Food History

I thought overnight about the food in Dennis the Menace and suspect that there will be a third post, one day, where I contemplate and draw conclusions. There might even be a fourth post, contianing recipes, if anyone evinces an interest.

This post is simply going to list and describe the food in the 1951 cartoons of young Dennis. If I add much in the way of commentary, the post will be too long for its own good, and none of you will ever speak to me again. And this would be a great pity, because I’m going to hold my very first competition in the very near future.

The Dennis cartoons are numbered, which makes this very easy to write up. I was going to give a great narrative, but then I asked myself “Why?” - this means you’re saved from an essay.

2. The mother holds an empty cookie jar and Dennis explains with great intentness “… and the darn ants kept carrying them away, crumb by crumb, until they were all gone. That’s my opinion.”

8. Dennis leans nonchalantly at the checkout while his mother says to the shop assistant “Wait a minute…. I didn’t pick up any two pound sack of candy!”

17 Dennis is fuming at the dinner table, while his father says “You don’t hear ME complaining - and I’ve been eating here a year longer than you have!” On the table is bread, cups of coffee (Dennis has a glass of milk or juice or water), ketchup, side salads, mashed potato (?), possibly some sort of meat dish.

5-9 Father is yelling from the safety of bed “For the last time - EAT YOUR DINNER!” All I can speficially identify of the meal is that it includes a glass of something.

5-11 Finally, those glasses are identified! Dennis complains to his father over dinner “Why don’t you drink milk? You’re not so darn big and strong yourself!” On the table are cups of coffee, a sauce bottle, meat (either rolled or a ham?), and something in a bowl to be seved with a spoon (mashed potato?).

5-28 Dennis is investigating a picnic basket. The only readily identifiable comestible (try saying that in a hurry!) is coffee in a flask, but the caption reads “Your mother is calling you, little boy. No, don’t touch. Go find your mother, sonny. No. No! Listen, get your dirty hands out of our potato salad!!”

6-11 Dennis and his parents are visiting and Dennis enthusiastically reports to his mother “Boy, you should see their kitchen! There’s a big ham on the stove, and a hot cherry pie, and a dish of mashed potatoes, and a dish of peas, and a bowl of …”

6-15 Dinnertime again. Looks like a rolled meat. Dennis hold shis glass and looks very accusingly at his father. “Who says I need a quart a day? The guy that sells us milk?”

6-18 Dennis and father shopping. It’s hard to work out what they’ve bought, though there are oranges for sale out the front.

6-22 Dennis wants to join the adult party “I want to laugh! I want to sing!”. The adults appear to be eating canapes and drinking from tall glasses with ice. (It’s so tempting to fill in the line pictures with food I enjoy myself eg I just reminded myself that the canapes aren’t Australian and that the US in 1951 didn’t even know emu prosciutto existed. Emu prosciutto and figs together are food of the gods - but do not appear in any Dennis the Menace cartoon)

6-30 Dennis and friends under a hot dog umbrella “Boy, when he gets back and finds all those wet hot dogs!”

7-10 Dennis pokes through the door and asks his mother “Hey, Mom, is it okay if I ate that last piece of cake?”

8-9 Dennis has the fridge door open and is feeding the dog “Why not, Mom? He likes liver and I don’t.”

8-25 As his mother put a fresh-baked cake on the bench (it’s obvious it is just out of the oven and in a round tin of c 8-10 inches diameter - it’s not obvious what type of cake it is), Dennis says “This is my mother, Freddy. She’s the best cook in the whole world. Take cake, for instance…”

9-10 Dennis eats icecream from a van. Not really a van - more like a little stand on wheels, with a brolly.

9-11 Dennis makes a birthday speech. The only visible food is the cake, with icing, “Hapy Birthday” on the side, and five candles.

9-17 Dennis outside the ridge, enthusiastically aksing the closed door “Did the light go out, Larry?” On the floor are milk bottles, a lettuce, a half a cucumber, a bowl of eggs, 3 sticks of celery, cheese?, ham, eggs, 2 small cans and 2 small bottles, some shallots?, a covered bowl and another small bottle.

9-19 Dennis in the kitchen, telling his horrified mother “I made an upside down seven-layer chocolate lemon meringue pie.”

11-6 Dennis on a park bench, slingshot ready, asking his mother “Do you know how to cook a pigeon?”

11-14 Dennis’ mother asks during dinner “How did spinach get in the centrepiece?” Also on the table are a ham, coffee, bread and other less-identifable comestibles (Yep, you guessed it ‘comestible’ is my word of the day.)

11-15 Dennis standing on a pile of containers in the kitchen, reaching for cookies. He tells his mother “Don’t yell at me! I might fall and hurt myself!” He would definitely spill the tea and coffee on which he is so precariously balanced, and might knock over the flour on his way down.

11-21 Dennis is in the kitchen, making a mud cake. I don’t know if this counts, but at least he’s using the mixer. Children should learn to cook young, I always say :).

11-22 Dennis’ mother is peeling something over the sink and tehre is a pile of something dark on a board on the bench. A pot steams away madly on the stove. Dennis’ mother says “I don’t care what the pilgrims had. We’re having meatloaf.”

12-15 Dennis is shopping with his father and tells his friend “Big party tonight, Billy! Twenty-four cans of beer!” His father is focussed firmly on potato chips and entirely ignoring the canned fruit.

And that’s the lot! Food in 1951. If any of you have insights, I’d love to hear them. I’d especially love to find out what was on an archetypal US dinner table in 1951. I won’t return to this until July, so you’ve got plenty of time. I think I *will* do a 1951 US recipe post in July, though - again, let me know if there’s anything you really want to see in it.

Dennis the Menace, food history, US food, 1951