WEBVTT - The Stories Behind A Few Food Fads 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:04.640 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:14.080 dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:19.440 with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Rolling, and Frank 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.360 the Chair. Oh Frank, he's been here the whole time. 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.959 He just keeps quiet mostly mostly. Yeah. I don't have 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.240 my hat on today though, so I know what gives 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:31.680 I don't know. You know, I'm growing the hair out, 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.080 so I thought i'd just let it flow. I noticed 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.720 it looks good. Why are you growing it out? I 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.280 don't know. It just sort of started happening. Then I 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.240 was like, my brother's got good hair, is longer. Yeah, 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.159 I'm always trying to be more like him. Plus I 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.840 can't have a butt cut with short hair. Yeah. Plus 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.680 I mean I've had the same short, spiky hair for 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.240 like fifteen years. Time to mix it up, I know, man. 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.160 When I started growing my note, I was like, what 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.800 am I doing? What's with this? Cube? All? Crap? I'm 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.440 so tired of all this. Let me just see what 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.679 what it looks like, you know, with a what's that 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:17.600 quarterback's name? Joe Eisman No, no, Terry Bradshaw, No, you 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:22.480 know the one Randall Cunningham. No, tom Brady, tom Brady, 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.760 despite your harassment, I still figured it out. What about 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.919 tom Brady? He want his hair? I have his hair, buddy, 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.200 I don't know about that. I do me and tom Brady? Now, 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:40.400 uh chuck. Yes, did you grow up on TV dinners 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:45.080 at all? No? Really no. My mom is was and 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.440 is a great cook, so she wouldn't have that. I see, 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.240 I see. Wow, Well I did. I grew up on 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:57.320 TV dinners, and usually when a TV dinner appeared, Seriously, 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.400 you did miss out. They were pretty amazing when you're 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.960 like six, seven years old. I've had them when you 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.040 were six or seven. No, I had them like in college. Okay, 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.680 so so okay, so you understand the magic of a 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.680 TV dinner, right, sure? Alright? Imagine that as like a 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.959 six year old. It was magical. All of your foods 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.040 in like a different little compartment, Brownie just staring at you, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.560 waiting like just just wait, just wait, buddy. Um when 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:26.880 you're six, it's just even better. And when I was six, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:28.880 if I would get a TV dinner, it meant that 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.560 my parents were like going to do something right, they 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.960 were going to play bridge or something like that. So 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.800 it was like a special night, like I probably exactly, 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.800 I'd probably get to stay up late, or there'd be 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.520 some babysitter or whatever. Um, it was always just kind 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.880 of a special thing when TV dinners made an appearance. 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.079 My parents never did anything together. They never like, they 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:57.200 never played cards or no. Man, I rarely had babysitters. 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.280 I really I don't remember having baby sitters. There was 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:05.960 always one of them there. Yeah, maybe they didn't trust you, 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:11.919 they didn't like each other. They may have really enjoyed 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.280 key parties well plus yeah you never know, Um I 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.960 had Uh. I have a sister that's six years older though, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:23.480 so Yeah. But they still didn't do a lot of 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.840 I think I remember. I can literally just think of 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:27.679 a few times. They like went to an Olivia Newton 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:32.359 John concert once. Uh, they've got a pretty good track 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.800 record so far, and my mom went and saw Elvis, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.360 but not with my dad. Wow. On that last tour 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.720 two man, the uh, I think they call that the 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:51.280 jumpsuit Integrity Tour. They hold on, let me catch my breath. Yeah, 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:55.680 they didn't put an undignified ending. Yeah they didn't. They 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:57.480 didn't do much stuff together, so I didn't get a 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.160 lot of TV dinners. I didn't get a lot of Hey, 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.160 there's just throw it in and warm it up. My 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.640 mom was kind of yeah, always cooking for us. Yeah, yeah, no, 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.760 my mom cooked a lot too. But now that I'm 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.640 older and look back, I'm like us pretty convenient meal. 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.160 Like you know, she was an e R nurse for 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.200 PiZZ sake, weird hours and stuff. Um, but she was 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.920 a great mom. She raised me very well, as everybody knows. 