Last Friday evening I joined a crowd of history nerds at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco for a lecture and screening of ephemera films by Rick Prelinger. His famous archives of corporate films, public service announcements and home movies have amazed me for a couple of years now on archive.org, so I was excited to see what gems he'd unearthed most recently. Prelinger brings to life films chock full of storyless minutiae, without narrative or context, sometimes even without a soundtrack. Films of trips to the gas station in the family Model A, families dressed in formal attire for weekend visits to long-since-demolished amusement parks - these glimpses of the banal affirm the comforting ways that, despite all of the bewildering and relentless pace of change over the last hundred years, basic parts of everyday life haven't changed at all.
After the screening, the lecture host and founder of the Long Now Foundation, Stewart Brand, started the question-and-answer session with a question about the power of moving pictures versus still photos. There's certainly a deeper emotional connection created with moving images; there's a personal relevance that is intrinsically conveyed when viewed in four dimensions. It was certainly true for that evening - I'd just been laughing and smiling with a couple of hundred strangers while looking at old footage of the Bay Bridge being built. Still photos would've put us to sleep.
I continually posit a belief that food in the past, and people's relationship with it, was somehow better, or more authentic, than it is today. I look in old cookbooks and vintage menus and magazine ads, searching for insightful details and facts to back up this claim, and honestly, I may never know for sure whether there were any "good old days". Nostalgia is a glaze that covers truth, and especially for something as emotionally stirring as food, it may not be possible to clear it completely from the lens of history.
But through the lens of a camera, there have been fascinating films made about food, and they stand a chance of actually showing what it was like in the days before things like Chai Latte Non-Dairy Creamer. I invite you to explore the Prelinger Archives yourself - you may enjoy the trip.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Pork People Like - With plenty of sound purchasing advice for the meat buyer of 1956.
Food For Fighters - Uncle Sam on the importance of wartime nutrition.
This is Hormel - A super-comprehensive treatise on pork in the 1960s.
The Restaurant Operator - From 1946, some advice on selling food to the public.
I continually posit a belief that food in the past, and people's relationship with it, was somehow better, or more authentic, than it is today. I look in old cookbooks and vintage menus and magazine ads, searching for insightful details and facts to back up this claim, and honestly, I may never know for sure whether there were any "good old days". Nostalgia is a glaze that covers truth, and especially for something as emotionally stirring as food, it may not be possible to clear it completely from the lens of history.
But through the lens of a camera, there have been fascinating films made about food, and they stand a chance of actually showing what it was like in the days before things like Chai Latte Non-Dairy Creamer. I invite you to explore the Prelinger Archives yourself - you may enjoy the trip.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Pork People Like - With plenty of sound purchasing advice for the meat buyer of 1956.
Food For Fighters - Uncle Sam on the importance of wartime nutrition.
This is Hormel - A super-comprehensive treatise on pork in the 1960s.
The Restaurant Operator - From 1946, some advice on selling food to the public.
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