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Iconic Food Brands: How Betty Crocker, Sara Lee, and Duncan Hines Built Trust in American Homes · Family Tree Food Stories

• 0:05
  . Nancy May: Hey, . Sylvia, you know this episode is gonna make me hungry, but
• 0:08
  before we go there, I wanna remind our listeners to subscribe to our podcast at.
• 0:14
  Podcast, family Tree Food Stories, because as we say, every meal has
• 0:18
  a story and every story is a feast.
• 0:20
  And boy is this one a story,
• 0:23
  Sylvia Lovely: A series of them, in fact, pretty cool stuff.
• 0:27
  all about tradition.
• 0:28
  Where does it begin?
• 0:30
  Nancy May: Absolutely, and, we're talking about iconic traditions,
• 0:34
  the icons of our food worlds that we grew up, that mom grew up with.
• 0:39
  Well, maybe my, not always grandma.
• 0:40
  It depends on how old or young you are,
• 0:42
  I guess.
• 0:43
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
• 0:43
  Nancy May: But people like Betty Crocker and Little Debbie and famous Amos.
• 0:48
  I mean, there's so many iconic stories about food traditions and
• 0:52
  where they all came from, and that's what we're talking about today,
• 0:55
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, and you know it's now kind of an endless supply
• 0:59
  of iconic figures in food because again, if you reach back far enough.
• 1:03
  So many of them began in mom's kitchen or Grandma's kitchen, and
• 1:07
  then they, or grandpa, and they caught the imagination and they
• 1:11
  turned into an entire company.
• 1:14
  Nancy May: but after all, we can relate to people better than you can
• 1:17
  an inanimate grain of rice or a pea.
• 1:20
  Sylvia Lovely: That's right and, you can see yourself and I'm sure this was
• 1:23
  part of the marketing strategy, you can see yourself as Betty Crocker and it's
• 1:27
  kind of neat to think it actually might improve your cooking skills
• 1:31
  Nancy May: I'd like to perceive myself as Dolly Parton with
• 1:34
  her new brand right now, so,
• 1:35
  Sylvia Lovely: Uh,
• 1:38
  Nancy May: but let's get going.
• 1:39
  Let's start with little Debbie.
• 1:40
  Sylvia Lovely: little Debbie, that cute little face that's all over, oatmeal,
• 1:44
  cream pies, zebra cakes and more.
• 1:47
  And by the way, my grandkids love little Debbie.
• 1:50
  She comes out every year with these Christmas themed things.
• 1:54
  A chocolate Christmas tree, a white icing Christmas tree.
• 1:58
  And then we move on.
• 1:59
  We get rabbits, I mean, they do it all right?
• 2:01
  And so who was little Debbie?
• 2:04
  I don't
• 2:04
  know.
• 2:04
  Tell me.
• 2:05
  during the depression O.D., McKee-Fowler and his wife survived by selling 5 cent
• 2:10
  cakes from the back of their vehicle.
• 2:12
  How many times have you heard that story played out?
• 2:15
  in 1934, they purchased a small bakery in Chattanooga, began making
• 2:19
  desserts And in 1960 drum roll.
• 2:23
  Little Debbie named after their granddaughter of the same name became
• 2:27
  that emblem, that sweet little face on every box, every package, of, and, again,
• 2:32
  it just made you think of being that little girl or feeding that little girl.
• 2:39
  And so it just, it brought something charming to the product.
• 2:43
  Nancy May: a little Debbie feeds Bob a little bit too much during holiday
• 2:46
  season because he's like, he's like, your grandkids goes down the aisle.
• 2:50
  Little Debbie's give me them now.
• 2:53
  kinda like his Halloween character comes out.
• 2:55
  Sylvia Lovely: well, they're so cute too, you know, and the cakes are so
• 2:58
  cute, and I'm gonna have to cut back on that 'cause my kids always want
• 3:01
  a little debbie cake with ice cream.
• 3:03
  Nancy May: Oh, that's too much.
• 3:05
  Sylvia Lovely: Kind of too much.
• 3:06
  On the sugar, but, probably the most famous one is Betty Crocker.
• 3:09
  Right.
• 3:10
  Nancy May: I like Betty Crocker.
