Who Is Betty Crocker?

My day started out with a debate. In my A-block English class, we were asked to argue over whether ice cream or original cake is better. And there was one name that kept coming back into the conversation- Betty Crocker. We know that most people don’t actually make their cakes from scratch (including myself). They usually are cooking with a Betty Crocker mixture, eggs, vegetable oil, and/or water. I started to think about Betty Crocker, one of the most famous female names in the cooking industry, and I wondered who is she?
So it turns out, there is no actual Betty Crocker. Sad, I know. The house wife that we all envisioned mixing ingredients in her old decorative kitchen is just a figment of our imagination and an idea created by a cooking company. There was no Betty Crocker that was a famous cook who inspired companies to cook like her. No, she is a made up character similar to the Pillsbury Dough Boy. She was created by Marjorie Child Husted, who was not a cook but a home economist and businesswoman. Originally, Betty Crocker was a pen named, created in 1921, used to answer cooking questions sent to Washburn Crosby Company. The name Betty Crocker was expanded into a cooking icon by Washburn Crosby Company (another food processing company), which eventually merged with other companies to form General Mills.
Betty Crocker’s image was created in 1936. She is a middle aged woman, with short brown hair. She is always seen in a red sweater with a white shirt underneath. She has changed slightly over the year with a few variations of style and wrinkles to match the new generation’s preferences. She is meant to symbolize trust, warmth, and the perfect housewife. I’m not the biggest fan of false advertisement.
I was very disappointed (and still am) to figure out that there was no real Betty Crocker. And the comforting, family oriented idea that Betty Crocker cooking is trying to create is a lie because Betty Crocker isn’t real.