WEBVTT - Short Stuff: The Best Episode Since Sliced Bread 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:06.280 Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:08.760 there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. So 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:12.240 this is an official bonafide short stuff. 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.640 That's right big thanks to History of Bread dot com, 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.759 History dot com, oral prints at houstuffworks dot com, and 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.280 the surprisingly instructive Goldmetal Bakery dot Com. 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.160 I also want to shout out Mental Flaws and Zachary 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:28.720 Krockeatt on Pricenomics. 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.680 Great because this is about slice bread. That you've heard 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.200 the term, of course, the best thing since slice bread. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:40.000 And oddly enough, well not oddly, but slice bread has 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.920 been around less than one hundred years, even though bread 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.800 has been around for tens of thousands of years. 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.559 Yeah, I think in either a bread episode or a 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:53.400 beer episode, we explored whether or not bread was created 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:58.240 to make beer portable, a beer starter portable. But regardless, 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.040 it's been around for a very very long time. And 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.200 yet would you say thirty thousand years? 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:06.160 I said tens of thousands, But yeah, that's a little 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:06.840 more specific. 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.839 Okay, let's say bread was invented thirty thousand years ago. 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:15.319 It took twenty nine nine hundred years before this point 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:19.280 for somebody to think of pre sliced bread or if 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.720 they thought of it to actually follow through with that idea. 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.840 And we have a hero hero named Otto Frederick Rowedter 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.479 to thank for that. We'll meet him in a minute. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.560 Yeah. So, I mean you can listen to our bread episode. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.759 We don't need to go over all that, but suffice 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.679 it to say, for twenty nine nine hundred years Ish 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.240 people were generally tearing off chunks of bread. That's where 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:48.520 we get the term breaking bread. There were sandwiches, I 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.600 believe the first like credit for the real sandwich goes 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.680 to Rabbi Helll the Elder who put lamb and bitter 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.960 herbs on in between two pieces of matzo the hill 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:05.080 El sandwich. And then in eighteen forty woman miss Leslie 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.640 Eliza Leslie published Directions for Cookery in which she talked 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.160 about what's thought to believe be like the first ham sandwich, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.800 where she talks about cutting slices of bread very neatly. 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.840 So people were slicing their bread at home. It's not 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.280 like they were like, I want to make a sandwich, 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:24.000 but I just tear it off in these big chunks. 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:28.640 And I don't understand people were home slicing bread to 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.799 make sandwiches. But that all changed on July seventh, nineteen 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:33.280 twenty eight. 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.560 Right, yeah, because that guy I mentioned before, Auto Frederick Roeder, 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.520 the father of sliced bread. He had been tinkering with 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.200 this for well over a decade, right Rove. 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:48.360 He was to be German. 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.239 It has to be. Well, his name is Auto Frederick first, 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.120 I mean, those are your first two clues, and then 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.240 they really trying to drive it home on the third. 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.040 Name then Alf Deutsch he. 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.920 No, he was, You're not gonna do it from what 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:03.359 the road, Vetter. 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:05.680 I just want you to say it German. 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:10.320 Auto Friederic Throvetter, Yeah, there even't even though I could 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.680 roll my rs, you're calling him row it Er. Well, 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:18.239 I'm you know, from Georgia, in Ohio, in Florida. All right, 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:24.680 all right, so anyway ot or OFR. I know it's 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.800 that it's initials. I'm trying to think of something else 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.239 to call him that you won't make fun of him 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:36.080 me for how about Auto? So Auto he was an inventor, 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.520 and I don't I didn't see anywhere where he got 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:40.360 the idea to do this, but just suddenly sat up 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.360 one days, like sliced bread, we should make sliced bread 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.240 so you can just go buy store buy at the 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.120 store pre sliced bread. And he got to work making 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.560 a machine all the way back in nineteen seventeen. But 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.680 you mentioned it wasn't until nineteen twenty eight that people 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.360 started being able to buy pre sliced bread at the store. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.040 And that's because he got pretty far, got a prototype, developed, 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:06.720 had all these blueprints for making this machine, and there 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.040 was a fire at his office that just wiped everything out. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.120 That's right. It's very sad, Yeah, and it took him 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.080 a long time to get back up to speed. I 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.359 do think we should point out that this guy was 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.080 a jeweler. He was not in the food business at all. 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.800 He had an ophthalmology degree. Yet he became a jeweler 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.360 and had three jewelry stores that he owned. But he 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:34.719 was an inventor and he would sell those jewelry stores 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.479 and that's what financed his I guess, just strange idea 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.119 to slice and package bread. 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.920 Yeah, And I mean think about how just normal that 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:47.560 seems now, just to imagine that somebody had to have 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.560 that idea at one point, and then we know the 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.440 person who did. His name is Auto. I just find 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.160 that fascinating. That's right, mister Rouiter, if you want to 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.200 put it like that. Should we take a break? 