• 3:11
  I who didn't grow up with the Betty Crocker cakes over the years?
• 3:14
  Right.
• 3:15
  Sylvia Lovely: well, here's an an interesting difference too, if you
• 3:17
  wanna contrast her with little Debbie.
• 3:19
  Little Debbie was purely an image that was used.
• 3:22
  Betty Crocker went an extra step, even though she was only an image.
• 3:26
  She was not a real person.
• 3:28
  So in 1921, the Washburn- Crosby company later became General Mills
• 3:34
  in 1928 was running, I love this.
• 3:37
  I love this.
• 3:37
  Was running a promotion in which customers who solved puzzle and sent in their
• 3:42
  answers was a chance to win a pin cushion in the shape of a flower sack.
• 3:48
  Nancy May: I love that.
• 3:49
  A pin cushion,
• 3:50
  Sylvia Lovely: I
• 3:50
  Nancy May: Just what I need.
• 3:51
  Sylvia Lovely: So, to their surprise, home cooks sent in their,
• 3:55
  , inquiries along with their entries.
• 3:58
  an opportunity, rose in the minds of some smart marketing agent.
• 4:02
  So,
• 4:03
  Nancy May: Well, you know, then the whole series ran in the Saturday evening
• 4:06
  post, and I never saw one of those Saturday evening posts, but it just
• 4:10
  seems so looking back at the whole thing.
• 4:14
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
• 4:15
  Nancy May: do you actually know that they've created this character though?
• 4:18
  Betty Crocker was not a real person?
• 4:21
  Sylvia Lovely: No, she wasn't.
• 4:23
  Nancy May: Had women audition as Betty Crocker.
• 4:26
  So the real I say in quote, real Betty Crocker or the character has sort of
• 4:30
  emerged over time and grown with the ages.
• 4:34
  So from the, I guess through the World II and how she's evolved to a more
• 4:40
  modern person, think that's pretty
• 4:42
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, it is.
• 4:43
  And you know, they set up Betty Crocker on radio.
• 4:46
  that was another big thing that they did, the Betty Crocker
• 4:49
  Cooking School of the Air.
• 4:51
  Don't you love that?
• 4:53
  Nancy May: Pre Julia,
• 4:54
  Sylvia Lovely: she was a trusted source.
• 4:55
  , much, to their surprise, people would ask for advice on cooking.
• 4:59
  That's why they started a hotline.
• 5:01
  And not only that, but life lessons.
• 5:04
  I mean, they trusted this image, this woman that wasn't real.
• 5:09
  and it became a place where women could go and I'd say largely women.
• 5:14
  And she was kind of the ideal.
• 5:16
  What, femininity and all of that.
• 5:18
  And And during the forties, Betty received 4,000 to 5,000 letters a day
• 5:24
  Nancy May: Can you imagine receiving those
• 5:26
  Sylvia Lovely: Oh, I
• 5:27
  Nancy May: alone?
• 5:28
  I
• 5:28
  mean, forget letters.
• 5:29
  well, I don't wanna forget letters 'cause it's kind of fun
• 5:31
  to still get a letter today.
• 5:33
  As long as it's not from an attorney,
• 5:35
  Sylvia Lovely: There you go.
• 5:36
  Or a doctor.
• 5:37
  Nancy May: or doctor.
• 5:37
  Right.
• 5:38
  Sylvia Lovely: and this was during a time of World War I, rationing now.
• 5:41
  so let's see.
• 5:42
  It's World War ii.
• 5:43
  World War ii, let's go Wars straightened out here,
• 5:46
  Nancy May: I guess you could call her the, the, original social media
• 5:49
  influencer of her time, kinda like Martha and maybe the Kardashians.
• 5:54
  Right.
• 5:55
  Do we put her in that same category?
• 5:57
  I
• 5:57
  Sylvia Lovely: Uh, now comparing her to them is kind of interesting, isn't it?
• 6:01
  Because
• 6:01
  Nancy May: Right,
• 6:02
  Sylvia Lovely: bringing it forward.
• 6:03
  They are real people and they use their realness to sell themselves.
• 6:07
  But we'll talk about that here in a little bit.