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.600 It's a well known fact. So with TV dinners in particular, though, 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.000 I have a certain amount of nostalgia forum, but apparently 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.000 like America as a whole has a bit of nostalgia 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.280 for TV dinners. There's a TV dinner in the Smithsonian, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.640 for peze sake, and that's like America's greatest repository of 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:45.880 nostalgia for you know. Yeah, So I think we should 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.160 take people on a delightful tour of the history of 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:53.960 this wonder of TV dinners. You sound like you're I'm 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:55.839 not so sure. No, no, no, I am sure. I 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:57.600 was just joking around, trying to set it up as 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.640 some you know, magical experien everyone's about to have, But 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.919 I feel like that's ingrained in it. So as the 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:09.560 story goes, uh, Swanson ce A Swanson and Sons was 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.760 and is a leader in the frozen food industry, and um, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:17.960 whether or not this is legend, who knows, but it's 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:23.640 a great story. Was that uh one Thanksgiving they had 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:28.359 too much turkey on their hands post Thanksgiving to the 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.760 tune of something like two fifty tons of turkey that 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.839 they didn't sell they which is so sad, you know, 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:41.600 yeah for those Uh yeah, like we so wanted to 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.920 give our life as a meal. Now we're just on 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.200 a train. Well, yeah, that's what they did. So the 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.560 story goes, they had about they loaded it, they couldn't 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.279 store it. They didn't none of room and no freezer 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.080 room to store all this turkey. So they put it 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.840 on a frozen train or a refriger rated train car 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.120 as a polar express it's called in the industry. And 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.520 the trick to this thing is is in order for 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:09.760 that train to stay refrigerator, it's gotta keep moving. And 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.880 so they basically we're just running this turkey all over 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:17.000 the country to keep it frozen and cold. Right, It's 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.440 like that one movie UM set in the future with 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:25.560 Tilda Switten where like the train never stops societies on 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.520 the train. Yeah, that's like that, but with frozen turkeys. 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.520 That's a good movie. So it's like that cross between 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.839 that and Speed. Yes, like so if the train ever stops, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:40.080 it's gonna lose refrigeration, the losers refrigeration, the turkeys all 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:44.040 go bad. So there's this remember that Simpsons which one 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.800 when Homer is trying to describe or think of the 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.520 name of the movie Speed. He's like, it's about a 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.320 about a bus if it's speed goes down and it 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.279 can't speed up. And he says it like that many times, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.599 and he goes, I think it's called the bus that 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.360 wouldn't slow down or that couldn't slow down. Yeah, I 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.919 remember that one very funny line. Um, but this is 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.920 real life, Chuck. This wasn't a cartoon or a joke. 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.200 Half a million pounds of turkey on a train and 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:19.640 if if it's topped it would spoil. No, the idea 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.840 that this actually happened, it's so insane to me. So 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.680 apparently the Swanson brothers Clark and um, what was the 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.400 other brothers, Gilbert Gilbert. I wanted to say Clark and Gable, 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:37.160 but Clark from Gilbert Swanson said all right, employees, we 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.280 need you to put your heads together and come up 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.040 with an idea. So they had, again this is the legend, 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.480 they had an employee contest where, um, whoever could come 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.960 up with what to do with all this turkey I 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.360 guess would just be the employee of the month or 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.680 something like that. Um. And all the while this contest 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.640 is going on in the Swanson company, there's a training 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.320 out there are in the United States of America, just 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.920 circling endlessly because it can't stop or else the turkeys 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:11.440 will go bad until this Winton wins. Yeah. Yeah. So 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.920 there was a salesman named Jerry Thomas g E r 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:20.160 R Y, not like our own j E R I right, 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.920 which no one ever gets. Right, Um, this is the 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:29.160 party I don't get. He traveled from Nebraska to Pittsburgh 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.880 to where Pan American Airways had their kitchens because they 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:39.640 were testing uh single compartment uh foil tray meals that 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:41.960 they would serve to people. And I guess he couldn't 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.240 envision what that might look like unless he went there 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:49.920 in person, right and steal one. Well yeah, so that yeah, 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.720 and it was a single compartment right, So basically it 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.480 was just a trade that you put a bunch of 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.320 food on. There were like different compartments in the trade, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:08:59.760 and he's like, I gotta get my hands on one 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.600 of the right. This is innovation. Yeah, I don't understand 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.760 that either, which is why his story smells a little 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:10.080 fishy to me. Um. But this, this guy, Jerry Thomas, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:15.360 is the He's he's known as the inventor basically of 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.960 the TV dinner. Right. So he comes back to the 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.880 Swanson brothers and says, I got it. I've I've driven 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:26.280 from Pittsburgh back home, uh to wherever the Swanson company 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.600 is located? Where am I? He famously said, Um, And 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:36.280 he said, and I've added two more compartments into this trade. 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.720 So now it's a three compartment trade. And I through 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.600 two lines and then I know what to do with 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.200 the turkey. Now we're gonna basically sell it as a 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:49.680 frozen Thanksgiving dinner. And they said your employee of the month, Jerry. Yeah. 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.439 They say, look, you got your your potatoes and gravy here, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.800 you get your peas here, you got your turkey here. 