-
Chapter Twenty: We Dedicate This Box . . .
- The University Press of Kentucky
- Chapter
- Additional Information
20 WE DEDICATE THIS Box... In 1955 the Duncan Hines Institute published two volumes. The first was Duncan Hines' Dessert Book, a collection of Hines's favorite after-dinner recipes; it was followed later in the year by the ever-so-slightly autobiographical Duncan Hines' Food Odyssey.69o The Dessert Book was a standard paperback book. As was Adventures in Good Cooking, the Dessert Book was compiled from recipes submitted by restaurants and Hines's many friends and family members. As was the case with the older book, blank areas were filled with household hints, suggestions, admonitions, and an assortment of Duncan Hines homilies. The book contained a total of 555 recipes, which made it a comprehensive range of sugary confections guaranteed to satisfy anyone with a craving for something sweet to eat.691 The book was distributed through Pocket Books, a mass-market paperback publisher, and an initial print-run of 250,000 copies was ordered, thus enabling it to reach«a much broader cross section of the country" than Adventures in Good Cooking ever had. The volume is still a treasured volume in the libraries ofhundreds ofcooks.692 Later that year Duncan Hines' Food Odyssey hit bookstore shelves. Originally titled There's No Accounting For Tastes, it was touted as an autobiography; but with the exception of the first two 250 DUNCAN HINES chapters, there was little autobiography in it. A more appropriate title should have been Duncan Hines' Travelogue; the book, an entertaining read, was essentially a tour of the many restaurants Hines had visited over the years, accompanied by a short discussion ofhis recent activities with the Duncan Hines Institute.693 On 9 May 1955, at the 14th Annual Duncan Hines Family Dinner in Chicago, attended by approximately 300 members of his restaurant and lodging listings,694 Hines predicted, presciently, that ((by 1975 the average homemaker will spend an average of only 15 minutes a day [preparing food] in the home compared to the 90 minutes she spends today." 695 But he spent most of his time speaking at great length of his recent travels. He told the crowd that, earlier in the year, he and Clara had covered 10,000 miles in their automobile in three months. As they were driving through Texas, he said, they stopped in Beaumont. As was the case more often than not, it was not long before a newspaper reporter showed up. When Hines mentioned that he was on his way to Mexico, he was asked ifhe was carrying a pistol.«NO!" Hines said, adding that he "would not know how to use one." Within twenty-four hours Beaumont's citizens presented him with a Stetson hat instead of a gun so he would not seem out of place upon his arrival. Hines liked the hat so much that he wore it during the entire time he was in the country and said that because ofit, he had no trouble with the Mexican natives or anyone else. While they were traveling through Mexico, he said that he and Clara had to watch what they put in their mouths. ((In Mexico," he said, ((we ate no unpeeled fruit and no uncooked vegetables, thus no illness." They encountered few unsatisfactory edibles during the course of his trip. On two occasions, however, they slipped up. At one forgotten spot on the map, they attempted to eat some frijoles-or Mexican beans. Said Hines, ((I like beans, but what 1 was served had been pulverized and apparently mixed with axle grease, so 1 ate none. One taste was enough." Another time, in Metamoras, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, he and Clara were invited by a friend to try Mexican quail at [54.166.170.195] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:24 GMT) WE DEDICATE THIS Box... 251 the Cucaracha Cafe, the name meaning Cockroach. When he saw it, Hines roared with laughter. «What a name for a restaurant!" Of the meal itself, he said that «the quail turned out to be our common black-bird. The breast was black as pitch." After their meal, he and Clara made no plans to return to the Cucaracha Cafe; being served blackbird had quenched their curiosity. Later, when they saw a billboard advertising the delights to be consumed at the Striped Skunk Restaurant, they did not even bother to stop-or slow down; they figured that, after consuming «Mexican quail," there was no telling what «regional favorite" that questionable restaurant would dump...