A couple of weeks ago when I got to thinking about the old milk bottles and the milk boxes that were common on front porches to allow the milkman to deliver milk without bothering the residents of the house, I naturally also got to thinking about butter made from the cream and from there to the butter substitute: margarine, which is made from vegetable oil.

What I remembered from the WWII era was buying oleomargarine, oleo for short or just margarine in a plastic bag with a little yellow dye spot in the middle of the bag. By squeezing the bag you could burst the yellow dye out and then by kneading you could color the entire contents of the bag a yellow (buttery) color. We then put the contents of the bag into a couple of small bowls that could be placed on the dining table and used as though it were butter. I had to compete with my brother to see who got to knead the bag of oleo. Another of those sibling rivalries usually settled by my mother who, I suppose, had kept track of who did the kneading the time before.

Of course the dye added nothing to the taste, but it no longer looked like that white paste used in our school classrooms, which some kids were known to eat. At the time I am not sure if I knew exactly why we used oleo and not butter, but it could have been either a cost-saving measure or maybe even a rationing question during the war. Having lived through the depression years, my parents were certainly frugal and I do remember having to have the appropriate rationing stamps to buy certain items including butter.

The development of margarine occurred in the late 1800s, and it was not long before the butter lobby sought to prevent inroads into butter sales. By the 1880s the federal government tried a tax of two cents per pound on margarine and manufacturers had to be licensed to make it. The color bans began in the then dairy states of New York and New Jersey. In other states, laws were enacted regarding the coloring of margarine to prevent it from looking like butter. One coloring that was proposed was to make it pink so that it would look unpalatable.

During WWI, dairy products became scarce so margarine use increased. But the butter lobby was soon back to regulating margarine even through WWII. The coloring and regulations on margarine were most prominent in the dairy states and lasted into the 1960s with Minnesota finally abandoning such regulations in 1963. The last holdout was Wisconsin where yellow margarine use was a crime, but finally in 1967, Wisconsin also succumbed to abandoning the colored margarine requirement.

Our neighbors in Canada also were slow in abandoning the requirements with Ontario it was illegal to sell butter-colored margarine until 1995 and Quebec apparently held out until 2008.

jtr

A second thought after writing about milk bottles two weeks ago was remembering Coke bottles. The father of a good childhood friend of mine worked for the Coca-Cola bottling company in Dayton, Ohio. Because of that I was one of the very first persons in Dayton to experience Coke from the new style of bottle introduced in the 1950s when the bottle design got stretched to allow for 10, 12, or 26 ounces. I remember keeping that first elongated bottle for some time and thinking that it would be a collectors’ item. Ha! The number of those bottles that were produced soon destroyed its uniqueness. Oh, Fiddlesticks!

Despite my friend’s connection to Coke, I had pretty much settled on Pepsi, succumbing to economics embodied by the sales jingle of Pepsi:

“Pepsi Cola hits the spot/12 full ounces/That’s a lot./ Get lots more for a nickel, too./ Pepsi Cola’s the drink for you./NICKEL, Nickel, nickel”

The nickel Coke was only 6.5 ounces — doesn’t seem like much these days when you find soda pop selling in 32 ounce containers and more, but with a much higher price of course.

I didn’t save that elongated Coke bottle, but I do have a couple of coke bottles around some place that I save as mementos. My favorite I picked up out of a trash can as a souvenir from a trip to England in 1981. We were in London just after the marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales to Diana, Princess of Wales on July 29 of that year. To commemorate the wedding, (no return) Coca-Cola bottles were produced marking that event. They were quite plentiful and so I brought home two.

jtr

Coca-Cola was first bottled in 1899. The green, embossed bottle was developed and patented in 1915. Before that, there were several types and colors of bottles that were used. The patent was issued to the Root Glass Co. and was supposedly designed as to be recognized even if broken and also recognizable when picked up in the dark. I think it succeeded in those two requirements.

jtr

An earlier bottle used was the Hutchinson bottle in the late 1800s that had a unique metal stopper that consisted of a twisted wire that acted like a spring with a rubber disc that the spring held inside the bottle tight enough to seal it. Squeezing the spring a bit and pushing down would unseal the contents. The upper end of the wire spring was large enough so that it would not go all the way into the bottle. The unsealing of the bottle with the soda contents caused a pop sound. Hence, soda pop!

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!