Some ads from vintage Gourmet Magazines

This soup ad is from the May 1954 issue of Gourmet magazine. Compared with many of the other ads for food products I've come across from this time, this soup seems to be a much more sophisticated product. As the text says, it's "fit for royal tastes." Varieties such as Black Bean with Sherry and Crab a la Maryland sound pretty good to me, but again not something I ever recall seeing in a can!


The other ad, this one from the February 1947 issue of Gourmet, reminds us that all of these fabulous choices we have in food today weren't always the case. The ad below for Arnold bread assures the reader that the bread is back to its previous standard of quality from before the war, since plenty of butter, honey, milk, and eggs are now available and used in the baking of this product.

Gourmet Magazine - 1947

Gourmet Magazine - 1947, originally uploaded by Vintage Dish.

I purchased a set of 4 Gourmet magazines from the 1940's and 1950's. At that time, the covers were all illustrated rather than the photography used today, and the upscale slant of the magazine was very clear. It was actually quite hard to find many ads for food products in these magazines; most of the ads were for wine and liquor as well as New York City restaurants.