• 6:09
  ' cause we're not gonna move through the ages, right?
• 6:11
  We're
• 6:11
  gonna go to,
• 6:12
  Nancy May: Now we've got famous Amos, Wally Amos.
• 6:15
  That's a really fascinating story
• 6:17
  because it's a classic rags to riches story that I don't know too many
• 6:21
  people know about because it's a little toss into wherever the cookies,
• 6:25
  my crumble, I get my tongue wrapped
• 6:28
  Sylvia Lovely: Like you're chewing a cookie.
• 6:29
  yeah.
• 6:30
  he founded Deus Cookies in 1975 at a bakery on Sunset Boulevard.
• 6:35
  You know, he kind of went small , I love kind of cookies like this,
• 6:38
  , the little bite size cookie.
• 6:41
  I
• 6:41
  love that.
• 6:42
  Nancy May: I give
• 6:43
  Sylvia Lovely: you're
• 6:44
  Nancy May: got a big,
• 6:44
  Sylvia Lovely: into big.
• 6:45
  Okay.
• 6:46
  I'm a tiny cookie, cause I'm kind of that too in real life.
• 6:49
  but it was a family recipe, aunt Della, with only the best ingredients
• 6:54
  and he was out in la so he, had a lot of investment from celebrities.
• 6:58
  it was on Sunset Boulevard and that spread the word, but he
• 7:01
  was of in the seventies kind of.
• 7:03
  Interesting because he became a personality too.
• 7:06
  He was interviewed.
• 7:08
  Uh, what, what's the one I'm trying to come up with?
• 7:10
  Um,
• 7:11
  Larry King.
• 7:11
  Yeah, I remember he interviewed everybody and, you'd get asked your
• 7:14
  opinion on world affairs, like, anybody in the food business should
• 7:18
  necessarily be commenting on that.
• 7:20
  But that was what started.
• 7:21
  Nancy May: well, I don't know.
• 7:22
  I think a cookie does bring kind of a world affair.
• 7:24
  Brings it all together,
• 7:25
  Sylvia Lovely: could, maybe be a peace offering.
• 7:27
  Nancy May: You never know.
• 7:28
  Sylvia Lovely: but And then you had a kind of a fact wait about him, didn't you?
• 7:31
  Nancy May: Yeah, so, Wally Amos, I remember seeing him speak somewhere a long
• 7:36
  time ago, and a very engaging personality.
• 7:39
  kind of felt like the guy next door type of
• 7:41
  personality, but he was actually the first black talent agent
• 7:46
  at the William Morris Agency.
• 7:48
  he worked with some folks like Simon and Garfunkel and Marvin
• 7:52
  Gaye and some really famous.
• 7:54
  Talents of the day, but that's also where he got those artists involved in his shop.
• 8:00
  So, or his, first store and the cookies, and that's of how it exploded.
• 8:05
  But I always thought he started in, in Hawaii and he didn't start in Hawaii.
• 8:08
  He's out in California,
• 8:10
  I don't know why I connected him with Honolulu in that area.
• 8:13
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
• 8:13
  you know, it doesn't hurt to have celebrities on your
• 8:15
  side 'cause they can help.
• 8:17
  Nancy May: Yeah, maybe we should find a a celebrity.
• 8:19
  Sylvia Lovely: Hey, we need a celebrity.
• 8:20
  Nancy May: We are the celebrities, come on!
• 8:21
  celebrities Come
• 8:22
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, you with your videos.
• 8:24
  I mean, let's go.
• 8:25
  but I know this is a personal favorite of yours.
• 8:27
  Chef Boyardee.
• 8:28
  You're always talking of
• 8:29
  Nancy May: Chef Boyardi.
• 8:30
  I love the story of Chef.
• 8:32
  Chef Boyardi.
• 8:33
  El El.
• 8:35
  How do you pronounce his name?
• 8:36
  You got it better than I do.
• 8:38
  Sylvia Lovely: Boy Rd.
• 8:39
  So it's, yeah,
• 8:41
  there you go.
• 8:42
  Boy Rd phonetically.
• 8:44
  And he changed it to that so that we, Americans could figure
• 8:48
  it out a little bit easier.
