Cake, squared

I haven't tried this recipe yet, because really it isn't a checkerboard cake, just two different cakes stacked up, with squares of coconut on the top. But I still love the photo. The way they cut the cake is inspired, I think. Some home economist or food stylist earned her salary on this ad.

My sense is that "digestible" is always used to describe vegetable shortenings in order to to distinguish them from lard, which often isn't very digestible. But maybe there were some hellishly bad vegetable shortenings on the market in the early days. People were still working the kinks out. "Nutritious" I can't defend, except to point out that high calorie counts made a food "nutritious" in the 50s.

This ad also represents a Great Leap Forward for the Swift company from its lard ads. James Lileks has one of these on his site, and it's one of the most peculiar things you could ever hope to see in terms of lard ads.