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.760 None of it touches each other. I'm a genius. I'm 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:05.400 Jerry Thomas. So this coalesced with the another uh craze, 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:10.040 which was television, and in nineteen fifty three there were 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.520 thirty three million households with televisions, and um, it was 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.960 really I mean, there have been other people that had 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.440 been doing this before. Quaker State Foods UH in nineteen 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.160 forty nine had something in the supermarket of frozen meal 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:30.000 called under Geez the most the most one of the 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.000 I don't want to say the most one of the 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:38.640 most offensive brand names ever. Yeah, the one eyed Eskimo label. Um, yeah, 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.480 that's that's terrible. So they were stelling those in supermarkets. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:46.800 And then in previous to that, even UH the Strato 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:51.240 plates from Maxim were being served on airplanes, but not 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.280 as a retail food, so it had been done before. 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.800 So the creation of the TV dinner well wait, don't 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.800 don't don't leave out Jack Fisher, who Jack? Sure? Oh 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.319 all right? What was that one called frigid dinners? Yes, 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.080 but they're the most depressing meal ever because they were 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.960 served in bars. Yeah, they're serving in a bar, so 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.520 you didn't have to leave to go home to eat dinner. 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.080 You could just stay and keep drinking. Oh man. There 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.280 were some bars in l A and Los Felis when 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:22.439 I lived there that around two am, the Tomali guy 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.640 would come around, So okay, that's different. Oh dude. It 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.760 was the best. They were legit handmade to Molly's and 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.720 at one was the perfect time to be dropping into 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.240 the drawing room, you know. Anyway, the creation of the 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.440 TV dinner was not so much that it was a 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.679 brand new thing, but it was. It was a marketing 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.120 success story because the TV they thought, if we can 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.880 build a sing around the television, then we've got something 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.960 in our hands. That was the key the TV making 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:55.959 it a TV dinner, right, because all of a sudden 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:00.120 it was like, hey, everybody loves TV. Plus, this is 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.199 something I didn't realize. It added a certain amount of 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:08.000 like cashe to the TV dinner because if you had 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.240 a TV dinner, it meant that you had a TV. 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.240 And if you had a TV, you were probably upper 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.120 middle class at the time, right, So the idea of 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.120 having a TV or a dinner to go with your 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:25.080 TV really appealed to Americans, And even to this day 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:30.000 it was such a great marketing coup. I guess that 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.480 um people still call these and like almost any frozen 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.200 entree or frozen meal, a TV dinner, even though it 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:41.280 was nineteen six two when Swanson stopped calling their products 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.320 that they still made the products, they just stopped calling 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.720 them TV dinners. Every everybody else kept calling them TV dinner. 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.240 You were eating these in the eighties, like twenty years 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.120 after they that brand went away, still calling the TV 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.560 dinners and eating them on TV trades. This is another 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.000 thing you pissed out on, Chuck did you have? So 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:00.920 that was the whole the whole point of a TV 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.360 tray was it was a foldable individual table that you 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.679 would open up in front of yourself and eat your 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.520 TV dinner on while you're sitting on the couch, so 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.920 you could watch TV most efficiently while you were eating dinner. 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:16.680 And now they call that the coffee table. You just 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.680 stoop over a little bit, right, or the sink? What 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.720 eating over the sink? I don't know what that is. 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.760 That's a depressing way to eat. So these are actually 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.679 called that was the brand, Swanson's TV brand, frozen Dinner. 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.560 And there they're big concept with the box. If you 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.040 look it up on on the internet. Was it looked 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.320 like it was designed like old television? The box was 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.320 it the t The dinner itself was like the screen 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.280 on the screen and then it had the little dials 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.000 on the bottom left and right corner, and uh, you know, 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.560 it look like a little TV. It was ninety eight 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:56.520 cents in n and they sold a ton of them, yeah, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.199 they apparently. Um So again, remember all this came from 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.320 a bunch of turkey that was about to spoil. So 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:07.160 Swanson ordered start to an industry. Swanson ordered like five 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.800 thousand of them initially to be made, and they hired 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:16.280 a small battalion of of um ladies in aprons and 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.720 ice cream scoops and spatchel is to assemble these things, right, 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.800 and they just had them go right down the assembly line, 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.520 and they sold five thousand just almost immediately. And apparently 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.560 in the first year um that they were sold, they 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.400 sold like ten million of them. So they came out 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.400 with them in nineteen fifty four and by the the 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:40.640 end of the first full year of production, which I 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.920 guess would be nineteen fifty five, they'd sold ten million 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.800 of them. So they went from initially ordering five thousand 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.000 of them to selling ten million of them in a year. 