There has probably been no greater force for the dissemination of recipes developed by home cooks than recipe contests.
State and county fairs in the 19th century hosted many cooking contests as a part of their “ladies” programming. These fairs were an opportunity for women gather and to show off their “domestic arts”, from needlework to baking and cooking. In my research about White Potato Pie, I came across a “white potato custard pie” category at the 1880 Cecil County Agricultural Society exhibition. The level of specificity suggests a large amount of prizes to be awarded. The other pie categories that year were Green Peach, Dried Peach, Green Apple, Dried Apple, Grape, Cherry, Gooseberry, Currant, Pumpkin, Cocoanut, Lemon, and Apple – and that is just for pies. There were contests for preserves, cakes, breads, cheeses, and more. The dollar prize adjusts to about twenty dollars in “today money.” Considering the amount of effort to just travel to these events, it was clear that the glory of winning was an incentive as well.
It wasn’t long before companies selling ingredients and kitchen appliances figured out that they could use contests as a way to get publicity – and to crowdsource recipes to promote their products. Companies like Heinz, Borden, and Kraft have held recipe contests over the decades. Sometimes, the winning recipes ended up published in promotional cookbooks and advertisements. Newspapers used recipe contests as a way to engage women readers. Home economists and cooking teachers were often employed as judges.
In November 1910, hundreds of women showed up to the Bernheimer Brothers store in downtown Baltimore to enter their bread loaves, biscuits, pies, doughnuts, and cakes to be judged by “representatives of local newspapers.” The Baltimore Sun described some of the cakes as “ornamental in the extreme” and touted the “skill shown by Baltimore women” but did not print the names of any of the winners or the names of the winning items.
Perhaps the Sun was inspired by the success of this contest to hold their own contest in early 1911.
Advertisement for the recipe contest in the San Francisco Examiner, 1901