New England Cook Book: Or, Young Housekeeper's Guide

"Born" in 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to proud corporate parents, Betty Crocker has grown, over eight decades, into one of the most successful branding campaigns the world has ever known. Now, at long last, she has her own biography. Finding Betty Crocker draws on six years of research plus an unprecedented look into the General Mills archives to reveal how a fictitious spokesperson was enthusiastically welcomed into kitchens and shopping carts across the nation.

The Washburn Crosby Company (one of the forerunners to General Mills) chose the cheery all-American "Betty" as a first name and paired it with Crocker, after William Crocker, a well-loved company director. Betty was to be the newest member of the Home Service Department, where she would be a "friend" to consumers in search of advice on baking -- and, in an unexpected twist, their personal lives.

Soon Betty Crocker had her own national radio show, which, during the Great Depression and World War II, broadcast money-saving recipes, rationing tips, and messages of hope. Over 700,000 women joined Betty's wartime Home Legion program, while more than one million women -- and men -- registered for the Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air during its twenty-seven-year run.

At the height of Betty Crocker's popularity in the 1940s, she received as many as four to five thousand letters daily, care of General Mills. When her first full-scale cookbook, Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, or "Big Red," as it is affectionately known, was released in 1950, first-year sales rivaled those of the Bible. Today, over two hundred products bear her name, along with thousands of recipe booklets and cookbooks, an interactive website, and a newspaper column.

Aunt Bee and her friends have stirred up a cookbook that brings home all the flavor of "The Andy Griffith Show's" Mayberry. You'll enjoy most of the 300 mouth-watering recipes (but not all?included is the recipe for Kerosene Cucumbers) for the foods served by Aunt Bee and others in Mayberry.

From good old-fashioned, down-home cooking to some of Mayberry's more unusual meals, you'll discover favorite Mayberry-style dishes for all occasions?inspired by Aunt Bee's unsurpassed talents in the kitchen and her special love for her family and friends.

Aunt Bee's Mayberry Cookbook is also chock-full of wonderful, rare photographs from "The Andy Griffith Show" and offers entertaining glimpses into "the friendly town." Many of the recipes are favorites from members of the show's cast and crew.