I’ve read quite a bit of science fiction in my time. I’ve never heard of this guy. Just looked him up — never heard of any of his books. The “Melville” of science fiction? I don’ know ‘bout that.
Recently while getting my nails done at a Vietnamese nail salon I watched a cooking show that featured a contest challenging the chefs to make Pringles chips. Nobody got even close. Last week on a motorcycle ride through the hills of NC, we stopped at a gas station with a sign, bathrooms for patrons only. So I bought a can of Pringles just to see what’s on the label. Suffice to say there are a bunch chemicals in the Pringles recipe that the TV chefs didn’t have access to. They never had a chance.
The Book of the New Sun pentology is great stuff.
“Pringles Original ingredients include dried potatoes, vegetable oil, degerminated yellow corn flour, cornstarch, rice flour, maltodextrin, mono- and diglycerides, salt, and wheat starch. The vegetable oil is typically a blend of corn, cottonseed, high oleic soybean, and/or sunflower oil. “
seed flour and seed oil = nutritional garbage ...
Pringles have potatoes and rice and wheat. So, no, they are not potato chips, but they are just as good and I think even tastier.
I grew up outside of Cincinnati Ohio in a small town named Finneytown. Two streets away was Pringle Ave and I was told the inventor lived on that street and that’s where he got the name.
I just remember the early ads: Pringle’s Newfangled Potato Chips!
Ping
Saying he “helped invent” Pringles is a bit of a stretch.
After WWII, the USDA and the US Army Quartermaster Corps collaborated on a project to make dehydrated potato flakes, AKA “instant mashed potatoes.” This material was the basis for the development of Pringles. Lots of military websites conflate this into a claim and the US Army invented Pringles but that too is something of a stretch.
In the 1950s, consumers were complaining that bag potato chips were too greasy, went stale too soon, and got too broken up by the bottom of the bag. P&G engineer Fredric Baur invented the “saddle” shaped chip (technically known as a hyperbolic paraboloid) so they could be stacked and sold in a resealable can. But that was the end of his task and no one yet had given any thought to actually making them taste good.
Then in the 1960s (notice the 10-year-ish lapse here) another P&G guy tinkered with the potato flake recipe and made the chips made from it actually taste good.
Gene Wolfe invented the machine that would fry the chip already in its trademark shape. It was basically a die or metal mold that a glop of the reconstituted dehydrated potato flakes went into, the it got mashed into shape and submerged in hot oil.
In fact it would be a stretch to say anybody invented Pringles. Reminds me of the case of the lever-action rifle, which went through about eight sets of hands (some of them more than once) before it was evolved enough to take on the world.
https://www.glibertarians2019.link/2019/03/04/a-history-of-lever-guns-part-one/
The Book of the New Sun was one of the most memorable works of fiction I’ve ever read. Much of his writing takes its cue from classical Greek sources, both in the storytelling and in the words he chooses to use. It gives his stories a certain groundedness but also has its downsides (e.g. the disturbing amount of pederasty which gets mentioned in some of his books).
I’ve read some of Wolfe’s stories - was not a fan, he was more “new wave” “soft” SF. Never read any of his novels - may have to try one.