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People We Never Realized Shaped How We Eat
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Apr 1, 2025
Weird History Food is going to get into the real foodies who have shaped how and what we eat. Though we eat out of necessity, the evolution of the way food is prepared and served has also made it an incredibly enjoyable experience that we look forward to every few hours. And while we often sit down to enjoy a home-cooked dinner inspired by our favorite TV chefs, run through the drive-thru to get a hearty meal from our favorite fast-food joint, or get dressed to celebrate an occasion at our favorite restaurant, we rarely stop to consider exactly how the foods we love ended up on our plates.
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These days, it's far from unusual to enjoy a home-cooked dinner inspired by a TV chef
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stop at the drive-thru of a fast food joint, or celebrate a special occasion at a fancy restaurant
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But we rarely stop to consider the people who came up with all of those things
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So today, we're going to take a look at some people we never realized shaped how we eat
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Okay, time to take a look at some famous foodies. Julia Child was a badass of the highest order
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She tried to join the military during World War II, but was turned down for being too tall
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A lot of people would have just moved on at that point, but Julia really wanted in on that war
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So she joined the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor agency to the CIA, as a typist
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Over time, however, she worked her way up the ladder, eventually doing things like creating a shark repellent that stops them from setting off underwater bombs
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because the only thing worse than a shark that explodes before its time is a bomb that explodes before its time
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She also met Paul Cushing Child, an OSS employee, who would become her husband and introduce her to cooking
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She turned out to be a fast learner, and in 1961, she released Mastering the Art of French Cooking
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The recipe book brought a practical method of cooking French food to American homes
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and thrust her into the spotlight to become the pioneer of TV cook show hosts
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The American-born, French-trained chef first appeared on a television show called I've Been Reading to promote her cookbook in 1961
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Instead of sitting down for a normal interview, Child brought a hot plate, a whisk, and eggs on set with her and cooked an omelet during the broadcast
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Every talk show guest should take notes. Viewers loved the episode and wrote to the producers asking to see more of Child
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By February 1963, Child had her own cooking show on the WGBH network
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The French chef also introduced closed captioning for hearing-impaired audiences for the first time
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And in case you can't hear the TV over your chewing. This is Junior Child. Bon Appetit
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often drinking wine to stay hydrated. But French chef Auguste Escoffier changed that
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refusing to allow his cooks to drink anything other than malt brew to keep them sober as they worked with sharp utensils
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He also introduced a la carte menus and created more than 5,000 recipes during his career
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from foie gras to canned tomato sauce. And apparently, because he had some kind of disease
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that wouldn't let him stop innovating, Escoffier also introduced the first cooking assembly line
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where each worker had a different station designed to perform a specific task This made cooking a much more pleasant and economical experience and allowed restaurants to turn higher profits It a model that would be perfected by the McDonald brothers over a century later
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to the delight of salt enthusiasts all over the world. When Upton Sinclair began interviewing workers
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in a Chicago area meat packing plant in the early 1900s, he intended to expose the harsh realities
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that many immigrant workers faced in the meat packing industry. He was passionate about bringing attention to the grim conditions workers were forced to deal with
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and he believed in the power of the press to spread his message to the world, which it only sort of did
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His book, The Jungle, published in 1906, was a work of fiction based on the seven weeks he spent investigating and conducting interviews
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at Chicago's Union stockyards, and its plot centered on the relentless working conditions
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a Lithuanian immigrant endured to provide for his family. But instead of stirring outrage for better working conditions
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the expose drew more attention to the unsanitary conditions at factories where U.S. meat was
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processed, which is to say it seriously grossed everyone out, and rightfully so
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After the public heard stories of meat dropping to a sawdust floor only to be nibbled on by rats
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before it was picked up and packaged, as well as other stomach-churning tales
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the government was forced to investigate. Realizing the author's claims were true
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Congress went to work immediately to ensure the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act
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They didn't do anything for the workers Sinclair had intended to help, though, causing him to later note
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I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident, I hit it in the stomach. Hey, that happens to us on Call of Duty all the time, too, buddy
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Before he was the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson served as a U.S. minister to France
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And while living in Paris from 1784 to 1789, he brought one of his enslaved workers, James Hemmings, with him to be trained as a French chef
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Jefferson told Hemings if he would learn the art of French cooking and bring his acquired skills back to Jefferson's Virginia home of Monticello
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he would be freed after teaching an apprentice the craft. Gee, thanks. The salary would be nice too, TJ
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That turned out to be a pretty good incentive, and Hemings brought a number of signature dishes back to the United States upon their return
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Those included macaroni and cheese, ice cream, whipped cream, and French fries
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Apparently, 18th century France was ordering entirely from the kids' menu. Jefferson, for his part, kept his word and freed Hemmings in 1796
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But sadly, he perished just five years later. Ever eat at Benihana and wonder if all Japanese chefs are that entertaining when they cook
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Well, they're not. It all started when Rocky Aoki approached his father in the 1960s about purchasing a four-table Japanese teppanyaki restaurant in Manhattan
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Yuna Suke Aoki had opened his own restaurant in Ihana in Japan during World War II
