Marilyn's cookbooks contain inside notes on the back written by the actress, shopping lists, and a diary.
Marilyn has gone down in posterity more as an icon than as an actress, and every time something happens around her there is news about her. Being this a gastronomic portal, we could not stop commenting on the diva's cookbooks that were auctioned in 2021. The books in question are two hardcover editions from the 1950s: The New Fanny Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book and The New Joy of Cooking and are the only two extant cookbooks whose ownership of Monroe has been confirmed.
What makes them more special? Well, inside they contain notes on the back written by the actress, shopping lists, and a diary. On Marilyn's shopping list, she had eggs, milk, cornflakes, jam, cream, bread, coffee, and soda. Monroe had also attached clippings of some recipes she had liked from the newspaper; for example, a lasagna.
Even so, if we want to know what Marilyn ate, we have the most precise information about her in a report that Pageant Magazine did to her in 1952, a historical document that—I will admit—has obsessed me for years. In it, Marilyn explains not only her diet, which many considered "strange", but also her exercise routine, which is quite atypical for a woman of her time. Until fairly recently, there was (and, in fact, still is) the misconception that weight training “masculinizes” the female body, so seeing Marilyn training with a barbell and steel plates in the early 50s never ceases to fascinate me.
Well, I'm going to the real sauce: What exactly did Marilyn eat to maintain her figure? But before I make a small clarification: Marilyn's body, her proportions (a waist of less than 60 cm with a chest and a hip of more than 90) are a purely genetic matter that, obviously, she took care of with certain routines. That is to say: none of us are going to have Marilyn's body for eating and doing sports like Marilyn. Eating healthy and playing sports should always come from loving you, not from trying to be like someone else, don't forget that :)
Breakfast
“Before I take my morning shower, I start by heating a cup of milk on the hot plate. When it's hot, I crack a couple of eggs and add them, then stir them with a fork and drink it while I get dressed. I supplement it with a multivitamin pill and I doubt that any doctor would recommend a more nutritious breakfast for a working girl in a hurry, ”explained Marilyn in the named interview with Pageant.
Dinner
We already know that for Americans dinner is the main meal of the day, so we assume that in the interview she does not mention what she eats at noon because it would be a snack on the set.
“My dinners (when I'm not dining out) are surprisingly simple. Every night I stop at the market next to my hotel and buy a steak, some lamb chops, and some liver, I cook everything in the electric oven in my room. I must be a half-rabbit because I never get bored of eating carrots. It's a good thing because even though I eat simply during the day over the past few months I've developed a habit of stopping for ice cream on the way home from acting classes. I'm sure I couldn't afford these indulgences if my normal diet wasn't made up almost entirely of animal protein."
If Marilyn Monroe lived today, would her diet be considered keto? Because it sounds totally in that direction to me, really. She also explained how she had never considered her figure unremarkable about herself and how she changed her relationship with eating and exercising over the years:
“Frankly, I have never considered my own figure so exceptional; until very recently, I rarely thought about it. My biggest concern used to be eating enough. Now I have to worry about eating too much. I never used to bother with exercises. I now spend at least 10 minutes each morning exercising with small weights. I have developed my own exercises, for the muscles I want to keep firm, and I know they are right for me because I can feel that I am activating the right muscles while exercising.”
Sport
In the report, Marilyn also talked about her exercise routine. “Every morning, after brushing my teeth, washing my face, and removing that first layer of sleep, I lie down on the floor next to my bed and begin my first exercise. It is a chest-firming routine that consists of lifting my dumbbells of just over 2 kg from an open angle until I have them over my head. Then I do this 15 times in a position where I have my arms over my head. Then, with my arms making a 45º angle to the ground, I move the weights in circles until I'm tired,” Monroe explained. I'm not going to lie to you: I've been training in the gym for years and I don't quite understand what Marilyn's exercise routine consisted of, but she was clearly not doing bad at all.
On outdoor sports, Marilyn explained that they were not for her: “I've never been particularly interested in outdoor sports and I don't want to excel at tennis, swimming, or golf. I'll leave those things to the men. Despite its huge popularity in California, I don't think sun-tanned skin is more attractive than fair skin or healthier, for that matter. Personally, I'm against a deep tan because I like to feel blonde all over."
