Watery Pursuits

 In 1959, it was the best of times (booming California sportswear industry) and the worst of times (the food); and at the movies, Charlton Heston remembers to act.

Let's get the slab o' print over first.

"Mediterranean flavour" -- flavour.  American Vogue continues suffering its sad inferiority complex.  Did no one see Room at the Top this year?  Or Expresso Bongo?  Did British Vogue spell it "flavor" out of some weird friendship pact?  All right - I won't mention it again.

But British Vogue was far superior in at least one way, and that is flavour.

Here we have Peter Powel, whoever he is, with his gruesome directions to "slowly and painstakingly" crush salt cod in milk, "crushing away like mad" for half an hour to achieve some kind of paste to spread on toast to eat with potatoes and truffles.

They have Elizabeth David and French Regional Cooking.  (Or anyway, she's in the one British Vogue I have - August, 1957.  A very good issue.)

Why didn't Jessica Daves hire Julia Child?

This is the second issue in which there is an article on food that no one in her right mind would ever cook.  The directions are jokey; the ingredients often unattainable, especially in 1950's America.   It is all very arm's length - in October, whoever it was gathered recipes from her Portuguese friends, who collected them from their cooks.  This time:  "Here, four fresh ways to cook fish, the recipes gathered by Peter Powel, whose lot it has been to spend a number of years along the Mediterranean shore."  That qualifies him?

Apart from cod butter:  deep-fried cod with capers, garnished with walnuts and olives and  blanketed by a wine sauce - (actually, it sounds very much like something you'd find in a tapas bar, except for the wine sauce); a fish soup; a description of poached moustelle,  one of the "finest and rarest" Mediterranean fish.  Find it at your local Piggly Wiggly!

Food in 1959 Vogue is pretentious, unsavory, mysterious, and not at all sensual.  This is as far as it gets from the intrepid Jeffrey Steingarten, The Man Who Ate Everything, and one of the reasons I've kept my Vogue subscription no matter what.  Not to mention a recent piece in which intrepid - only word for it - Hamish Bowles climbed through the backyards of West Oakland looking for free food -- an article I cannot link to.  Hella lame.

*** (denoting an interval of research)

Ah - my ignorance is on full display.  And I am unfair.  The cod butter is brandade de morue, a real dish, made also by Julia Child.  A food processor eliminates the need to "crush away like mad" for half an hour.  Here is a picture (and recipe) from a Jacques Pepin version:

I lack intrepidness.  I am not going to make this.  

This woman's neck is a bit too elongated.   But never mind.  A rare bit of gush-- I love mille fleur.  I like the bodice and the waist of this, the way the bottom of this is cut, your thighs would never look good.  Still -- a nice suit and an arresting ad. (The background looks better in real life.)

I will also gush over the "Limited Editions" font.  This suit is one of the "Crown Jewels of the Sea."  I have seen other Rose Marie Reid ads - many of her swimsuits are mere "Jewels of the Sea."  And, anyway, this is a swimsheath named Cambria.  First great phrase of the issue:  ". . . mere ounces of softness shape you. . ." 

I've always liked the Rose Marie Reid ads.  But who was Rose Marie Reid?  

She was one of the big swimsuit designers and manufacturers, along with Cole of California and Catalina -- all West Coast brands.  She was a devout and active Mormon, originally from Canada.   Most interesting, for me, in 1960 she opened a $2,000,000.00 "modernistic" model factory in the San Fernando Valley.  I have a sneaking feeling that it is located at the bottom of the Sherman Oaks Galleria, or whatever it's called now.  She was also remembered (somewhere in the comments of a Mormon blog - lost it now) as an early equal-opportunity employer.  More later - I've ordered the biography written by her daughter.   

In keeping with aquatic theme - let's see the other Charlton Heston film of 1959 --

*  A salvage boat owner finds more than he bargains for on what seems to be an abandoned freighter.

*  This turned out to be a pretty good, engrossing thriller about maritime insurance.  Really.  Gary Cooper is old and sad; I swear there's a moment when Charlton Heston seems to make the decision to help out a fellow actor.  

* Richard Harris very good in a supporting bit.  Exciting storm at sea.  Definitely worth a remake.

Next week: fur vs. chemicals, and Ben Hur.