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But he didn think the business model would last in New York He believed that Americans would need a show to keep them in their seats long enough to enjoy a Japanese meal And his son heard what he was saying I did from Japan 300 years ago
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I just made the table much bigger and put the showmanship, put the chef
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in front of the customer. Rocky encouraged his table-side chefs at his Benihana restaurant
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to put on the best spectacle they could. This included juggling eggs, cracking jokes
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setting fire to onion volcanoes, and preparing full meals in front of guests
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Benihana drew rave reviews, and prom dates have never been the same. Like so many of us, food innovator William A. Mitchell got his start monitoring the sugar
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crystallization tanks for the American Sugar Beet Company when he was just a teenager
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And after that, he never really left the sugary food industry. He developed a substitute for tapioca to help keep soldiers full during World War II
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a project presumably codenamed Operation Dessert Storm. Then in 1956, Mitchell attempted to invent a self-carbonating soda and completely failed
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But being a turn lemons into lemonade kind of guy, he repurposed the key ingredient and marketed it as Pop Rocks
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By 1957, he had created a sweet powder drink that was high in nutrients for NASA, Tang
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The astronauts of the Apollo program weren't huge fans of Tang, but consumers, who were obsessed with all things space-related at the time
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loved the idea of having a space-worthy treat available in their local stores
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It's the next best thing to going to the moon, without the threat of explosive decompression
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In 1967, he developed gelatin that congealed with cold water, setting the pace for what would later be recognized across the country as quick-set jello
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He'd also developed a dairy-free alternative to whipped cream, Cool Whip, the same year
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Cool Whip, jello, pop rocks, and tang. The man had more influence over the eating habits of generations of children than their parents did
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The 1920s saw automobiles becoming the ultimate status symbol, which is to say everyone was a car nut
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And with more people on the road, Texas entrepreneur Jesse G. Kirby saw dollar signs
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In 1921, he opened the first drive-in restaurant, Pig Stand, with servers who brought food directly to the patron's car
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The Fort Worth-based restaurant quickly became a hit as new car owners got to experience the ultimate luxury of getting ketchup stains on their seats
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American culture would never be the same again. After the first pig stand proved successful, Kirby opened a second location closer to Dallas
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So technically, the restaurateur can also be credited for creating the first American restaurant chain
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Applebee's owes him a debt. In the late 1940s, Chinese food had become all the rage in America
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Restaurants were serving up chop suey and chow mein across the nation, but the frozen and canned food industries had yet to create a product that lived up to the real thing
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So Gino Pellucci and his mother Michelina created their own version of a freezable sellable Chinese dish And soon his mother chop suey recipe flavored with traditional Italian spices hit the grocery store aisles to profitable results
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Because frozen pizza was also growing in popularity, the entrepreneur felt that further
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melding the two cuisines could be a revolutionary idea. He was absolutely right because he invented
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pizza egg rolls. Gino's pizza rolls hit the market in 1968 and have remained a popular and
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convenient frozen food staple ever since. Long may he reign. You know how good the Genos are
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so what's the matter you? Hey! Unlike most food mascots like Uncle Ben, Betty Crocker, and Digum the Honey Smacks Frog
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Chef Boyardee was a real person. In fact, he was actually a classically trained Italian chef
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who opened his own restaurant before he ever stuffed a single ravioli into a can
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Hello, may I come in? I am Chef Boyardee. Ettore Boriardi, who actually spelled his name B-O-I-A-R-D-I, found his first job as a hotel chef's
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apprentice when he was only 11 years old. After training in Paris and London under highly esteemed
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chefs, Boriardi immigrated to the U.S. and found work as the head chef at the Plaza Hotel in New
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York, which was a huge deal back then. He eventually made his way to Cleveland, where he
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worked at the Winton Hotel before opening his own restaurant, Il Giardino d'Italia. Patrons loved
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his food so much they lined up around the block to get a taste of his famous Italian cooking
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Soon, the chef began filling milk bottles with his signature sauce for people to take home with them
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Hopefully, the bottles were clean. It wasn't long before Chef Poiardi offered full meal kits that
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were so popular, he needed to open a separate processing plant. And in 1928, the official
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Chef Poiardi brand, now spelled phonetically so Americans couldn't get it wrong, was launched
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Over the years, his canned Italian classics reached shelves across America, and his name
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is practically synonymous with a type of canned pasta. Molto bene. You probably remember studying the food pyramid when you were a kid and may have assumed it
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was invented by some kind of food scientist. But it all started when the Swedish government set out to create a nutrition model that would
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help citizens cope with the high food prices of the 1970s. By determining which foods were essential and which ones were full of nutrients but not
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necessary to eat in large quantities, officials hoped the information would serve as a guide
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for grocery shoppers looking to save money. It was like a Kelley Blue Book for groceries
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Swedish home economics teacher Anna Britt Angsader, wisely realizing that a visual model
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would make the whole thing way easier to follow, placed the information in an easy-to-follow pyramid guide
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with recommended servings of each group of food. But the Swedish pyramid is different
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from the various food pyramids in the U.S. In effort to appease large food manufacturers
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the USDA's pyramid at one point allowed for six to 11 servings of bread a day
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which is much, much higher than what's recommended by experts. They also allowed the dairy industry to implement an entire section dedicated to its products
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because, hey, why not? Somebody's got to drink all that milk
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