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:15.719 Yes, all right, I'll be right back. Stuff U s. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.080 So Auto had that fire in nineteen seventeen and he 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.600 kept working at it, and eleven years later he had 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:38.160 a working machine that was pumped by foot. I saw 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.359 it like a sewing machine of the era, and it 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.520 was two sets of very sharp blades, some going up, 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.920 some going down at the same time, and a loaf 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.000 of bread would come from a top down a ramp 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.240 past the blades and come out the bottom of the 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.200 machine sliced, but kind of a mess. They were just 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.320 kind of laying all over the place, and a loafish shape, 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.680 but really a pretty messy loafish shape. 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.440 Yeah. They were half inch slices because he did a 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.880 lot of research and came up with a half inches 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.160 sort of like the perfect uniform with for a piece 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.360 of bread, for a sandwich or whatever else you want 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.640 to do with it, I guess, yeah. And he sold 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.320 that first slicer to a guy named a friend of 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.040 his name Frank Bench, who was a baker in Missoura 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:25.360 at a place called the Chilicoke Baking Company, and that 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.680 was the first one sold. The second was sold to 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.680 another baker named Gustav Poppindick. And this is the guy 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.720 who improved it. He was like, hey, you got these 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.560 slices that are coming out, but they're all falling apart. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.839 He came up with a way to slice it where 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:45.000 they stayed you know, packaged together. They stayed fresher longer, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.000 and they just made the wrapping process much easier. So 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:48.880 he improved upon it. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.800 Yeah, for sure. So two things. Frank Bench was a 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.880 baker on the verge of bankruptcy and just decided to 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:00.120 take a chance and pay his friend for this machine. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:09.040 And number two, the before Gustav Poppindick came along. Auto's 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.680 solution to these floppy, flimsy like falling apart loaves of 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.320 bread was to stick a hatpin in them. And then 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.200 part of the instruction was to take the hat pin 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.920 out just far enough so that you could take some 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.840 however many slices you wanted from it, and then push 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.600 the hat pin back in. And everybody's like, that's a 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.280 terrible idea. What else you got, And luckily Papindick was like, no, no, no, 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.320 we'll have it wrapped so that by the time it 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.280 comes out of the slicer, this loaf isn't falling apart, 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.119 and it's wrapped for freshness. It was a great, great 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.520 improvement because without it, sliced bread would have gone nowhere. 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.920 Basically, Yeah, I wonder if Rovetda was like, have you 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.800 seen a kincake? They got a freaking plastic baby in. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.040 Those things, right, and you guys are you can deal 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:51.720 with a hat pin, right, You're not going to choke 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.360 on a hat pin. But eighteen people a year choke 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:56.240 on a king cake baby. 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.880 It wouldn't surprise me, so the ref diference. The first 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.480 reference to slice bread and print apparently was in nineteen 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:08.600 twenty eight when that local paper from Frank Bench's bread 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.520 company there in Missouri had an article that said slice 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.920 bread is made here. That was the headline. I'm sorry, 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.320 it was an advertisement. Slice bread is made here, and 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:21.239 they are, of course the home of the original slice bread. 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.480 They're in Missouri, which is quite a claim to fame, 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.239 I'm sure. But when this stuff came out, it wasn't 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:29.880 like everyone was like, oh my god, this is the 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.080 best thing since since whatever the previous best thing was. 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:35.880 People are like, this is weird because they had been 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.679 slicing their own bread. They didn't know what to think 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.439 about it. They had to convince, you know, people to 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.600 get on board, to get bakeries on board, and who 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:49.560 got on board was generally homemakers, which at the time 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:54.120 was largely women. These women who were packing lunches for 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.559 husbands and kids. They were like, this is incredible. You 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.440 have no idea how much easier this is. And I 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.960 don't have kids arguing about different sized slices, and Johnny's 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.760 thing is bigger than me, and the sandwich looks janky 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.400 because the bread slopes at the end. And I got 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:12.520 a small piece and a big piece and it's made 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.439 everything quicker and streamlined my routine, and this is the 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:16.560 new best thing. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.720 Right And to help them out, I think Wonderbread first 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.240 came out. It was I think the first slice bread 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.760 nationally available or widely available, and it became the most popular. 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.360 And originally it was called wonder cut because it became 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.160 pre sliced, and they shortened it to wonder bread. But 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.439 I was like, seriously, how much of a timesaver is this? 