* Pringle's potato "crisps" are not allowed to be called potato "chips" because potato chip manufacturers were afraid that the new-fangled potato product made from dehydrated potatoes would take over the market. It never happened, but they are "snacks" or "crisps," and most definitely not "chips."
* "Philadelphia" cream cheese has nothing whatsoever to do with Philadelphia. It was just a really popular city associated with dairy foods when cream cheese was "invented" in New York state.
* TV dinners were invented by Swanson's to unload a whole bunch of leftover turkeys following Thanksgiving. .
* Swanson's second TV dinner offering was fried chicken, which had a strange banana flavor due to the yellow dye (made from banana) that was used to decorate the box leached through to the food. Most people complained, but a smattering of Florida residents loved the banana fried chicken. It takes all kinds.
* Wonder bread debuted in 1921, but didn't achieve "greatest thing since..." fame until 1930 when it became the first sliced bread available.
* Until 1967, Wisconsin--a state with a very large dairy industry--required margarine to NOT be yellow. At one point, a few states required margarine to be dyed a very unappetizing pink color so as to protect the dairy industry by making butter more attractive than margarine. Little did they know they really only needed to mutter the words "trans fats."
* We have dogs to thank for Pop-Tarts. General Foods was trying to create a moist dogfood treat that wouldn't spoil. The success of Gaines Burgers prompted the cereal division to borrow the technology and the result was the Pop-Tart. They just get more & more appetizing, don't they?
* Wonder bread got in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission in the late 1970s for neglecting to mention that the "fiber" in it's Fresh Horizons bread came from added wood pulp--not actually from whole grains or any such thing. You know, I've been feeling like we're just not getting enough TREE in our diet....
Now doesn't that just make you hungry?????
2 comments:
Tasty! Now I've gotta go to the kitchen and make dinner! I don't think we'll be having pop tarts, or wonder bread, or anything else you listed, though...
I had a pop tart the other day, after decades of not having had one - I never ate a gains burger, but the texture and 'yecch' flavor of the biscuit would speak to its dog-food origins, I would think.
Having worked in the forest products industry for years (until they laid me off, the bastards!), it's rather scary the things one finds wood pulp in. Even before I worked for them, I wouldn't buy anything that had "cellulose gum" or any other 'cellulose' additive. If it's a whole grain, they call it by name; if it's 'cellulose' something, it's probably from a tree. Word to the wise - read the ingredients of your ice cream purchase carefully - it's often used as a thickener.
To quote Chief Wiggum (from the Simpsons) on being told about McDonalds, "Do they have gelatinous non-dairy gum-based beverages?" The response: "Yep; they call 'em 'shakes'."
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