Posted on 12/29/2014 11:42:27 AM PST by iowamark
In much the same way most American homes have different half-filled tubes of sunblock, off-sized batteries, and calculators that can't be thrown away, most American homes have the six following foods. We may not eat them often, or even like them, but we still keep them on hand. They're just part of what make a home a home — even if we forget why.
Here, the largely forgotten histories of six American staples.
1. Tuna fish
During the 20th century tuna fish was one America's most purchased proteins — but it didn't happen without a dash of ingenuity. In 1903, the California Fish Company figured out steaming tuna made it white and removed most of the oil that made it taste so "fishy." So sellers claimed it really did taste like chicken, and it was cheap! The government fed it to soldiers in WWI, and they continued to eat it when they got home. It was a cheap, shelf stable, inoffensive protein that could "beef up" almost any meal it was added to.
2. Ketchup
Ketchup has been around for hundreds of years; it was just never, ever made with tomatoes. Hailing from China where it was called ke-tchup, kôechiap or kê-tsiap, ketchup was any spicy sauce that resulted from a savory food being boiled down to goo and spiced. Popular in previous centuries were mushroom ketchup, oyster ketchup, walnut ketchup, and fish-innards ketchup.
Most Westerners thought tomatoes were poisonous until the 19th century. When they finally realized they weren't, tomatoes became wildly popular, and tomato ketchup was considered not just tasty, but a health food. Unfortunately food preservation in the late 19th century was quite the opposite of healthy: ketchup was filled with mold, rot, chemicals, and even tar to make it red. Enter Mr. Henry J Heinz. Heinz was obsessed with cleanliness and quality, which is why he started selling his ketchup in his trademarked clear bottle. Americans who were used to covert packaging were drawn to the tasty sauce they could be sure was safe, and soon ketchup had a place in nearly every cupboard in America.
3. Peanut butter
What first got Americans hooked on peanuts was war. When the Union cut off the Confederacy's supply routes, there was precious little else to eat in the South except the nut, which at the time was grown mostly for animal feed. Northern soldiers ate them too, and brought them back home. Crushing them into "butter" is an idea that seemed to occur to any society that used peanuts, dating all the way back to the ancient Incan empire. While George Washington Carver didn't create the first peanut butter, he did use in many of his peanut inventions — but again, it took a war to popularize it. Cheap, easily transportable, and high in protein, peanut butter was used liberally in soldier's rations in both World Wars.
4. Yogurt
For a long time, yogurt was considered a sour foreign food, eaten by immigrants and sometimes prescribed by doctors for stomach ailments. It took one Mr. Daniel Carasso to make it an American staple. His father had started a yogurt company in Greece, and named it "Danone," or "little Dan" after his son. When Little Dan grew up, he took his father's yogurt making business to France, where it became very successful. Until the Nazis invaded.
So Daniel moved to the United States and Americanized his company's name into "Dannon." He sold small glass jars of plain yogurt from a factory in Brooklyn. Americans weren't crazy about it until he added some strawberry jam to the bottom of each jar in 1947. That, coupled with the perceived health benefits and ease of purchase, turned yogurt into one of America's favorite healthy snacks. Carasso's himself might be considered the finest testament to the health benefits of yogurt; he died in 2009, age 103.
5. Saltines
Flat, dry bread has existed for as long as there have been grains with which to make it. Saltines themselves aren't even a culinary twist; they are just the first officially branded soda cracker, which Americans had been snacking on for years. The brand was bought by the National Biscuit Company (NaBisCo!) in the late 19th century. Nabisco eventually lost the brand name Saltine due to trademark erosion; the success of the product resulted in everyone calling any squared salted cracker a "saltine." Saltines might have been destined to be a home staple no matter what; snack-size in the time before snacks, cheap, and shelf-stable. But it was the Great Depression that really helped lock saltines in our larders. Diners would put saltines out for customers, allowing hungry people to buy something inexpensive like soup, and thicken it into something a little more filling.
6. Campbell's soup
With all the soup choices available to Americans now, from fancy imported butternut squash to stew made right in the store, it's amazing how many of us just don't feel right without some Campbell's in our cupboards. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup isn't much compared to more modern brands. The noodles are broken and the chicken is a smattering of miniscule chunks, but it's what we love. It's what we remember. We owe the very name "Chicken Noodle Soup" to Campbell's, after a radio announcer in the 1940s misspoke its actual name "Campbell's Noodle with Chicken Soup." We all have Campbell's because they were the first to figure out the best process of condensation in 1897. If you removed the water from soup, you removed the bulk of its shipping cost, making it cheap for manufacturer and buyer alike. A warm and filling "meal" to crumble your saltines into, no matter how poor or far away from home you were.
If you saute some onions and celery, chop up some leftover chicken and add it to the Campbell’s chicken noodle soup it makes a hearty bowl of soup. I actually like to add some velveeta and tabasco to it as well. Good for a stuffy nose, all that salt and heat.
No, but I’m sure there aren’t too many things you CAN’T put in them.
I think the rule with hot dogs is, if you can sell it under its own name, don’t put it in a hot dog.
Tiger 33, ah, the memories...
Wonderful accounts you're posting here! Thank you for the great reading!
Can anyone imagine any successful company doing that today?
Actually, I figure that there are many successful bosses doing something like that today, in one way or another. I've known a few very much like that in spirit. They are great bosses, leaders of men.
The CFO you mention sounds like a great boss!
Great post!
One little item, though -- In 1903, the California Fish Company figured out steaming tuna made it white and removed most of the oil that made it taste so "fishy."
Ummmmmmmmm ... tuna is white when it's albacore. It isn't white because it got steamed to be that way. I think what really happened is they figured out how to can tuna in a tin can instead of in jars, and smart people loved it -- top-notch protein source on hand easily. Every cupboard should have several cans of tuna, preferably albacore!
Another one they might have missed is canned peaches, which were around in the mid to late 1800s in America. Canned peaches were a real treat for Western pioneers, and even now it’s a treat just to wantonly open up a can of peaches and gobble them down! Up to then, stuff had to be canned in jars — heavy and breakable, hard to transport. When canning was accomplished in light-weight unbreakable tin cans — whoa, nelly!
College at GCC? Or Thunderbird Int’l School of Business?
Glendale had and has quite a few great little diners and dives!
I'll look for it.
Sometimes ya gotta compromise your principles if you want tasty French fries.
Oh yeah. Also good were chicken livers sauteed with onion and a slice of bacon. The real po' food though, was popcorn and iced tea.
I made “pizza” out of English Muffins, ketchup, and Velveeta.
The trick is to sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
Conversation at the factory:
"Hey, you want me to put this stuff in the hot dog bin?"
"Hell no, that's disgusting. Put it in the chorizo bin."
What’s funny is, Americans have a phobia of “offal”. If you tell them what this stuff is and serve it up on a nice plate at a fancy restaurant, most won’t eat it. However, stick it in a sausage and call it a “hot dog” or “chorizo”, and we love it.
I went to the La Perla in Glendale, AZ the first time in 1978. Loved their chille relenos.
T-Bird.
Haven’t had so much as a spoonful of Danon yogurt; why bother, its pasteurized, thus totally lacks the benefit of real yogurt.
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Campbell’s soup? - Yuck!
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