Tracing the origin of the word condiment is, perplexingly, easier than determining the exact meaning of the word as used today. Even professional chefs can’t seem to pin down the definition. Anything added to food to enhance its flavor after it has been prepared might be considered a condiment, based on the loose and plastic […]
Food History
Sliced Bread Was Once Illegal In the United States?
If you thought prohibition was a doomed experiment, imaging prohibiting sliced bread. Yet, not long after sliced bread was invented, it was indeed banned, albeit temporarily, in the United States. By 1933, sliced bread sales had exceeded sales of unsliced loaves of bread. America was absolutely in love with this new innovation. Then, during World War […]
Grocery Warehouse with Oxydol Laundry Soap, 1942
In this photo below from July 1942, a warehouse worker for a grocery store distribution company is filling an order for a local store in the Washington, D.C. area. Behind him are stacked many boxes marked Oxydol. The box he is carrying on his shoulder appears to be Duz soap. Oxydol and Duz: Soap Opera […]
Does German Chocolate Cake Come from Germany?
German chocolate cake, with extravagant richness, is just the kind of recipe German immigrants would have brought with them to the United States. We wouldn’t have a hard time associating such a rich chocolate cake, with its decadent coconut and pecan filling, with Germany. And, in fact, it was German immigrants who settled in the […]
Postum, That Vintage Coffee Drink
Charley Post, the inventor of Grape-Nuts, the coffee alternative Postum, and the name behind Post Cereals hated caffeine and wanted Americans to drink his Postum instead. He had a dark little secret, though: He was never able to kick his own coffee habit. Post began his company, the Postum Cereal Company to market Postum, made from wheat […]
Lorings Fat-ten-u & Corpula Fattening Food – Vintage Ad, c. 1895
The fat loss industry is a multi-billion dollar one. It is rife with fraudulent promises and outright pseudoscience. The advertisement on this page illustrates a fascinating fact. During the 1800’s, the “fattening” industry was just as rife with pseudo-scientific ramblings and fraudulent promises as the fat loss industry is today. Being thin wasn’t always the […]