Monday, June 24, 2013

Camouflage Around the House

Above A cartoon by H.M. Bateman from Punch, February 27, 1918, p. 133.

• Our thanks to Richard Hawkins for providing additional info.

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From "Dazzle Dinners" in the Aukland Star, Saturday, May 13, 1922, p. 19—

Nothing is stranger in appearance, more barbaric than the latest style in the French dinner table.

Wine glasses are of the weirdest forms, without stems, and each guest has a different colored glass before him.

Plates are any shape except circular. Some are square, some irregular, and some simply no shape at all. They are not plain white, or colored, or even decorated with floral designs, but in their coloring resemble the 'dazzle paint camouflage' of war memory.

Knives and forks retain their usual shape, as nothing better has yet been invented for cutting up food and conveying it to the mouth, but their handles are of queer, tortured forms, and made of green glass or composition of many hues. Table cloths have, of course, gone long ago, and red lights in alteration, by means of clockwork devices, and so the whole atmosphere is one of uncanny strangeness.

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From "Pumpkin Pie, Without, A Camouflage Trick" in the Boston Daily Globe, November 19, 1917, p. 3—

Washington, Nov 18—The art of camouflage has now reached the good old pumpkin pie. Mrs. G.M. King of East Orange NJ today sent to the National Emergency Food Garden Commission a recipe for making pumpkin pie without the pumpkin. Here it is:

Scald one quart of milk, add scant cup of indian meal, little salt. When cold, add two eggs. Cinnamon and ginger to taste. Sweeten with brown sugar. Put little cream or milk on top and bake.

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