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.480 So they it just hit America just right, you know. Well, yeah, 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.240 and it was at a time where women were starting 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.520 to u kind of re enter the workforce, gave them 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.200 time that they could still get that hot meal on 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.120 the table, because that was their job back then, right right. 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.160 It gave women a really great opportunity to provide a 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.920 stark contrast to the your husband's mother. Yeah. Yeah, Apparently 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.360 there were a bunch of men who were like, this 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:16.200 isn't good enough. I want my wife to cook from 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.640 scratch like my mom. Dr Freud, And if they could 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:20.640 be like my mom in a lot of other ways, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:26.480 that'd be awesome. Would it killer to wear a hairnet? Yeah? 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.560 So apparently it didn't delight all men because they weren't 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.040 on board. But would killer to just me up in 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.880 a diaper? We should do an episode on that sometime. 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.560 That's a thing. Oh, I'll talk you about san Freud, 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.480 but on men wearing diapers as adults. Yeah, it's for 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.880 like I think it's called diaper play for sex play, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.880 but but it's it's diaper centric. Yeah, we should do 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.320 a podcast on that just that. Well, if we can 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:56.560 include it in like maybe a fetish one, how about that? 0:15:56.600 --> 0:16:00.880 All right? Okay, Wow, that's a weird turn all of 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.720 the time. Really did uh geez, you got anything else 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.120 on TV Dinners. That's a good way to end it. 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.760 I think, nope. Uh, should we take a break? Yep, 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.680 all right, I'm gonna go change my diaper. We'll talk 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:34.680 about gelatin right after this. So, Chuck, you were saying 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:39.360 that um in the last one, that uh, that the 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.800 TV dinner hit just right and struck struck America in 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.520 part because women were starting to enter the workforce, right, 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.680 and that was partially the result of World War Two. 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.200 World War two also changed things as far as food 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:59.520 and food consumption and food packaging goes, and that apparently 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.120 at the end of World War Two there were a 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:06.400 lot of companies that had gone all in into supplying 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.520 the troops food and we're making pretty great money, but 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.120 apparently we're basically caught with a large amount of supply 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.760 um when the war ended, and they said, well, if 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.040 we don't figure out a way to get non wartime America, 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.679 the regular American consumer to buy this stuff, we're going 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.080 to go out of business. Were over extended, basically, And 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:33.879 so food companies, I guess, individually and on the whole, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:40.440 taught America to basically eat what had prior to that 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.439 point been considered field rations. Like spam if you remember 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.800 that podcast that kind of was where that whole movement 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:52.240 was born. Yep, spam, condensed soup, um, dehydrated stuff, freeze 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.120 dried stuff. Like all of this came out of basically 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.320 an overstock of World War two food supplies that were 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.120 intended for troops and we're kind of repackaged and rearranged 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.399 to be served to the American consumer. And part of 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.439 that also was that same thing that TV Dinner struck, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.679 which which was convenient. You know, like, hey, your your 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.520 husband still wants a meal and your your family still 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.639 expects you to be the one to to cook for him. Um, 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.439 but now you have to work. So what are you 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.719 gonna do? Well, we have we have something helpful for you, 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.560 and it's called convenience food. And one of the big 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.720 convenience foods that came out of the post war era. 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:35.119 But really it started to gather steam before that was gelatine. Yeah, 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:39.320 specifically Jello as the name brand, but uh, gelatine, the 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:45.240 word is from Latin gelatas, meaning jellied froze, and uh 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.119 it was first used in Egypt, but it was really 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:53.199 first used in cooking in France, and um, you know 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.439 I think most people know this by now, but if 0:18:55.480 --> 0:19:00.680 you don't, Um, gelatine is as a protein and it's 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:06.480 uh it's produced from collagen from boiling animal bones, yeah 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:12.320 or hoofs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a it's glutinous basically, 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.320 and it can go one of two ways, I think, 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:16.080 depending on what you do with it. You can turn 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.960 it into glue or you can turn it into food. 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.480 That's never a good start, no, it really you know. Yeah, 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.040 And a guy from the I think the seventeenth century 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:31.719 in France, what was his name, Peppin someone Peppin, Dennis 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.119 Poppin right, who may or may not be related to 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:40.480 Jacques Pepin. It was great and French. He's also a cook. Um. 