Crisco has been marketed to Jews as “truly clean and truly kosher.” In the early twentieth century, Procter & Gamble conducted a series of advertising campaigns to convince Jewish women to change their preferred cooking fats from butter and schmaltz (rendered poultry fat) to Crisco. The success of this early example of targeted marketing reveals how American Jews have changed as religious practitioners and as consumers. Jewish home cooks, generally women, were persuaded to relinquish authority to corporate experts not only in matters of cuisine and health, but also in religious practices related to food production and consumption. Examining Crisco’s targeted advertising to Jews helps us consider who is, and who should be, an authority in the modern Jewish kitchen.
Rachel B. Gross is a Professor of American Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University. She is a scholar of religious studies whose work focuses on the lives, spaces, and objects of twentieth-century and contemporary American Jews. Dr. Gross received her Ph.D. from Princeton University.