Ms. Jeannie was hoping that she might get up her nerve to talk with him again, but unfortunately, he had left for the airport to hop a flight to California, so he could play in a golf tournament at Pebble Beach.

So Ms. Jeannie’s days spent with celebrities came to an end. After a long but magical day on set, she headed home, with the new found appreciation for actors and all those millions of unnamed extras. Weeks later, she received a $100.00 check in the mail – her day rate as an official movie extra!

Many months after that, the trailer was released…

And then the movie. And Ms. Jeannie saw that her scene actually made it in!

getlow_screencapture — Robert Duvall, Ms. Jeannie and professional extra.

To Ms. Jeannie’s surprise, costume designer Julie recreated outfits with a lot of pattern. For some reason, Ms. Jeannie thought in the 1930’s that women wore mostly solid colors. Not so! Ms. Jeannie discovered on Etsy that women in the 1930’s like this one wore a lot of pattern together. Check out her coat and dress…

vintagephoto — Vintage Photo from phunctum.

Thanks to the fabulous vintage shops on Etsy, anyone could recreate Ms. Jeannie’s movie costume with the following items…

plaidcoat2 — Vintage Black & White Plaid Coat from MarcellasExcess

dress — Vintage 1930’s Dress from Revolving Styles

shoes — 1930s Oxford Style Shoes from honeytalkvintage

gloves — 30’s Leather Riding Gloves from Freestyle Collection

The hat that Ms. Jeannie wore in the movie was really unusual. It was shaped like this one below, but it had a big white bow that ran across the front and was floppy in back like a beret. No wonder Bill Murray commented on it!

hat — 1940’s High Hat from poppycockvintage

Get Bill Murray’s funeral director look:

suit jacket — Vintage Pinstripe Suit Jacket from TrueValueVintage

scarf — Men’s 1930’s/1940’s Fringed Scarf from fifisfinds

coat — 1939-1949 Men’s Brown Wool Coat from Lins Vintage Boutique

menshat — Vintage Stetson Hat Felted Derby Wool Bowler from KTsAttic

Julie would definitely approve!!!!

Featured Shop Item: Rachel Cade – A Glimpse into Vintage Africa

Published on February 27, 2012October 4, 2012 by In The Vintage Kitchen3 Comments

Rachel Cade was a popular fiction book written by Charles Mercer in 1956 about a woman who travels to Africa as a medical missionary. Set in the Belgian Congo in the late 1930’s Rachel finds love and adventure in a foreign land plagued by death and disease. Circumstances lead her to make a life-altering decision regarding the affections of two men that ultimately ties her to Africa forever. I won’t spoil the ending if you want to read it:)

Selling over 3 million copies in the mid-1950’s it was translated in 14 languages and in 1961 it was made into a movie called The Sins of Rachel Cade starring Angie Dickinson and Roger Moore.

This is a youtube clip from the movie.

Imagining Rachel’s African world in the 1930’s I picked some vintage items from Etsy that she might have encountered in both her personal life and her professional life while living abroad.