Shake, Fake & Bake Betty Crocker and the Shakespeare Authorship

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating." &emdash;Don Quixote, 1605

Is Betty Crocker a real person or not? Not. She was made up by a Minneapolis baking company in 1921. When customers wrote and asked for help, they were sent letters signed "Betty Crocker." She wasn't real. The idea was to make customers feel they were getting friendly service. A few years later, she even got her own radio show. Actresses just pretended to be her. In 1976 the company made the first picture of Betty Crocker by blending the faces of lots of women at the company.Since then the picture's been changed several times. Funny, even though her name's been on cookbooks and baking products for many years, she never looks any older. But people believed she was real.

 

The portrait of "Shakespeare" allegedly drawn by Martin Droeshout prefixed to the Shakespeare Folio in 1623 is the only one passed down from posterity. Critics point out that Droeshout was born in 1601, about ten when the man from Stratford retired and fifteen when Shaksper died in Stratford (1616). There are numerous problems with this portrait such as the wearing of a collar that was unfamiliar to his age, there is no neck, the body is a tailor's dummy,and there is an unecessary double line seen on the right side of the face indicating a mask. The drawing was most likely not done from life making the portrait a deliberate fake. But people believe it is real. That the name "William Shakespeare" appears on the 1623 Folio makes as much sense that he's the author as "Betty Crocker" is the maker of a box of cake mix. Shake, Fake and Bake.

 

*************************************************