At the risk of proposing something akin to commercial
miscegenation, upon reading the post re D. Hines I
couldn't help thinking about the Betty Crocker
materials in a corporate collection in Minneapolis.
I gather there really was a Betty, or at least a
person (and then succesors) recruited to play the
role.  A tasty theme for all this might be the
strategy of artificial personalization as a
sales tool that proved useful when mass
producers with national market clout ran up
against the familiarity, not to say intimacy,
that food buyers (mostly female?) preferred
when making purchasing decisions for the larder.
I'm sure the good folks at the Minnesota Hist.
Soc. could help with a contact.
 
Matt Roth