Early TV cooks without a pedigree

When I first saw the cookbook among the items at auction, I thought it was rather quaint.

“Cooking with the Experts: Over 400 simple, easy-to-follow, taste-tempting recipes selected by television’s best cooks”

It obviously was an old one, an anachronism. Everyone knows that there are no “cooks” on TV anymore. They’re “celebrity chefs,” and they have their own restaurants, cooking shows on too many networks and a fan base rivaling Julia Roberts’.

Ever heard of Rachel Ray? Paula Deen? Pat and Gina Neely? Bobby Flay? Ming Tsai? Julia Child? Martin Yan?

How about Mama Weiss? Susie McIntyre? Marjorie Abel? Rachel Van Cleve? Edythe Fern Melrose? Bea Donovan?

In the 1950s, the latter group had cooking shows on local channels where they lived and were likely known only to people in their TV station’s reach. Weiss in Los Angeles. McIntyre in Charlotte. Abel in Honolulu. Van Cleve in Cleveland. Melrose in Detroit. Donovan in Seattle.

First printed in 1955, the cookbook offered recipes from 48 “experts from the United States and Hawaii who really ‘know their onions,’” according to the introduction. It  touted them as “professional cooks, home demonstrators, food buyers, magazine and food editors, home-making teachers and general adventurers into the world of food and its preparation.”

These cooks were not the first, though. Cooking shows evolved from radio, with the first program called “Housekeeper’s Chat,’ begun in 1926. It offered tips to housewives, said Kathleen Collins, author of “Watching What We Eat,” in an NPR interview in 2009.

During World War II, folks listened to a radio program that showed them how to create dishes from rationed foods. Then it was on to television- with James Beard, who had a segment on an NBC cooking show in 1946, and Julia Child’s “The French Chef” in1963. Graham Kerr’s “The Galloping Gourmet” in 1969 was the first to present cooking as entertainment and the chef as entertainer, according to Collins.

In kitchens today, the names of celebrity chefs are tossed around as commonly as salt on food. And they’re paid a lot more than the cooks mentioned in the cookbook. Back then, they were probably just happy to be on TV. Today, these folks make their living off their demonstrations in make-believe kitchens on the Food Network, PBS and other food channels, and from their cookbooks, restaurant and public appearances .

The auction cookbook offered black and white photos and biographies of each of the cooks, most taken in their TV kitchens. A few produced cookbooks, but Weiss appeared to have been the only one who owned a restaurant. She opened her first restaurant in the living room of her home, serving the dishes she had learned to cook in her native Hungary. Actor John Barrymore was one of her customers, according to the bio. She retired from the restaurant business in 1953 and had been on the show for three years when this cookbook was published.

According to a mention in Los Angeles Magazine in 1997, she had a Hungarian restaurant called Mama Weiss’s Csarda in a small house on Rodeo Drive 50 years ago. A blogger wrote that she had come across a cookbook called “Mama Weiss Favorite Recipes” (1953) with photos of the cook.

The auction cookbook was laid out like any other and had all the basic recipes. Although the cooks were from all over the country, none of the recipes gave me a distinct sense of region or place. I tried the Colonial Chicken recipe by Donovan, but didn’t like it. Too much bread.

Here’s the recipe:

Colonial Chicken

1 frying chicken (3 to 3 ½ pounds)

¼ cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

¼ inch hot oil, for frying

Dredge chicken in seasoned flour and brown in hot oil. Drain, reserving drippings for gravy. Set aside and make batter.

Batter:

1 ½ cups sifted flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

1 ½ cups milk

3 tablespoons melted butter or margarine

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Beat eggs until very light. Stir in milk and melted butter or margarine. Blend liquid mixture into dry ingredients, beating with rotary beater just until batter is smooth. Pour batter into greased baking dish. Arrange browned chicken on top of batter. Sprinkle with black pepper and bake 1 hour at 325 degrees or until batter is puffed and golden brown. Serve at once with cream gravy from the drippings (giblets and bony pieces may be cooked to make broth for the gravy).

Yield: 6 servings