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Cory Bernat is the creator of an intriguing online exhibit of American food posters related to World Wars I and II, culled from the National Agricultural Library’s collection. Blogger Amanda Bensen recently spoke with her about the project.

What kind of messages about food was the government sending to the American public through these posters?

Bernat: Actually, as a professor pointed out to me, most of them are not really about food—they’re about behavior modification. Both times, with both wars, the government needed the public to modify their behavior for the national good. (And today, that’s exactly what Michelle Obama is trying to get people to do: change their behavior to curb childhood obesity.) As the Food Administration’s publications director put it to state officials back in 1917: “All you gentlemen have to do is induce the American people to change their ways of living!” He’s saying it with irony, of course, because that’s a very hard task.

Talk about what some of the specific posters mean. Any favorites?

I have a preference in general for the World War I posters because they’re just more informative. Look at the one called “Bread: The Nation’s Loaf and How We Used It in 1916.” This is a really impressive infographic, and it’s only a state poster, from Kansas. Not only is the text informative—it tells you how many bushels of wheat per person are consumed in the U.S.—but they’ve used true imagery. And on top of that, there are the strong messages: “Economy of food is patriotism,” and “Without it democracy is doomed; personal sacrifice must supplant previous extravagance.” What incredible statements! I like to wonder what people would make of this today.

I also like the one after it in the online gallery. The saluting potato alone would be enough, but the information is good, too. And that “Be Loyal to Connecticut” line is basically telling people to eat locally—this was almost 100 years ago!

Then there’s one from Arizona called “Good Eats” that urges people to preserve and eat more “perishables” [i.e. fruits and vegetables] than “staples” [wheat and sugar], and it says this will bring both savings and “fewer doctor bills.” That’s a really prescient poster, and it strikes me as a good message for a contemporary audience. We’re rarely encouraged anymore to make the connections between diet and health and expense.

I notice there are also some posters from the years between the two World Wars. What issues did those address?

Well, take the one that says “America Has Plenty of Food,” from the 1930s. That’s at a time when the FDR administration was trying to achieve some parity between the price of food and the price that farmers were paid for that food. Increased production during World War I had put farmers into debt, buying land and equipment—and then there was a depression after the war, and farmers were in this terrible position of not being able to sell what they were growing.

So FDR began paying farmers to not grow things, and this poster was a way to reassure everyone that his policies were working—yes, we are paying farmers to not grow, but don’t worry, there’s still enough food for everyone. See that flag in the background? It’s from the “Ever-Normal Granary.” That’s a nice touch.

There are a lot of posters with the theme of reducing food waste, eating scraps and even saving “used fats” for the war effort. It’s kind of amazing how quickly things have changed.

Yes, one of the interesting questions this could lead to is, why is there no similar communal effort or awareness today, when we are technically at war? Even soldiers, I’ve heard, find that a little disheartening. I would almost call these messages subversive now.

Putting these posters in chronological order showed me how the government’s methodology changed over the years, and how they borrowed from professional advertising and were influenced by what was going on in the private sector. It also really shows the shift to an industrialized food system. You look at the WWII posters and think—where are the agriculture ones? Well, there aren’t any. It’s suddenly about consumers, not farmers.

Was anything consistent?

One thing that remained consistent was the use of women. Women are all over the food ads, still, today. And canning was very consistently popular as a topic because it was comforting. It was a way to show abundance instead of sacrifice, and these very typical, homey kitchen scenes with a woman in an apron. That’s not Rosie the Riveter.

How did you become interested in these posters? Did you know the Ag Library had such a collection?

Basically, it was a lucky find. I started this project in 2007 as a paper in a museum studies class, and it evolved into my thesis for a master’s degree. A history professor who heard I was interested in food history suggested that I check out the agricultural library up the road [in Beltsville, MD]. When I went to look, what I found was a pile of unprocessed posters. The library didn’t even know what they had. But that was good for me, because it forced me to really study them. It allowed me to combine my research interests with my background in graphic design. And it helped that I had the structure of grad school to force me to propose some sort of project.

I took little snapshots of all the posters I thought I might want to study, and I had them all spread out on my floor, trying to figure out where they all belong in relation to each other. My professor wanted to know: What are you going to say about them? And I didn’t know at first, which was kind of unusual. Most historians begin with text and find visual material to illustrate it—I was doing the flip.

I tried to view this as real curatorial work, looking at them in historical context and telling the story in a way that means something to today’s audience, but also explains how they would have been viewed at the time.

I’ve been working on it, donating my time for about 2 years, and it has gone through several iterations.I ended up covering an unusually large time period for just a master’s thesis, but I’m glad I did! I’m pleased with the result. I’m still learning things.

