Speaker 1: Everybody eats, everybody loves it. It's such an important part
Speaker 1: of who we are as a culture. For more than
Speaker 1: a century, American food has been dominated by some iconic brands.
Speaker 1: For many years in this country, if you wanted something
Speaker 1: cold to drink, you asked for a coke. If you
Speaker 1: want to ketchup, you wanted Hyen's Ketchup. It didn't matter
Speaker 1: that there were tons of other brands out there. When
Speaker 1: people think of American chocolate, they think of Hershey's. When
Speaker 1: people think of American burgers and fries, they're going to
Speaker 1: think of McDonald Coca Cola, Hines, Hershey, McDonald's, Kellogg's. You
Speaker 1: know the names, the logos and the jingles. I remember
Speaker 1: my father me Rescupe singing k E double l O,
Speaker 1: double G Kellogg's best to you? But do you know
Speaker 1: the stories behind them? The federal government claimed, with some justification,
Speaker 1: the Coca Cola was mislabeled because ironically it no longer
Speaker 1: had cocaine in it, so you can't call it Coca
Speaker 1: Cola corn flakes. It was an accident, and you stopping,
Speaker 1: you think, what if they didn't leave? What if they
Speaker 1: just disposed of what had gotten moldy and behind the
Speaker 1: remarkable individuals who brought them to life. There were lots
Speaker 1: of stories about Ray Kroc walking into a franchise of
Speaker 1: the location, looking around, jumping up on the counter, and
Speaker 1: ordering everybody out of the restaurant because he wasn't satisfied.
Speaker 1: He was both an inventor a bit of a showman.
Speaker 1: He was notorious for wearing only white riding around Battle
Speaker 1: Creek on a bicycle with a parrot on his shoulder.
Speaker 1: A Welcome to The Food That Built America a new
Speaker 1: podcast from the History Channel and Ozzie based on the
Speaker 1: History Channels documentary series The Food That Built America. I
Speaker 1: often wonder if the people behind these massive, unbelievably successful
Speaker 1: brands knew exactly the scope of what they were doing
Speaker 1: when they started out. It takes bold visionaries risking everything
Speaker 1: to create some of the most recognizable brands on the planet.
Speaker 1: They had a dream, they had an idea, they had
Speaker 1: a vision, but they could never at the time have
Speaker 1: imagined just how big it would be because nothing else
Speaker 1: existed like it. Some people are perennial innovators. Some people
Speaker 1: are always looking for the next big thing. How am
Speaker 1: I going to grow this am I gonna let everybody
Speaker 1: in the world know that I'm a household name brands
Speaker 1: that helped drive the most powerful economy on earth. Who
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be successful, Who doesn't want to, you know,
Speaker 1: change the world and make quite a bit of money
Speaker 1: doing it and bring millions of people together. The idea
Speaker 1: that you're eating something that somebody somewhere far away is eating,
Speaker 1: that's a connection. And so part of the thrill of
Speaker 1: these products is to participation in a national imagining that
Speaker 1: everybody else's participate. Painting in you'll hear the stories behind
Speaker 1: some of America's most loved and iconic brands. And he
Speaker 1: would pitch fits. I mean he was known to you know,
Speaker 1: throw chocolates to the floor to you know, kick and scream,
Speaker 1: and he'd get bright red in the face. So car
Speaker 1: hops were very sexy, and the boys gathered to hang
Speaker 1: out with them, and that posed a problem if you
Speaker 1: were running a business, because uh, there were shenanigans going
Speaker 1: on in the parking lots. How they transformed American life
Speaker 1: and culture. It's easy to forget that these stories of
Speaker 1: these amazing food companies tell the story of us as
Speaker 1: much as any anthem or any statue. If you are
Speaker 1: holding a bottle of coat or if you're eating a
Speaker 1: Hershey bar, that's a piece of America that's with you.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing how a food product can give you
Speaker 1: that that sort of field and change the world in
Speaker 1: the process. When you have these associations, it transcends being
Speaker 1: just the food and it becomes part of your life.
Speaker 1: It becomes one of the signifiers for that moment in
Speaker 1: your life. Certainly that we did create something that really
Speaker 1: conquered the world, the food that built America. Coming on
Speaker 1: February four. Listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.