Illustration detail from a Glidden Company advertisement for Durkee Famous Foods’ food preservation and canning processes. Then Princess Sonia ate Grapefruit - Charleson painting circa 1936.

Durkee

1954 Durkee’s Coconut

And then, alas, and oh what a falling off is there, Durkee tumbles down the manhole that gapes wide for anyone with a conspiracy-led view of history: He falls prey to authorship twaddle. Having headed home to Mississippi, and having replaced Adderall with a greater quantity of booze, he moves from the vagaries of portraiture to the supposed unknowability of authorship. Though initially skeptic, he is soon seduced by spectral impostors. All the old skeletons, clothed in tatters of rotting silk, spill out of the closet — Marlowe, Fulke Greville, Mary Sidney and a lot of the Earl of Oxford.

Water chestnuts are optional but the rest MUST BE FOLLOWED TO THE LETTER. ANY VARIANCE, SUBSTITUTION, OR REDUCTION OF AMOUNTS OR ALTERATION OF INSTRUCTIONS, PROCESSES OR PROCEDURES IS PUNISHABLE BY A FINE OF UP TO $250 AS PER SECTION 2.1 OF THE USDA’S THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT ADVERTISEMENT INSTRUCTION AND RECIPE COMPLIANCE ACT OF 1970.

Ms. Durkee: Hey guys, what exactly is a meme?

Illustration detail from a Glidden Company advertisement for Durkee Famous Foods’ whole and ground spices. Marco Polo in the Land of Kublai Khan - Charleson painting circa 1936.

Now! Homogenized for better flavor! Ad for Durkee Foods’ margarine - 1955.