Swiss Review 1/2021

Swiss Review / February 2021 / No.1 14 Society DÖLF BARBEN Betty Bossi probably felt a bit likeHelvetia this year. Shewas on handwhen people needed her during the pandemic. As restaurants closed, we retreated to our own homes and re- acquainted ourselveswith the nation’s favourite housewife. Recipes from some 120 Betty Bossi cookbooks – normally hidden behind a digital paywall – were made freely avail- able online, showing us all how to fry burgers and bake ba- nana bread. Successfully, it goes without saying. And the ploy worked. Once again. The Swiss visited the Betty Bossi website over ten million times. In one month. The “Betty Bossi Post” was published for the first time in 1956, as a newsletter (printed on both sides) available free of charge in grocery stores. “What shall I cook today?” was the title of its first-ever article. It looked like Betty Bossi had written it herself. Her beaming face adorned the cover. Her signature was at the bottom of the piece. This publication already contained nearly all the ingredi- ents – excuse the pun – that make Betty Bossi the house- hold name that she is today. To her readers shewas a friend who did not simply spoon-feed her audience, but wanted to empower them. She encouraged people to create their own meal plan, so they could eat a good, varied diet, not waste any food, and have some money left over at the end of the week. And she showcased half a dozen recipes, in- cluding this one for bread pudding with apples: 300 g left- over bread; 0.5 l milk; 3 eggs; 60 g Astra-10; 300 g apples; 80 g sugar; 2 tbsp. sultanas; grated lemon peel. “Astra-10”? Betty Bossi not only wanted to be the friend of every housewife; she also wanted to market the fats, oils and margarines of Astra – a Unilever subsidiary that oper- ated a factory in Steffisburg near Thun. Es- sentially, Betty Bossi was a fictitious char- acter from the outset. Her purpose was a reciprocal one of give and take. She was an influencer before the word had even been invented. Betty Bossi was invented by adwriter Emmi Creola-Maag, who was inspired by the pop- ular US women’s magazine “Betty Crocker”. Based on her American namesake, Betty Bossi took Switzerland by storm. According to historian Benedikt Meyer, cars, televisions and newhair styles were not the only spoils of the post-war economic miracle. Home cooking was also transformed – with electric ovens, blenders, mixers and kneaders among a newgeneration of kitchen utensils, and a veritable conveyor belt of newproducts available in the shops. Meyer: “The Swiss needed someone to help them negotiate all this technology. And Betty Bossi was their saviour.” Betty Bossi and Helvetia have one thing in common in that neither actually exist. Yet both are synonymous with Swit- zerland. Helvetia appears on our one- and two-franc coins. She stands upright, armed with a spear, amid a circle of stars. Betty Bossi, on the other hand, has forever and a day been helping us to answer one of life’s trickiest questions: what shall I cook today? For almost 65 years, Betty Bossi has been part of our na- tional psyche. It is about time that we asked what her tire- less cooking over a hot stove has actually achieved. Have her cook books really left a “lastingmark” on Switzerland’s households, as it says in the Historical Dictionary of Swit- zerland? Would we still be smothering our veggies in a flour-based sauce if Betty Bossi had never existed? “What shall I cook to- day?” This was Betty Bossi’s first question – then thousands of cooking and baking recipes followed. Photo provided The timeless influencer Switzerland’s fictitious national cook, Betty Bossi, came into her own during the Covid lockdown.