Cooking with the “IT!” Girl |

A Supper with Clara Bow curated by Jenny Hammerton. (March 17, 2026)

I’ve been collecting the favorite recipes of movie stars and trying them out, for over 25 years. There are a surprising amount of weird and wonderful signature dishes on record in books, magazines and advertising ephemera and my culinary collection now numbers over 10,000. My favourite celebrity chefs are Vincent Price, Sophia Loren and Yul Brynner, but I have an enduring love for recipes shared by stars of the silent era too.

To celebrate the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s showing of Clara Bow in “It” at the restored Castro Theatre on Sunday, March 22 accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, I offer you a menu of Clara favorite recipes. Full screening info and to buy tickets here.

The earliest book I know of that gathers some of these culinary curiosities is entitled Celebrated Actor-Folks’ Cookeries: A Collection of the Favorite Foods of Famous Players. It was published in 1916 and contains recipes from the kitchens of Charlie Chaplin (Apple Roll), Mabel Normand (Chili Con Carne) and Douglas Fairbanks (Chicken Southern Style), amongst many other performers familiar to lovers of early film.

As the star system became firmly established in the 1920s, movie magazines flourished, feeding a growing public fascination with Hollywood celebrities. Cinemagoers wanted to know who their favorites were dating, where they lived, and what they liked to eat. Motion Picture Magazine featured many movie-star menus and encouraged readers to throw lavish dinner parties featuring celebrity specials.

In 1927, Photoplay magazine released a booklet entitled 100 Favorite Recipes of the Stars, which was available to buy via mail order for the princely sum of 25 cents. Later editions expanded the selection to 150.

This dinky pamphlet is a treasure trove of dishes with delightful names such as Ed Wynn’s Shrimp Wiggle, Gilda Gray’s Chicken Salad Cabaret and Richard Arlen’s Peach Cabinet Pudding. The collection also includes the first recipe from our featured star’s kitchen. Photoplay referenced Clara’s starring role in the film It (1927) in their footnote to her recipe, and I love their cheeky suggestion to “try it on the boyfriend.” I’ve made this twice, once in a pudding basin and once in individual ramekins. It was tasty!

If you are a fan of oysters, there’s a lovely way of preparing them in the gloriously illustrated Favorite Recipes of the Movie Stars, published in 1931. You could serve these as an appetizer at your Clara-themed meal. I love the fact that the original It Girl admits she is no great shakes in the kitchen and offers up this delight, “with due credit to her cook”.

For pudding, how about Vanilla Marlow? This is a fun and easy way of making something akin to ice cream. I’d never made a dessert with melted marshmallows before I tried this, but it’s fun to make, and it’s delicious.

Fritzi Kramer of Movies Silently carefully shows you how she made it here.

The name of Clara’s macaroni dish, Maracon a la Lil, puzzles me. But maybe she’s referring to herself as Lil? Short for Little Clara? This is a three-ingredient dish, it’s very simple, but who doesn’t love macaroni with lashings of cheese?

If you are just cooking for one, how about a rarebit? It’s classic fodder for those who don’t really like to spend too much time in the kitchen. I have a feeling Clara was such a person, here she is, beating eggs with anticipation!

Finally, something I haven’t tried myself, but I am occasionally tempted to; Jellied Tuna.

Fritzi Kramer takes you through her preparation step-by-step here.

Courtesy of Movies Silently and Fritzi Kramer

I hope you will enjoy rustling up some recipes a la Clara. Channel some of her loose-limbed, high-spirited energy as you shimmy around your kitchen and serve up these star-spangled dishes.

The It Cafe was at 1637 Vine St in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel near the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and was opened by “It Girl” Clara Bow and her husband Rex Bell on September 3rd, 1937. It had a zodiac motif and was popular with Bow’s silent movies era pals.

For many more “It Cafe”photos and history visit Martin Turbull’s Hollywood Photo Blog. And look below for a gallery of photos and posters.

BONUS– Clara Bow biographer David Stenn joins “The Hollywood Kitchen” to make Clara Bow’s Chop Suey here.

David’s book, “Runnin Wild” is a terrific book.

Want to try Clara Bow Cocktails. Visit Vince Kennan at his “Down the Hatch.“

An read an excerpt from David Stenn’s “Clara Bow Runnin’ Wild” on the making of “It.”

Jenny Hammerton is a film archivist with a nosy-parker interest in what the stars of the Hollywood Golden Era liked to eat and drink. She’s been scribbling away about film star recipes for twenty years at Silver Screen Suppers, and her bulging collection of film star favorites now numbers over 10,000. She hosts a monthly food-and-film extravaganza at Dinner and a Movie and has written several books packed with star-spangled recipes, including Cooking With Joan Crawford and Supper with the Stars: With your host Vincent Price (co-written with Peter Fuller). She is currently working on a memoir called Dead Movie Stars Taught Me to Cook – and that is a fact!