Betty's Experience at the Pillsbury Bake Off

If this had a title it would probably most accurately be described as "An Erratic Commentary on the 1951 Pillsbury Grand National" as I begin without a copy of the chronologic schedule or any organized notes.

Until last Saturday afternoon (Dec. 8) things mere moderately calm at the apartment with the routine preparations for the short trip having been made gradually. Then, just before 5:00, there arrived a box from the florists containing an exotic corsage from "Washington Well-Wishers, Tom and Doloris." At that point, excitement began to mount. By 10:30 we had completed the packing for ourselves and for [their 18-month old daughter] Deborah, and Ken had made a trip over to his folks with such equipment as the highchair, stroller, and an assortment of toys. The forecast of "colder tonight" helped me decide to take the fur coat, a fortunate selection since by Monday evening we were well aware of the penetrating New York cold I remembered from other visits...

We bundled Deborah up, breakfastless, at 8:45, went to Ken's folks with her, and then to the station in ample time, even by Daddy's standards, to get the 10:00 a.m. train. Travel, thanks to Pillsbury, was the utmost comfort in the parlor cars. We began immediately to dispense the advance allowance of $12, which Pillsbury provided for such incidentals as tips, meals on the train, taxies, etc. ... Promptly at 2:05 we arrived at Penn Station in New York, and were in the taxi headed for the hotel. The taxi driver told us, "You know Aunt Jemimy is sponsorin' a big bakin' contest here at this hotel, and I drove one of the contestants here myself this morning."

Ken merely said, "Oh, that's interesting."

Mrs. Philip Pillsbury, the wife of the president of Pillsbury Mills, was the official hostess and the first to greet us as we came into 4-M, the headquarters suite. After pictures with Mr. Pillsbury, we were officially registered and given our contest numbers. (Our room was 765, my contest number throughout was 61.) Then we were interviewed for a tape recording, which, it was explained, would be used by the Pillsbury home service department as a means of discovering new baking secrets. For instance, one woman had found it better to use fruit juice rather than milk or water as the liquid in pastry shells, and Pillsbury might later use such suggestions in the experimenting. ... At 5:00, General Electric was host at a dinner, which was preceded by fruit or tomato juice with h'ordourves as we waited to go into the dining room. (No alcoholic beverages were served during the entire event, I might mention.) All of the women were given corsages or two gardenias and the men received red carnations. The dinner was a five-course meal beginning with a seafood platter, then a clear soup and the entree of breast of guinea hen. All of the service was very elaborate. When the dessert of ice cream with individual meringues was served, the waiters began with tall cone-shaped platters of ice cream balls, all flavors and colors, and then served each of us several kinds of ice cream.

Immediately after dinner we all went by chartered buses to the television theater where we saw Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town." The best part of that show was a part of the Princeton Triangle Show which will go on the road during the college's Christmas vacation. There was a chorus-girl type of dance by the group of fellows dressed as girls and Ken could not imagine that the fellows would have such shapely legs...

Breakfast was another ample meal with big fruit cups, fried bananas siding scrambled eggs and ham, toast, and coffee. The few rules of the contest were then explained again and by 9:00 we were all in the Waldorf Grand Ball Room. There were 100 stoves, mixers, tables and chairs in place and each table was almost covered with equipment. We were told that three years ago for the first Bake-Off, it cost $14,000 to wire the Ball Room for all the electric equipment used in the bake-off. ... Things were far from calm and serene in the Ball Room as news people and celebrities were constantly walking around.

Not because of the confusion but because I set the oven at 475 degrees which I use on the gas stove and that was too hot for an electric stove, I burned the first pie shell a little and I wasn't satisfied with the second one, so I made three before I had one which really looked right to me. Once I had a satisfactory shell, I made the filling which I was sure would turn out right the first time, and it did. Then I put it in the refrigerator to chill until 4 p.m., and I could enjoy observing the rest of the event. A buffet luncheon was in progress from l2:00 to 2:00 for contestants. ... At the breakfast we had been told that we could take any of the equipment which we wanted, big boxes were provided and we managed to bring home a lot of equipment: a set of four mixing bowls, an aluminum double boiler, a nice ball bearing rolling pin which I insisted on bringing, since I've always used a milk bottle to roll out pastry up to now, two measuring cups of pyrex and a nest-type set of cups, a pastry brush, a wastepaper basket, a plastic bowl scraper, two sizes of flour sifters, cake racks, a wooden spoon, mixing spoon and fork, and all the ingredients we requested in addition to a 3 lb. can of Spry. ... We were to notify the GE girl in white, one girl for every ten stoves, who called a Pillsbury man who came with a table and a tremendous, heavy cover which was placed over our entry. Then the entry, with our number and us, was photographed and sent into the judges. The judges, seven home economists and food editors of various newspapers, had only the number of each entry to identify it. There was no chance that the entry could be identified with the contestant so it was all conducted very fairly and on the merit of the recipe itself.