Were your professors pleased, too, I hope?

(Laughs). Yes, I got an A, and I graduated in December [2009] with a master’s in cultural history and museum studies. Now, in my day job I’m a project archivist at the National Park Service, but I’d like to work in exhibit design.

Well, you’ve done a great job with this online exhibit. Will it ever become a physical exhibit, too?

It goes on display from June 21st through September August 30th at the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville (MD), and will eventually move to the USDA building in downtown DC. The originals can’t be shown, because they are too light-sensitive. But I was actually glad when I heard that, because I don’t think these posters should be shown in a conventional, framed way. I want to show them as the mass-produced objects that they were, so I’ll be pasting them on fence panels.

See a photo gallery of more posters here.

I am getting married next month, and one of my favorite gifts I’ve received so far is an apron. Not one of those canvas unisex jobs, either—this is a ruffled beauty that just happens to fit in perfectly in my Eisenhower-era aqua-and-yellow kitchen. It looks like it could have been lifted from June Cleaver’s wardrobe, but it wasn’t; it came from the store Anthropologie, which sells a dozen or so retro-style versions of the garment that fell out of favor around the same time as doing housework in high-heeled pumps.

Well, aprons are back—showing up not just at Anthropologie (which favors a looks-vintage-but-isn’t aesthetic), but on the craftsy online marketplace Etsy, at upscale kitchenware stores like Sur la Table and, in original form, on eBay.

Should feminists be concerned that one of the most powerful symbols of female domesticity and, by extension, sexism, has made a comeback? Should I be concerned, as my wedding approaches, that I am willingly embodying a stereotypical vision of wifedom if I wear one?

Last month blogger (and apron-wearer) Kristen Leigh Painter described on The Huffington Post (and elsewhere) how she had “a feminist crisis” while reading a newspaper article about the trend. She took offense to the author’s uncritical use of quotes such as, “If I had this apron, I would never leave the kitchen,” and a description of advertisements showing models wearing nothing but an apron and high heels. These representations sound like they came out of Ladies’ Home Journal, circa 1950, when the highest aspirations a woman was supposed to have were to satisfy her husband’s desires in both the kitchen and the bedroom.

Painter theorized that the return of such a retrograde view of femininity, or at least its trappings (not just aprons but cupcakes, casseroles and canning, the three C’s of good housekeeping) has to do with the current economic troubles. She compared it to the postwar return of women to the housewife role after making up a large portion of the workforce during World War II.

Personally, although I share Painter’s concern about the perpetuation of sexist stereotypes, I think there’s more (or maybe it’s less) to the apron trend than nostalgia for traditional gender roles. I think most women who are wearing them, myself included, do so with a touch of irony. The thought of my becoming a subservient housewife who is anything less than an equal partner to my future husband is ridiculous, I am happy to note. I do most of the cooking because I enjoy it, but my partner does at least his fair share of the housework. In fact, tonight, while I was working, he made dinner, did the dishes, then ran out to the store to get us some ice cream. Although women still face sexism in many forms, Betty Friedan’s “problem that has no name” is no longer usually one of them.

Last year Shannon Drury wrote an essay in the Minnesota Women’s Press (reposted on Alternet) called “Feminist Housewives Reclaim the Kitchen.” The fact that you can even put the words feminist and housewife together represents a change in thinking from the days of Friedan’s 1963 The Feminine Mystique, which is generally credited with launching the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Drury pointed to contemporary feminist magazines like Bust that embrace the traditional domestic arts of baking and sewing. She wrote, “Many of the new wave of women stitchers and bakers see kitchen work as a reclamation of a lost culture that belonged only to women. The clothing follows suit: What a dashiki might be to a Black Panther, an apron might be to a feminist blogger of the 21st century.”

In any case, aprons—unlike other symbols of female oppression—actually serve a function. If I start vacuuming in high heels, then it’s time to worry.

What do you make of the apron revival?

Over the weekend I went to a town-wide potluck dinner and barn bash at the antiques barn down the road from my house. It was just the sort of small-town gathering—replete with quirky characters and down-home entertainment—that television shows like Gilmore Girls and Northern Exposure have primed you to expect of rural communities, if with slightly less witty dialogue.

Three or four long tables were pushed together on the grass outside the barn, and there still wasn’t enough room for all the dishes people brought. Even a Vegas buffet couldn’t match the culinary variety on offer. A local liquor store owner donated wine.

