The colorful Belle Epoque posters make the joy of collectors. Not only are they highly decorative and amusing in their occasional naïveté but they also inform us about the changing lifestyle. New alimentary products appear, such as chemical taste enhancers and food substitutes. Maggi, powdered milk, and margarine became regular ingredients of people’s diet. Chocolat, previously only served as drink, acquired the solid form of tablets as we know them today. Biscuits were produced industrially.
“The French Sardine Says Hello!” Food talked to people before the advertising industry discovered that humanizing animals we eat was not a good idea.
Sausages that “One Eats with Pleasure and Without Fatigue”. A prodigious pig (cochon prodigue) indeed! An animal that happily slices itself for the consumer’s delight would probably turn off today’s viewers. The Belle Epoque folk were made of a tougher stock.
Seen only in greasy spoons today, a bottle of Maggi was a novelty worthy of a bourgeois table.
A bowlful of chemically enhanced soup before the bedtime was a sign of good parenting
This margarine obtained gold medals in Amsterdam {1883) and Le Havre (1887)
Be it cheese, beer, champagne or herb liquor, monks were trusted to produce quality food and drink
In this boy’s mind, solid chocolate is better than solid gold
Biscuits to be served with champagne. A beautiful poster by Alphonse Mucha, 1896
A boy in a typical school uniform is enjoying sweet biscuits
Cookies could start a romance (1896)
“No arms, no chocolate”. This bizarre advertising depicts a well-known French saying. One could think that this cruelty hides a wisdom of some sort; that it can be interpreted as “no effort, no reward.” That is not so. This replica is passed on in popular language and is serving to highlight the absurdity of a ban or to make fun of someone faced with a physical impossibility:
“Mom, can I have chocolate?”
“There’s some in the closet. Go serve yourself.”
“But Mom, I can’t, you know I don’t have arms.”
“No arms, no chocolate!”
Obviously, it makes some sense to the French.
Related post:
The Belle Epoque Lifestyle: Personal Hygiene
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Victorian Paris 
They’re so beautiful though vegans would probably stand back with revulsion at the sausages one. Even I did a double take!
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This why I like looking at adverts from the past – the colours are brilliant and the graphics and always a good conversation starting point.
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And that’s why, if there’s a big enough resolution version up for grabs, I like to enhance and sell on my cards etc!
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