The judges worked all day as each entry was taken in which was surely good from the standpoint of my pie since it was not out of the refridgerator many minutes before they were testing it. The judges were continually eating olives, celery, and clam juice to keep their palates clear. In connection with the baking, I should add that we were given enough ingredients to make our recipe four times and had from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. to produce a satisfactory entry for presentation to the judges... Monday at 5:3O there was a buffet supper sponsored by four women's magazines, Ladies Home Journal, McCalls, Women's Home Companion, and Good Housekeeping. There was a choice assortment of food, hot or cold...

Breakfast in bed at 7:30 started Tuesday. The trays full of food were so pretty: tremendous cups of fruit in ice, omelet and ham, English Muffins with 3" squares of honey comb, and coffee, along with a rose bud in a tall bud vase, a camellia corsage from Pillsbury with a card designating our table number for the Award Luncheon, and the New York Times.

By nine we were starting for the Arthur Godfrey CBS studio which was within walking distance of the Waldorf. We received the paper shopping bags, stamped with " I've been to the Arthur Godfrey program" and as a we entered the studio it was filled with Hi-V orange juice, Rinso and Nabisco Crackers and other products he advertises. While it was interesting to see the program and all the "Little Godfreys" I think the program is as enjoyable over the radio as it is in the studio; in fact the voices of the Chordettes or the Mariners sound better over the air than over the studio loud-speakers. All of the cast seem to get a big bang out of Godfrey and their laughing is spontaneous. Apparently there are a lot of little jokes among them. If you listened, you heard the big cheer when the Pillsbury portion was introduced and that was from the contestants sitting right down in front. The woman who gave Arthur Godfrey her lei was sitting close to us and she was so twittery after she'd been up on the stage and presented the lei Hawaii fashion, which is to kiss the person receiving the lei. I don't think she knew what Godfrey meant when he said "Well, let's do this Hawaii style" as she was more than startled when he kissed her. She must have been fifty or sixty years old.

The Awards Luncheon, on the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf -- actually on the 17th floor not nearly the top of the hotel, but stars twinkle from the ceiling -- was the elite function and because there were so many food editors of publications, newspaper people, and other quests in addition to the contestants this was the one meal which Ken could not attend. But he, Max and Chris were in a side gallery watching the proceedings. At my table was the food editor of "Better Living" the editor of Charm, two Life people one of them was a Uni. or Nebr. graduate and a World-Herald employee, and three other contestants. Madelline Carroll was sitting at a nearby table, Art Linkletter was the m.c., and a cowboy group provided music. The menu: Supreme of Fruit Princesse, Hearts of Celery, Ripe and Green olives, Salted Nuts, Rack and Saddle of Lamb Persille, Red Currant Jelly, Original Anna Potatoes, Asparagus 'Tips Saute, Love Birds of Praline Ice Cream, California Nectarines Flambes, Petits Fours, and Demi Tas. The six "Best of Class" awards were announced prior to the beginning of the actual broadcast and the pie division was the first announcement. Because it had been so drafty in other dining rooms and generally cool, I kept my coat around my shoulders. I was talking to the Better Living woman when the pie award was announced and I didn't hear anything except Silver Springs, Md. and "...will Mrs. Cooper please come to get her check." So I didn't slip my coat off in the excitement and Linkletter said, "What does your husband do?"

I replied that he was in the gallery at the moment but that he worked in Washington.

So Linkletter picked that up, began fingering my coat and saying "Uhm, so he works in Washington, well, well..." and everyone, including me had a laugh about that.

Then the rest of the "Best of Class" awards were made, there was general confusion before the actual broadcast began while waiting for the last 60 seconds before "On the Air" ticked away, and you heard the next half-hour proceedings. Immediately after the luncheon the winners went to the press rooms for pictures. There was one picture taken of me with Margaret Truman and several of the pie and me. So far I've not seen any of them, but I hope Pillsbury will send the glossy prints. Since I was the only Maryland contestant the Baltimore paper reporter was interested and the AP had requests for material from the Washington papers. By three we were able to leave the press room, hurry to finish our packing, check out, call home and I could hear Janet calling Daddy at the top of her voice, and then get to the station for a 4:30 train. We had dinner on the train rather early since Ken had no lunch and I was too excited to eat much of my lunch. And it was just 8:10 when we arrived back in Washington.

From the Post article you will see the name and recipe, as released by Pillsbury, for the pie. For the Bake-Off, I used pecans rather than pistachios and I followed Mrs. Larson's original instructions to beat in the eggs by hand. But Mrs. Taylor made the pie yesterday and used the mixer finding it satisfactory and I think I'll try it tomorrow. Gary said "Yessir, that's m-i-i-i-ghty good pie."

Now if you've managed to wade through this detailed description, which hasn't been proof-read because I don't like to think of making corrections on four carbon's, you deserve a prize too.

-- Betty Winquest Cooper