I wanted to find some old recipes from out-of-print newspapers, so I went to the Library of Congress and searched 'recipes'. I got a full-page ad for Aunt Jemima pancake mix. So let's talk about that.

There are a lot of people in the western world today (particularly the UK and US) who roll their eyes and complain about 'critical race theory', a subject about which, by the way, they know less than nothing. 'Things in the past weren't so bad,' they will whine. After you've yelled at them for an hour or so and shown them the receipts, they'll amend their whining to, 'But that was then, and people thought it was all right, so we shouldn't criticise!' After about another hour of browbeating on our part (with more examples of how 'people' did, too, criticise whatever-it-was 'back then'), they'll mutter something about how 'yeah, but we're better now, so we should just forget about it.' At which point I, at least, will start (over)sharing from my own experiences.

Despite rumours to the effect that your Editor is a fugitive from an experiment with a thesaurus and a time machine, I am actually not as old as the current president of the United States. I am, in fact, almost exactly of the same vintage as our late and much-missed founder Douglas Adams. So fewer comparisons between me and Slartibartfast, if you please.

That being said, I can remember growing up with more casual and systemic racism in the air than younger people would believe – and not just because I spent my early childhood in the southern US under a de facto system of apartheid. There was lots of what I think of as 'leftover racism' going on, and not only in the US South. You don't believe me? Tell me something, German friends: do they still sell that chocolate milk with the grass-skirted villagers on the box? The ones with the bones in their noses? And, er, what do you call chocolate-covered marshmallow treats these days? What do Afri-Cola ads look like?

I think we have to name and shame, or we won't get these things to go away – and I certainly don't want them around to bother the grandkids and their kids, do you? Take the fairly recent decision (2021) by PepsiCo to finally get rid of the Aunt Jemima label for its pancake mix. 'Well,' the usual people say, 'Nancy Green made a good living portraying Aunt Jemima back in the day. It must not have been too offensive.' Gag me with a spoon, as they said in 1992: take a look at this advert from the Albuquerque Morning Journal in 1919. Tell me again how 'harmless' that is.

Lie Number 1: That 'Aunt Jemima' was the source of this pancake mix. Midwestern merchants Chris L Rutt and Charles G Underwood had to get rid of surplus flour. They invented a pancake mix in 1889. In 1893, they went all-out to advertise the ready-mix idea at the Columbia Exposition. There, sandwiched between the Ferris Wheel and the hootchy-kootchy dancer (and across the way from the active mass murderer with the booby-trapped tourist hotel, though he wasn't advertised), Rutt and Underwood put up the world's largest flour barrel and…Aunt Jemima.

In reality, Nancy Green was a hired performance artist. Originally from Kentucky, Ms Green was born into slavery and emancipated by the Civil War. The flour merchants named their pancake-making 'mammy' character after a minstrel show song. She played the character at fairs and shows and expos for the next 20 years. Actors do a lot of things they wish they didn't have to. She refused to go to Paris, though, so they hired another 'Aunt Jemima' and swore she was the 'real' one.

Lie Number 2: The one you have to pay attention to see is that back before 'The War', everything was happy-happy in Slaveryland. Gag me, etc. But stop and think about it: why would a lie like that sell pancake mix in 1919? I mean, advertising is all about the bottom line, and as Don Draper told everybody, over and over, advertising is selling people emotions. What emotion is satisfied by thinking that your pancake mix was designed by happy slaves? And is this a world you want you, your family, and your friends to be living in?

Fortunately, PepsiCo knows that an awful lot of people would object to this sort of story these days. So they stopped using this trademark – which was one of the oldest and most successful around. This is a relief. I personally wouldn't want any of my African American friends to have to look at that in the grocery store. Just as Elektra was horrified to think that our African friends in Europe might run across that chocolate milk box. Slowly but surely, we get rid of these monstrosities.

But think about it, people: isn't it worth learning about them, just to make sure everybody stops themselves next time? Because trust me, there will be a next time. And I'm willing to bet some people won't see it coming. (Don't believe me? 'Karen' jokes, anyone?)

Dmitri Gheorgheni

15.05.23 Front Page

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