All the neighbors and their children are invited to Sally Draper’s sixth birthday party at the Draper home in Ossining. For the children, the fare is that all-American classic, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Entertaining for adults was a more serious affair in the world of Mad Men, however, and always involved copious amounts of alcohol. As Betty enters the dining room crowded with guests she carries a tray of mint juleps (see Jane Sterling’s Mint Julep). “It’s that time of year,” says Betty. Then she announces the menu for the adults: Waldorf salad (see Connie’s Waldorf Salad), cold turkey, stuffed celery (see Betty’s Stuffed Celery, page 72), and date nut bread.
It’s the summer of 1960, just months before the presidential election, and Sterling Cooper is angling for the Nixon campaign’s business. This is the first election in U.S. history in which advertising and television, are playing a major role in what author Joe McGinniss famously called “the selling of the president.” Sterling Cooper is a Republican stronghold through and through; if there’s a Kennedy supporter in the firm he (or she) is keeping it a secret.
In 1961, Pat Nixon, the former second lady and future first lady, shared her recipe for date nut bread with Heloise Bowles, the creator of one of the most successful syndicated columns in the history of American journalism. “Hints from Heloise” appeared in more than 600 newspapers in the 1960s and offered advice for housewives on everything from saving money to housekeeping. Betty Draper didn’t have Pat Nixon’s recipe in 1960, but she almost certainly would have been reading Heloise Bowles’ syndicated newspaper column, just as millions of American housewives did. Heloise validated them in no uncertain terms: “You, the homemaker, are the backbone of the world,” she wrote in Heloise’s Kitchen Hints (Prentice-Hall, 1963). “If it weren’t for you there would be no home, no family, or world fit to live in.” And no Pat Nixon’s Date Nut Bread, either.
FIRST LADY PAT NIXON
Date nut bread makes an encore appearance in season 3, episode 10 (“The Color Blue”). Suzanne Farrell, the schoolteacher with whom Don has an affair, bakes three loaves of it for a bake sale, but keeps one to share with Don. The next morning Don enjoys a piece of Miss Farrell’s creation at the office as his creative team presents advertising ideas for a client called Aquanet. The bread is Don’s reminder of the sweet night before.
ADAPTED FROM PAT NIXON’S RECIPE IN “HINTS FROM HELOISE” NEWSPAPER COLUMN, 1961
NOTE: You can substitute 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for 2 tablespoons of the granulated sugar.
8 ounces pitted dates, chopped into small pieces
1 teaspoon baking soda
3⁄4 cup boiling water
4 tablespoons butter
3⁄4 cup sugar (see note above)
1 egg
11⁄4 cups all-purpose flour
3⁄4 cup chopped walnuts
1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract
YIELD: 1 LOAF