WEBVTT - Introducing: 'The Food That Built America' 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:08.160 Everybody eats, everybody loves it. It's such an important part 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.319 of who we are as a culture. For more than 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:15.160 a century, American food has been dominated by some iconic brands. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.000 For many years in this country, if you wanted something 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.440 cold to drink, you asked for a coke. If you 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.439 want to ketchup, you wanted Hyen's Ketchup. It didn't matter 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.080 that there were tons of other brands out there. When 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.440 people think of American chocolate, they think of Hershey's. When 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.920 people think of American burgers and fries, they're going to 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:39.280 think of McDonald Coca Cola, Hines, Hershey, McDonald's, Kellogg's. You 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:44.000 know the names, the logos and the jingles. I remember 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.240 my father me Rescupe singing k E double l O, 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.199 double G Kellogg's best to you? But do you know 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:55.840 the stories behind them? The federal government claimed, with some justification, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.800 the Coca Cola was mislabeled because ironically it no longer 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.800 had cocaine in it, so you can't call it Coca 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:09.600 Cola corn flakes. It was an accident, and you stopping, 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.360 you think, what if they didn't leave? What if they 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.720 just disposed of what had gotten moldy and behind the 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.360 remarkable individuals who brought them to life. There were lots 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.200 of stories about Ray Kroc walking into a franchise of 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:28.679 the location, looking around, jumping up on the counter, and 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.520 ordering everybody out of the restaurant because he wasn't satisfied. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.920 He was both an inventor a bit of a showman. 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:41.679 He was notorious for wearing only white riding around Battle 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.160 Creek on a bicycle with a parrot on his shoulder. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.520 A Welcome to The Food That Built America a new 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.480 podcast from the History Channel and Ozzie based on the 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:56.440 History Channels documentary series The Food That Built America. I 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:03.000 often wonder if the people behind these massive, unbelievably successful 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.720 brands knew exactly the scope of what they were doing 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.280 when they started out. It takes bold visionaries risking everything 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.280 to create some of the most recognizable brands on the planet. 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:14.160 They had a dream, they had an idea, they had 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.680 a vision, but they could never at the time have 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.440 imagined just how big it would be because nothing else 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:25.079 existed like it. Some people are perennial innovators. Some people 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.400 are always looking for the next big thing. How am 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.000 I going to grow this am I gonna let everybody 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.960 in the world know that I'm a household name brands 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.119 that helped drive the most powerful economy on earth. Who 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.200 doesn't want to be successful, Who doesn't want to, you know, 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:42.799 change the world and make quite a bit of money 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.239 doing it and bring millions of people together. The idea 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.320 that you're eating something that somebody somewhere far away is eating, 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.960 that's a connection. And so part of the thrill of 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:58.480 these products is to participation in a national imagining that 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.639 everybody else's participate. Painting in you'll hear the stories behind 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.200 some of America's most loved and iconic brands. And he 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.080 would pitch fits. I mean he was known to you know, 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.079 throw chocolates to the floor to you know, kick and scream, 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.440 and he'd get bright red in the face. So car 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:21.399 hops were very sexy, and the boys gathered to hang 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.880 out with them, and that posed a problem if you 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:29.360 were running a business, because uh, there were shenanigans going 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.840 on in the parking lots. How they transformed American life 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.240 and culture. It's easy to forget that these stories of 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.320 these amazing food companies tell the story of us as 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.960 much as any anthem or any statue. If you are 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.400 holding a bottle of coat or if you're eating a 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.560 Hershey bar, that's a piece of America that's with you. 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:53.680 And it's amazing how a food product can give you 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.240 that that sort of field and change the world in 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.440 the process. When you have these associations, it transcends being 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.280 just the food and it becomes part of your life. 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.320 It becomes one of the signifiers for that moment in 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:14.840 your life. Certainly that we did create something that really 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.839 conquered the world, the food that built America. Coming on 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.840 February four. Listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:23.719 your podcasts.