Just wrapping up our falllout shelter, time capsule dive from the weekend. To recap: at my grandmothers we were invited to explore the old shelter, which was installed for storms and, maybe, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The period is write, based on some of the logos and clues like old radio call letters I found in the shelter. There are seven or eight pictures two posts below — conveniently highlighted in the link above, as well.
These are the last of our findings.
Fifty-year-old recipes are mildly interesting. You just sort of assume your grandmother could already make everything, I guess, and didn’t need Betty’s help.
And she hasn’t changed much. The first Betty Crocker was a real person, portrayed by actress Adelaide Hawley Cumming. She died in 1998 at 93. Look familiar? She played the role until 1964, so this is probably a transitional box, given the timing. When she was on everyone’s television and every woman’s kitchen Cumming was as popular as any lady in the country.
I thought this was a fairly steady image, but it seems Betty Crocker is always changing. She found the fountain of youth in 1955, became a member of the workforce in 1980 and her complexion changed a bit in the 1990s. Later, the image of Betty Crocker was said to be a composite of 75 different women.
This box of mashed potatoes sold for $.35 in the early 1960s.
This is the emergency food, meant to last one person for 14 days. All of the smaller cans are drinking water. (There’s another layer beneath those cans.) The large can to the left is what you were supposed to eat. Appetites, and drinking needs, seemed to have changed a bit over the years.
Love the can labels though. We opened one and it was fine. Not suitable for drinking, but no odd color or funky smell. If you’re supposed to drink eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day this little can wasn’t cutting it. Not sure of the explanation behind the discrepancy, unless dehydration since has really improved 400 percent since the Kennedy years.
We tried to remove the wrapper from that large can in the box, but it just tore and fell away. The Multi-Purpose Food is “protein-rich granules fortified with vitamins and minerals, pre-cooked, ready to use.”
There are directions. But if you read them closely you learn that this can’s servings are designed to give you 450 calories per tasty, grainy meal. It is pre-cooked, so you don’t have to break out the Sterno. The bad news is you’re going to want to eat this with something else to ward off fall out shelter malnutrition.
In the event of nuclear attack, pre-cooked granules go great with tomato juice! Or soup and crackers! It is yummy on a peanut butter spread!
The box suggested the contents would be all you’d need. Someone should ask General Mills about this. This product is soy-based and has an interesting history:
In the late 1950s, however, the product was reformulated to contain simply toasted soy protein (TSP, toasted defatted soy grits) fortified with vitamins and minerals. This new Multi-Purpose Food contained 50% protein and was completely pre-cooked; a 2-ounce serving provided 40% of the daily recommended protein allowance and one-third or more of the requirements for 10 major vitamins and minerals for a 154 pound (70 kg) adult male. MPF was made in Minneapolis by General Mills until 1980. In an era when protein malnutrition was considered the basis of world hunger, MPF was viewed as a concentrated protein supplement that could be incorporated into many indigenous foods.
[…]
From September 1946 until 1955 the Foundation distributed the equivalent of more than 36 million 56-gm (2-ounce) meals of MPF (2,016 tonnes total) to 86 needy nations via 126 relief and welfare organizations, chief among them the United Rescue Mission. Actually, virtually all of the food was shipped in sealed #10 cans, mostly to missionaries, doctors, and the like who operated soup kitchens, hospitals, or clinics. In the peak years of distribution in the mid-1960s, shipments were roughly 50 to 90 metric tons a year . . . never a very large amount by typical relief standards. Yet MPF garnered widespread publicity for soy and for the concept of relief feeding
Here’s more on the stuff.
We opened the can. It was a very fine powder. If only we hadn’t already enjoyed our dinner.
The box itself hurts our timeline. The Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization was in existence from 1958-1961, making this box older than everything else I can date from the fallout shelter.
Perhaps my grandfather had been holding onto it for a while, thinking it had a good shelf life and when his shelter was installed he carried it underground.* Maybe the name of the department was just to good to pass up for the product’s makers. The list of the agencies’ successors:
Emergency mobilization and general preparedness planning: Office of Emergency Planning (1961- 68) Office of Emergency Preparedness (1968-73) Office of Preparedness, General Services Administration (1973-75) Federal Preparedness Agency (1975-79).
Of Surviv-All Inc. I can find only one mention. Dr. Strangelove’s America: society and culture in the atomic age, by Margot A. Henriksen, tells us they also sold shelters and radiation suits. I’m sure those were top-quality materials at $19.95, even in Kennedy-era money.
Surviv-All, if it wasn’t sued into oblivion, is a name ripe for a return to the marketplace.
*Update: My mother chimes in, thinking I am right, recalling the shelter was installed in 1961:
PRIOR to the installation, Daddy volunteered with the Civil Defense, Rescue Squad, etc. in Florence. He was a HAM radio operator and took emergency medical training offered by the Red Cross. It would stand to reason that he would move the emergency survival supplies to the fallout shelter as the Cuban Missile Crisis intensified.
Dad could get the information sent from the US government to the Civil Defense programs before the average citizen had heard the information. I recall several nights he had to go to downtown Florence unexpectedly, although I didn’t always understand why. Add all this up, and it would make sense that the Emergency-Paks possibly (and probably) came from the Civil Defense office in Florence.