I’m a “sampler”—I like little bites of different dishes—so it was difficult to restrain myself from taking too much food. This made for odd platefellows: chicken enchiladas astride mashed potatoes, nestled against Thai noodles and topped with asparagus and pungent chive blossoms. I had to taste both versions of rhubarb pie. It all worked, in a weird way, though my stomach didn’t seem to appreciate the meal’s diversity as much as my palate did.

Perhaps I should have taken a cue from the young man who was my potluck-strategy opposite, whom I had observed as I stood in line with my camping mess kit (it was a BYO-place-setting affair). I marveled that he had piled his plate with a single kind of pasta and a piece of bread, and wondered if he was such a picky eater that he couldn’t find anything else to appeal on the whole spread, or if he was a germphobe who trusted only his own (or his family member’s) cooking. As I watched him, it occurred to me that a potluck is an interesting place for anthropological observation—both for how people choose to fill their plates and what they bring.

Potlucks are by no means a strictly rural phenomenon, of course, and over the years I have been to all kinds, from suburbs to big cities, giving me ample opportunity to observe a few common threads. For instance, some people are palpably anxious about what they’ve brought—will people like it, will other people bring the same thing, or—worst of all—will someone else bring the same thing, only better? As an insecure cook, I am usually in the worrywart category, but this weekend’s gathering was big enough to be anonymous. I must admit, though, to being relieved that my dish (the spicy sesame noodles at the bottom right of the picture) was emptied relatively quickly.

At the other end of the spectrum is the person who brings something that isn’t just store-bought (in itself a bit of a cop-out, but excusable if it’s something good) but ridiculous, like a box of cereal. I’m not making this up—there was always someone like this in my college art classes, when we were all supposed to bring in food for the final critique.

According to Foodtimeline.org, the original meaning of the term “potluck” was what a traveler or unexpected guest ate—whatever was cooking that night, without special preparations made. It first appeared in print in the 15th century. The second meaning, a group meal in which guests bring a food contribution, came later, though the practice itself has probably been going on as long as societies have gathered for celebrations such as weddings. In some regions of the United States and the United Kingdom, these events are called covered dish suppers, Jacob’s suppers, or Jacob joins—though I could find nothing definitive on the origin of the Jacob connection, some sources suggest it has to do with the Biblical story of Jacob tricking his brother Esau out of his birthright with an offering of food.

As far as I know, everyone left our community supper with their birthrights intact, though I wouldn’t be surprised if a few belts were loosened.

In case you’re wondering, the sesame noodle salad I made was adapted from a recipe from Sunset magazine. I used linguine and added thinly sliced red pepper, chopped scallions, a little Sriracha chili sauce, some extra soy sauce and a little lime juice, then served it chilled.

I’m crazy about asparagus. I’ve loved it since childhood, when a wise adult whispered to me that it was a powerful source of vitamin C—the secret stuff that makes adults smarter and stronger than kids, they explained conspiratorially. Being the sort of impatient kid who that appealed to (funny how great being a grown-up seems until you actually become one, isn’t it?), I promptly declared that asparagus was my favorite vegetable.

My mother always prepared it very simply, by steaming it in the microwave in a few tablespoons of water, just long enough to soften the stalks but not so long that they lost their lovely brightness and slight crunch. She topped it with those “butter flavor sprinkles” that were all the rage in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Weird stuff, but it actually tasted good. At the table, I struggled to look nonchalant while mentally calculating everyone’s fair share (If there are 24 stalks, we each get 6…hey! Mom is taking 7! Should I say something? Well, she did make it…) and hoping someone might be too full to finish theirs.

As an adult, asparagus is still my favorite vegetable at this time of year. The rubbery stalks sold in the supermarket in the dead of winter, picked many miles and days distant, just can’t compare to the taste of fresh local asparagus in springtime. How do I love it? Let me count the ways…

1. Oven-roasted. This is how I prepare asparagus most often, because it’s quick and delicious. Wash and trim spears, lightly peel the base of tougher stalks, and pat dry. Place on a baking sheet and mist or drizzle with olive oil, rolling each spear to coat. Sprinkle with salt and fresh-ground pepper, and bake at 425 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes. Got that? If not, see The Pioneer Woman’s step-by-step guide. Right before serving, shave some fresh Parmesan on top. Mmm.

2. Risotto. There are about a zillion recipes for this, but I’m partial to the simplest ones, like the Naptime Chef’s browned-butter asparagus risotto, which I found on Food52. I tend to use vegetable bouillon cubes to make a quick stock, and sometimes substitute a splash of cognac if I don’t have white wine on hand (I’ve even tried a pale ale, which was, well, interesting).

