In a follow-up to “Deco”dent Desserts, Dinners of Tomorrow – From Yesterday explores delicious dinner options suggested at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair. Now, many different vendors used the World’s Fair to advertise and promote their particular products. One of these vendors was Kraft Food.

On one of my recent driving-for-deco adventure to the Golden Nugget Flea Market, I picked up this souvenir packet. It includes a booklet giving a brief history of the Kraft Company and a couple of pamphlets with a variety of appetizers and dinners suggestions. All made with Kraft products, of course! In this collection, Velveeta cheese and Philadelphia Cream Cheese are the stars.

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Note the interesting tag-line on the following picture. These were obviously geared to appeal to the “average” 1940’s housewife!

In complete transparency, we haven’t tried any of these yet. But some sure sound mighty tasty!

Started by James L. Kraft in 1903, he sold cheese wholesale door-to-door. The result of his hard work and dedication was the loss of $3000.00 and a horse in his first year. The business plan was sound and eventually took off. His brothers joined him in 1909 to form J.L. Kraft and Bros. Company.

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By 1911, the company was advertising and in 1912, they established their New York offices in preparation for international sales. So successful was the company that by 1914 they sold 31 varieties of cheese throughout the United States.

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A pasteurization process developed by the company in 1915 meant cheese did not need to be refrigerated and thus extended the shelf life. The process was patented in 1916. Approximately six million pounds of this newly developed cheese was purchased by the U.S. army as part of soldier rations in WWI.

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The company changed their name to The Kraft Cheese Company in 1924. And by 1926, the demand for fresh ingredients led to an affiliation with the dairy industry.

The Kraft Cheese Company made several acquisitions over the years. And the purchase of Phenix Cheese Company in 1928 means they now owned the very famous Philadelphia Cream Cheese and was renamed Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company.

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And this is where our souvenir comes into play. Rather than write out each recipe, here are snapshots for you to enjoy. And possibly try!

A great advantage of this product is that it melt extremely well. And therefore, is suitable for many sauces.

And then, there’s this very popular product.

We’ll be trying some of the recipes soon. If you try them, be sure to let us know how they turned out!

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Chris and Anthony (the Freakin’ ”Tiquen Guys)