Betty Bossi

Initially I assumed that Betty Bossi was some sort of domestic celebrity—a Swiss version of Martha Stewart. The shelves of Swiss houses are lined with her cookbooks and one of the two big chain supermarkets, Coop, uses her name on everything from orange juice to ravioli. However, like her American namesake, Betty Crocker, Betty Bossi is a fictional character.

She was created by ad copywriter Emmi Creola-Maag for Unilever and was initially used to help sell margarine to the butter-friendly Swiss. This took form in 1956 as a magazine style leaflet called the Betty Bossi Post,  which attempted to answer the eternal question ‘What Shall I Cook Today?’. French on one side and German on the other, the leaflet was so popular that it grew into a full magazine, and then a recipe book.

I don’t have statistics on its success rate, but judging from some of the information from today’s butter lobby, the struggle continues. Check out the information provided by BO Butter on what goes into butter vs margarine. Similar information is found on the Swiss Milk page.  

Butter is healthy... so says this hand painted butter dish found at a local Brocki.

In 1977 Betty Bossi split from Unilever and it became its own, separate publishing company. The brand continued to expand, publishing countless cookbooks and expanding into TV and radio, as well as recipe development and convenience foods.

Today Betty Bossi is one of the dominant authorities on Swiss cuisine, especially for the home cook.

For more information on the history of the brand, as well as great recipes and numerous superfluous kitchen gadgets, see here: http://www.bettybossi.ch/de   (German and French).

My numerous Betty Bossi inspired recipes: