Cheese, Cheesecake, and Peanut Butter

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Tue Oct 12 01:31:39 UTC 1999


CHEESE AND CHEESECAKE

     OED and the RHHDAS have "cheesecake" from 1934, where a Time magazine article defines it as "leg pictures of sporty females."
     I met George Thompson at NYU today, and he gave me a pass for the Cooper Union library to see the magazine PHOTO-ERA.  I went through 1928-1932 and did _not_ find "say cheese."  I found "cheesecake"--it was a cheesy mistake.
     From PHOTO-ERA, November 1929, pg. 244, col. 2:

     After office hours, I spent lots of time with the ship-news boys, shooting pictures of prominent celebrities for various syndicates. (...) It was with the ship-news boys, too, that I learned to shoot "cheese-cakes" and "on the button", and work with the other chap's flash as well as borrow plates from the best of them.

--------------------------------------------------------
PEANUT BUTTER

    BON APPETIT magazine, September 1999--as previously posted here--stated that "peanut butter" was invented at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.
    The OED (not exactly hiding from BON APPETIT editors) has 1903.
    The Making of America database also has a 1903 hit.
    The OCLC WorldCat database has:

Brown University Library
Harris Collection of American Poetry 1871-1900
Reel no. 01014, item no. 9
Vegetarian Supply Co.
I'VE COME OUT OF MY BURROW TO BORROW
Advertisement in verse for peanut butter, 1899



More information about the Ads-l mailing list