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.000 And then I read a quote from a woman who 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.199 was upset. We'll talk about why she was upset in 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.400 a minute. But she makes a really good case that, like, 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.480 if you're having to slap together sandwiches really quickly for 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.719 your family's lunches before they go out the door, and 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.920 you're also cutting bread to make toast for them at 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.960 the same time, like you might have to slice thirty 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.040 slices of bread really quick, right, and that's actually kind 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:07.280 of time consuming. So if you can buy pre sliced bread, 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.160 that's going to save you some time and effort, and 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.800 it actually is worth it. So I finally wrapped my 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.600 head around how much of a timesaver slice bread actually is. 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.840 Yeah, I got six kids, I got a husband, I 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.320 got a divorced neighbor who doesn't understand how to make 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.160 a sandwich. Art, Yeah, arts force. He didn't know how 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.719 to make a sandwich. Everyone wants toast, everyone wants sandwiches. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:31.400 You can't take this away from. 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.400 Us, No, And they tried to, didn't they. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.280 Yeah, I mean I didn't the government step in and 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.120 literally try to stop slice bread. 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:43.240 Yes, So, as part of the wartime conservation in the 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.320 United States for World War Two, Claude R. Wickert, who 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.280 was the US Food Administrator. 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:50.480 I think it's vickered. 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.840 Sorry, you're probably right, but I'm going to call him 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:01.640 Claude Wickered. He ordered a bay on sliced bread in particular, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.920 not bread, not anything else, just sliced bread. And his 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:10.079 reasoning was, you have to use thicker wax paper to 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.600 keep pre sliced bread fresh because there's a lot of 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:15.440 holes in it. Now there's a lot of extra service 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.560 area to go stale, so that means you're using more paraffin. 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:20.720 And god knows what else they were trying to use 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.319 paraffin for, probably water proofing stuff like clothing and things 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.640 like that at the time. Yeah, so they needed the paraffin. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.000 And then at the same time, they're also like, the 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.319 price of grain is about to go up, and we 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:37.439 don't want bakers to be able to use sliced bread prices, 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:42.160 which is more expensive to hide passing on higher grain prices. 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.079 So we're just gonna say you can't have sliced bread. 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.840 And Claude Wicker walked away whistling and like dusting his 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.440 hands off, and he thought that was it, and he 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:55.360 ran into America's homemakers, who surged up like a tidal 0:11:55.440 --> 0:12:00.480 wave of angry people wearing aprons. It came out after him, 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.000 and he ended up backing down pretty quick. Yeah. 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:09.560 He put on his canvas wax, his wax canvas field jacket. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.720 Right, and he marched out of the room his veiled backet. 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.800 Thank you for getting on board. So back to Roevet. 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.080 He sold his patent rights to a company called the 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.280 micro Westow Company in Iowa. I think we didn't mention 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:27.960 he was. I think he was from Iowa. 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:28.520 Right, Davenport. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.920 Yeah, And he actually was one of those deals where 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.560 you sell the patent rights, but then you come on 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.760 board as a sort of spokesman and salesperson. So he 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.680 led the Rovetta Bakery Machine division, selling these things to 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.880 more and more bakeries. But he never became like some 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.520 huge name. I think there are many, many more inventors 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.720 of very common items that are much more well known. 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.839 He lived a very quiet life in Louisiana, and I 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.560 think he retired in seventy one and passed away at 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:01.120 what close to. 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:06.480 Eighty His age was supposed to eighty, yeah, as opposed 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.440 to what died nineteen eighty? 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.240 Oh, okay, I got you, Yeah, close to eighty. 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:14.720 I don't know what year it was, though, do you 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.480 know I don't as a matter of fact, but we 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.760 could kind of guess he lived. He was nineteen sixty. 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:22.640 There it is, right there. I was going to do 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:27.160 some matha. Luckily I was bailed out at the last minute. Yeah. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.600 So there you have it with slice bread, right. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.960 Yeah. Well there's one other thing. There's an extra happy 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.840 end to this story. That guy Frank Bench, the nearly 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.240 bankrupt baker who took a chance on his friend Auto 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.200 and his new machine. His sales increased by two thousand 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:50.800 percent when he started selling sliced bread and he was saved. Wow, yep, 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:51.560 pretty cool. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.080 That's amazing. I think it's pronounced big. 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:58.599 I hope, I really hope that Auto's like great grandson 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.480 Tim rice In and he's like, it's row Weather. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.320 Well it may have been since they were in Iowa. 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.960 A lot of people, you know, change their very German 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.040 or French or whatever pronounced names to more American sounding sure, 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:13.800 like Clark, what was Clark? 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:14.680 Clark? 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:19.400 Bryant was probably O'Briant at some point. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.760 No, Clark was Clark. It's a derivative of clerk. So 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.840 I come from a long line of pencil pushers. 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:29.040 Well, how weirdly inappropriate I agree. 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.240 I'm glad you said that. Thank you. Yeah, well, I 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.920 guess short Stuff's out. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.600 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.880 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:46.840 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.