Cooking by and for encephalitic, spastic children

In addition to perpetrating horrific illustrations of perfectly innocent child test cooks, Betty Crocker has a rubber fetish. That's the inescapable conclusion if you read the entirety of her COOK BOOK for Boys and Girls (1957 reissue). How else to explain her shrill insistence on using rubber scrapers for every possible cooking operation?

Either
1) Betty owns a rubber plantation in Indonesia;
2) The purchase of rubber scrapers was keeping the Cold War economy afloat; or
3) Someone was afraid that kids would poke their eyes out if they used too many rigid kitchen utensils.

Disclaimer: I actually grew up in a house that didn't have any rubber scrapers. Mom didn't have anything against them, to my knowledge. I suspect it was just that her last set got chewed up before I was born, and she never bothered to get more. Because, honestly, while there are some things rubber scrapers do very well, there's not much they can do that another tool can't.

Also, if you scrape a bowl with a rubber scraper, there is precious little batter left in the bowl to lick, which to my way of thinking is one of the most important parts of any baking project.

I do now have rubber scrapers in my house, and handy things they are, too, but I don't make a religion out of them, for heaven's sake.
















































































.