3. Eggs. You could do something as basic as dicing up leftover asparagus to toss in your scrambled eggs, or create a larger dish. If you have a cast-iron skillet, Gluten-Free Girl’s roasted asparagus frittata is the way to go. If you’ve got a pie crust, try asparagus, leek and Gruyere quiche. And if you have neither, well, try a crustless asparagus quiche or this asparagus and zucchini torta.

4. Soup. It would be hard to improve on Oui, Chef’s recipe for spring asparagus soup, which is the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I also like the sound of the soup mentioned at the end of this Montreal Gazette article about asparagus, which suggests pureeing it with potatoes, chicken stock and Brie cheese.

5. Breaded & fried. Not the healthiest way to eat your veggies, obviously, but as I’ve said before, I’m a huge fan of breaded asparagus fries. I’ve never been able to make them myself with much success, but perhaps you’ll have better luck if you aren’t afraid to use lots of oil (I tend to skimp on it) or even a deep-fryer. Here’s one recipe to try.  I imagine asparagus tempura is similarly tasty.

Welcome to round 2 of Inviting Writing! This month’s theme is “food and fear,” kicked off by Lisa with a tale of childhood angst & Egg McMuffins.

Our first reader-written story comes from Deb Terrill in Kankakee, Illinois.

Fear of Fish
By Deb Terrill

Most people would call me an adventurous eater. In my work as a food and garden writer, I am occasionally accused of ‘fancy food’ promotion.

“I always read your columns,” people will say, “but some of them are, well…We’re meat and potatoes people.”

I grew up in a meat and potatoes family too, and the cooking couldn’t have been more Midwestern, white-bread, start-with-a-can-of-this or a-box-of-that pedestrian. No chances were taken.

This began to change when I met my in-laws.

As a child, I was afraid of so many foods. What kind of cheese could possibly be white? Velveeta wasn’t white. And moldy blue cheese? Please. Clam chowder? Forgive me for this, but those clams looked like something that came out of a really ill person’s nose.

We never ate fish when I was a child. Not once. Not even a fish stick. I did see it occasionally—old Mr. Miller across the alley would clean fish in his backyard, cutting open the belly of the scaly, wiggling creature and spreading the guts out on newspaper, wiping his knife on his coveralls as he worked. I got to help bury the wet newspaper bundles beneath the peonies. No, I would never eat fish.

Grandma, who liked to tell stories as we peeled potatoes or shelled peas, once shared a vivid tale about a cousin who went to the beach and fell asleep on the sand. (As always, she began with the declaration: “Now this is a true story.”) According to Grandma, a crab climbed into the sleeping girl’s mouth, entered her throat and almost choked to her death. True or not, that image remains with me after 50 years, and I still don’t eat crustaceans of any sort!

Visits to the Amish farms to buy meat were fairly hair-raising, too. For people who were not risk takers, my grandparents were amazingly okay with the plethora of scary circumstances that filled our chest freezers with moo and oink. I managed to avoid the invitations to watch the hog butchering (ever hear a pig scream?), but Grandpa would not tolerate my reluctance to watch the pans of souse being made. Souse is a sort of jelly made from simmering bones, studded with the parts of a hog that, from my perspective, were never intended to be eaten—ears, tails, tongues, organ meat, probably even eyes. I tried not to see the sausage being oozed into ‘natural’ casings as I ran out of those barns.

The first time I ever trimmed a whole beef tenderloin required popping an Atavan.

My in-laws ate things like rutabaga, artichokes, sourdough bread, tiramisu and brandy-soaked fruitcakes, none of which I had ever tasted before. But I learned to love the oceans of brine that spread over my tongue from a good Kalamata olive and to appreciate the piquancy of a pickled caper in my piccata sauce. Now, I adore a good Maytag cheese and immediately notice the sad lack of anchovies in a Caesar salad dressing. And fish! They fed me flaky white cod and buttery sole fillets and never once asked me to eat any skin. These days, I jump up and down and clap my hands when my husband catches a walleye. My fresh-caught, home-smoked whitefish pate has become a signature appetizer when I cater.

But in some ways, I am still afraid of seafood. When I see celebrity chefs sucking down raw oysters, scooping up that green thing in lobsters or slurping squid ink, I am quite certain that these people lack the gene responsible for self- preservation—the one that makes us spit out poisons. (Or are they more evolved than I?) Every dinner invitation that comes my way is met with consternation over the possibility that shellfish will be involved. Steak tartare, sushi, or slimy okra I could manage. But please God, not a crab.

In the event of such a catastrophe, my plan is to look at my cell phone and declare: “Oh my God, my cousin has just had a freak accident at the beach! I’m sorry, but I have to go…”