Vintage Cooking Films

Purchase on DVD
Vintage Cooking Films

Vintage foodservice and food preparation films brought back to the silver screen. A great collection of historical restaurant and food industry vocational films. Also included is a fantastic homemaking cooking film that teaches housewives how to cook at home for their husbands.

Included Films:

The Restaurant Operator

Produced: 1946

Length: 10 Minutes

The importance of restaurants increases everyday in Americans lives. Restaurants are a $2 billion a year industry that employs two million people, making it a large contributor to the economy. This video explores different types of restaurants, as well as what can help build a successful one.Restaurants are broken down into four main service types. The first type of restaurant is table service restaurants. Table service restaurants are sit-down restaurants with waiters and waitresses serving patrons. Variations on this theme are coffee shops and tea rooms. The second type of restaurant is a self service restaurant like cafeterias which offer both speed and economy. The third type of restaurant is counter service, like soda fountains and kitchenette service, which offer reasonable prices. The last and newest type of service is curb service or drive ins, where the food is brought to the customers car.An integral part to the success of a restaurant is both the manager and his employees. In order to run a successful restaurant, a manager must fully understand the business. They must be able to anticipate and meet their customers needs, must understand how to run the business side by keeping books, and they must be able to solve problems among employees and other patrons. Employees play an integral part in the food industry because they interact the most with the customers, so good training is important. Being a restaurant employee offers many opportunities and a promising future.Restaurants are an important part of the economy and social lives of Americans. There are many different types of restaurants to satisfy the needs and wants of its patrons. Managers and employees play an important role in making sure the patron is satisfied and returns. The future does indeed look bright for restaurateurs.

Cooking: Terms and What They Mean

Produced: 1949

Length: 11 Minutes

An apparently dim witted 1940s new wife learns how to cook for the first time, not even knowing what basic things like boiling or mixing are. Made originally for home economics courses Cooking Terms and What They Mean serves as an excellent source of providing glossary terms in cooking with a bit of post war sexism thrown in as a garner on the economics dish. Vintage shots of modern food are shown, along with a campy guide to cook such things as chocolate cake and scalloped cauliflower.

The Baking Industry

Produced: 1946

Length: 10 Minutes

Bread is the foundation food of our daily meals. It is the number one food on the tables of people all around the world. Not only does it fill a majority of our stomachs on a daily basis but, it is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the Neolithic era. The Baking Industry, is a 1930s vocational film about the different jobs available in this time-honored work, showing how bread making has changed as well as the opportunities available for the men who would be employed at bread factories. The mixer, the dumper, the mixers assistant, and more, are the types of jobs one could expect to find during the 1930s. One of many such vocational films, during an era where jobs were scarce, this film offers excellent glimpses into bread making, the uses of bread, and bread being sold and enjoyed in shops around the country.

The Incredible Edible Egg In Foodservice

Produced: 1980s

Length: 12 Minutes

For thousands of years the world has been fascinated by it. The egg is used for magic, for rituals, and even for fortune telling. It has been painted, dyed, and decorated. It has been a treasured gift for kings and commoners alike. Today it is devilishly hard to find a more popular item on any menu than the incredible edible egg. The film discusses the versatility of the egg, including different forms of fixing it for the home and for the larger kitchen setting. The narrator even goes so far as to explain the proper ways of storing eggs, handling them, and how they should appear when delivered. Straight out of the 1980s cookbook we learn about dishes that have gone out of style as well as classics like scrambled eggs and omelets. Everything egg, The Incredible Edible Egg, is eggstatically informational and something to get eggcited about.

A Brighter Day In Your Kitchen

Produced: 1950s

Length: 19 Minutes

1,095, the typical amount of meals made in a year by the housewife of the 1950s, just including dinner. The housewife needed help. Luckily the Beatrice Food Corporation had the answer. They had meals designed and planned in their high tech kitchen which was designed after modern moms kitchen of the era, only more scientific. With new technology as their ally the women at the lab designed meals that were colorful, though odd sounding, like hot cottage cheese on an apple salad. An attempt to get people to buy Beatrice products, this film points a finger at the modern housewife while explaining to them how much they need their help in order to make their menu more varied. A Brighter Day In Your Kitchen, is not just about food, it is about gender inequalities and the Dick York era.

Delicious Dishes

Produced: 1970s

Length: 15 Minutes

In the grandfather of infomercials, Delicious Dishes shows off a twelve piece cutlery set targeted at the ladies of the audience. Each week the ladies will get one piece of a twelve piece set of tools by the sponsor. The presenter, in order to show off this new set of kitchen goodies, goes through the motions of preparing several dishes including a shrimp salad substitute and an excruciatingly painful looking cabbage dish. With the feel of a man at a carnival, the presenter hawks his wares in an excited voice, throwing in jokes on par with the infomercials of today. An interesting look at the history of advertising and product marketing, this film not only satisfies the infomercial manic inside everyone, but shows off some interesting cutlery ware that could fit into todays modern kitchen without looking out of place.