How to Find Great (and Weird) Food Ephemera
Hi, my name is Ashlea, and I am a hoarder.
Not the kind you read about in the newspapers, whose neighbors find them dead underneath a mountain of year-old pizza boxes and kitty litter, but the organized kind. I own tons and tons and tons of STUFF, mostly vintage and kitsch, all immaculately displayed and frequently dusted.
I am particularly keen on objects and ephemera from the 1920s through 1970s, though I'm not above an '80s or '90s buy. Extra credit if it's bright, colorful, and/or some long lost artifact of popular culture. (And extra extra credit if it's actually functional, as most of my kitchen items are.) The less useful stuff is still fun to behold; my present collection includes a communist bread-line sign from Prague, a fluorescent pink Colonel Sanders piggy bank from Montreal, Snap Crackle and Pop character pillows from dAN's Parents' House in Brooklyn, and a metal 1950s dancing hot dog sign from Tokyo. It's eclectic, to say the least.
So what do I look for when I'm scouting? And why do some objects make the official Hoarder of Kitsch cut, while others get passed over? Click ahead to get inside my brain.



























