From the Library of Congress Photo archive, “Visions of Sauerkraut” in glorious 3D. You can “freeview” this image without stereo glasses by learning the trick on this page.

From Paleofuture, some 20th century notions about the factory farms of the future, from Arthur Radebaugh’s Sunday comic strip “Closer Than We Think”

COLOSSAL CROPS — In addition to dire threats of destruction, the atomic age has also produced many brighter horizons for mankind’s future. One such happy prospect is the use of radiation to create more uniform and dependable crops that will end famine everywhere in the world.

Gamma ray fields now operating on the east coast point to a day when crops will grow to giant size, vastly enlarging yield per acre. These super-plants will be disease and insect resistant — more tender and tasty — and controllable as to ripening time. Seasonal vegetables like corn will be available fresh nearly everywhere for most of the year instead of only a month or so.

Loopy, but kinda prescient. Not sure it’s gonna work out so well!

Mrs. Homegrown was poking around her computer and found an old image we had intended to use for Krautfest 2009. It’s sort of a sauerkraut meets heavy metal t-shirt concept complete with nonsensical umlauts. So we decided to revive the image as an actual t-shirt available in the Root Simple cafe press store. Kraut on!

From the June 1930 issue of Modern Mechanics:

Automatic Food Cooker Runs by Exhaust Heat of Car
Meals can literally be cooked on the run through the use of the automatic cooker shown in the photo above. The cooker is mounted on the rear bumper of the motor tourist’s car and an extension from the exhaust pipe connected up with it, as shown in the insert. The cooker contains a steam pressure kettle which is heated by the hot exhaust gases. An hour’s drive is quite sufficient to thoroughly cook meats and vegetables. Total weight of the unit is so slight that running qualities of the car remain quite unaffected. Motor tours are much more pleasant when one is assured of a well-prepared meal at the end of the trip.

Thanks to the Los Angeles Master Food Preservers for the tip on this oddball bit of history.

“Reaching for oranges, Cawston Ostrich Farm, So Pasadena, CA.” Ostriches seemed to be a big tourist attraction in the early 20th century. This place also featured a “solar motor”–click to bigulate:

Personally, I’d much rather visit the Cawston Ostrich Farm than Disneyland.

So this microwave has a “personal choice” button right next to the popcorn setting.

No determinism button. I think this proves something.

“This represents a healthy life, throughout its various scenes, just such a life as they enjoy, who use the Smith’s bile beans.”

According to an article in the International Journal of Pharmaceutical Medicine, bile beans were,

a very popular proprietary medicine during the twentieth century in the UK. The product consisted of a variety of purgatives, cholagogues and carminatives formulated into a pill and advertised for ‘inner health’. The product was devised in Australia in 1899, survived a damning judgement in a law court in Scotland in 1905, became a brand leader in the 1930s and was on sale until the mid-1980s.

Thanks to Senor W for the photo.

And it’s powered by humanure! At last we have a stylish vehicle for our dog cheese deliveries.

I have no idea where this image came from–found it sitting in a folder on my computer. I think it, pretty much, speaks for itself.