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.360 He was the first person to mention it in writing, 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.320 I believe, uh. And then it just kind of sat 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.520 there for a while until the nineteenth century, when I 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.480 guess people were aware of gelatine and that you could 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:58.240 use it as a food, but it was extraordinarily gourmet, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.760 like the average person was not making jello at home. 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.200 It was very time consuming. You you had to start 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.440 from scratch and boil animal bones to start the process 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.000 of gelatine. It was the exact opposite of how we 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:16.879 think of gelatine today, which is instantaneous. Yeah. So in 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:21.440 the nineteenth century, um, there there this guy named Peter 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.200 Cooper uh figured out a way to turn gelatine into 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:30.399 a powder form, a dehydrated gelatine powder. Um, and it 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.880 went absolutely nowhere for fifty years. And I was surprised 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.720 to find this out. I knew gelatine was pretty old, 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.320 but it's it's interesting how it's just kind of moved 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.480 along in these very slow little fits and starts, like 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.760 no one would give up on it, which is weird 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.919 because it's really disgusting if you think about it. It 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.960 should have been given up on. Yeah, and it never was. 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.359 It's a very bizarre in vention. It almost makes you 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.880 feel like there was some sort of divine hand guiding 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.600 gelatine along in its progress. Yeah. So, later on in 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.720 eight got named Charles Knox uh kind of revolutionized things 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.320 when he found came up with a process that resulted 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:14.240 in a dried sheet of gelatine, and he hired salesman 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.600 to go door to door to show women like, hey, 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.840 you can add liquid to these sheets, you can make desserts, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.000 you can make aspects, which is a really gross word. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:28.320 I think it is. It's not it's pretty. It's a 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.680 gross thing. It's a savory gelatine. Yeah, which we'll get 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.680 to that. But uh. A couple of years later, Rose Knox, 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.680 which was that his wife, I guess, yes, published a 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.119 book called Dainty Desserts, which is a book of recipes, 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.880 and uh, things were kind of moving along a little bit. Um. 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.800 Then in there was a cough syrup company in New 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:55.080 York called Pearl H Pearl B wait is that what 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:59.840 it's called? Pearl okay? W W A I T. But 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:01.679 they weren't selling much cough syrups, and he said, all right, 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.840 let's get into the food business. And uh, the wife, 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.440 whose name was May, said, you know, let me add 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:13.199 some fruit syrups to this stuff. And actually she's the 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.480 one who named it jello. She came up with that name. 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.000 But they didn't succeed either, and sold that to their neighbor. 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.600 Uh Francis is that the whole name, or to Francis Woodward, Yes, 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.760 for four hundred and fifty bucks. Uh. This person purchased 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:32.880 the name and name brand Jello, right, and he almost 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.000 fell victim to the curse of Jello as well. Right, 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:39.879 he could do nothing with it either. Um. Despite some 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.560 early attempts. He apparently tried to sell it to his 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.520 supervisor at work for thirty five bucks even though he 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:49.600 paid four hundred and fifty to it for it. So 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:51.720 at some point I guess he decided to give it 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:55.760 another go, and he hired a bunch of traveling salesman 0:22:56.240 --> 0:23:00.320 sent them out to fairs, community gatherings, that kind of uff, 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.840 and said, teach the people how to make the jello. 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.000 And this time it started to stick. Actually, Jello Jello 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:12.760 kind of um hit at just the right time. Finally, 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.679 I should say, the world was finally ready for jello. 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:19.640 Part of it had to do with um, refrigeration, Yeah, 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:22.080 for sure, once you know, refrigeration is key for jello, 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.600 as we all know, right, And once those technologies were developed, 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:30.720 it kind of uh well it formed literally it all 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:35.879 congealed and figuratively. Uh. And then once advertising started taking over, 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:40.080 like in the mid nineteen thirties, Uh, General Foods UM 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:43.679 had a very famous radio ad from Jack Binny, uh 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:47.479 the j E L l O tag, which really kind 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:49.840 of helped push things along as well. Yeah, and I 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:53.080 noticed that at some point they started dabbling with with 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.600 other flavors. I think originally they tried strawberry, raspberry, orange, 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.080 and lemon, right um, And then they tried chocolate it 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.600 and they they apparently chocolate didn't go over very well, 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:07.159 so they were no. First they just released it as 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:10.720 chocolate jello. That's pretty awful. And then they thought, oh, 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:13.080 maybe we should add milk instead of water, and that's 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:15.080 when they came up with jello pudding, and they re 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:19.200 released chocolate and that that spurred like a whole pudding line, 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:23.240 including something I grew up on, which was butterscotch jello pudding. 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:27.120 Oh yeah, man, that was so good, except you you couldn't. 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:29.840 You had to get the skin off. The skin was 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:32.800 no good, But everything under the skin was great. What's 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:35.359