• 8:49
  But he was born in 1897 in Piacenza Italy, came to the US in 1914.
• 8:55
  He became the head chef eventually at the Plaza Hotel.
• 8:58
  I remember the heyday of the Plaza Hotel.
• 9:01
  Nancy May: in New York, absolutely.
• 9:02
  I don't think the plaza has ever faded.
• 9:05
  Tea at the plaza
• 9:06
  is just delicious.
• 9:07
  Sylvia Lovely: And what I, I love the discovery that we made.
• 9:09
  'cause we're from a small town, right?
• 9:11
  And your waiters are all college students, but there they had
• 9:14
  like professional waiters.
• 9:16
  I remember just being astonished by that.
• 9:18
  That was pretty cool.
• 9:19
  Nancy May: New York, big time professional.
• 9:22
  They, are very impressive to see a group of professional waiters manage
• 9:27
  a large event at the Plaza or the Waldorf or someplace like that, and
• 9:32
  you don't hear the clinking of plates.
• 9:35
  Sylvia Lovely: It's amazing.
• 9:36
  Nancy May: They're so good.
• 9:37
  Sylvia Lovely: And there's some of them in their fifties and sixties.
• 9:39
  I mean, it was a career unlike here, although we're changing
• 9:43
  a little bit, one of our.
• 9:44
  Staff.
• 9:45
  One of our front of house staff is like 67 and he's a favorite.
• 9:49
  People ask for him, Lenny.
• 9:50
  So Lenny kind of
• 9:52
  is breaking the mold.
• 9:53
  Yeah.
• 9:53
  Lenny.
• 9:54
  Oh, we love Lenny.
• 9:55
  He listens to his
• 9:56
  own too.
• 9:56
  He talks about, okay.
• 9:58
  but he did a lot of things.
• 10:00
  He prepared a famous White House homecoming dinner for
• 10:02
  returning World War One.
• 10:04
  Troops.
• 10:05
  This is back to the wars and which ones.
• 10:07
  and it became the head chef at the Hotel Winston in Cleveland.
• 10:10
  And his spaghetti dinners became locally famous.
• 10:14
  And again, they became the thing, right?
• 10:16
  how do you become the thing, Nancy?
• 10:18
  You gotta become the thing that people want
• 10:21
  and alright, we're a thing.
• 10:23
  I love that we are a thing.
• 10:25
  , But he opened his own place.
• 10:26
  Ill Giardino.
• 10:28
  Dalia, and the demand for his red sauce was intense, so he sent it home
• 10:33
  with customers and reused milk bottles along with dry pasta and cheese.
• 10:39
  So what happened next?
• 10:40
  Maurice and Eva Weiner, they were in the grocery business,
• 10:44
  helped he and his brother set up a canning operation in 1928.
• 10:48
  So his name and his symbol were born and he made it phonetic.
• 10:51
  So Chef Boyardee, his little m image there on all his packaging.
• 10:55
  his likeness just became universal.
• 10:58
  And during World War ii, he ran the plant around the clock
• 11:01
  producing canned spaghetti.
• 11:03
  It was so familiar and similar meals as a major supplier of rations.
• 11:08
  And he sold the company in 1946, following the drop in
• 11:12
  business, with the war ending.
• 11:14
  So, you know, he checked all the boxes, right?
• 11:16
  He was an immigrant, made good.
• 11:18
  He was a White House chef.
• 11:20
  He was a neighborhood entrepreneur and a wartime contributor.
• 11:23
  Like, check, check, check, check, check.
• 11:25
  This guy was amazing.
• 11:26
  Nancy May: it's interesting of how many foods have become so
• 11:29
  well known as a result of wartime.
• 11:31
  Traditions.
• 11:32
  it's not necessarily on the topic they we're talking about, but I believe Hershey
• 11:36
  Bars and Coca-Cola became more famed as a result, and motorcycles too actually.
• 11:42
  But we'll talk about that maybe in another show.
• 11:45
  Food on the go.
• 11:47
  Let's take a quick break because we have a few more iconic brands to
• 11:50
  talk about that I think are pretty personal, We'll be right back because
• 11:55
  we have this other story first.
• 12:16
  Okay, Sylvia, so we just finished up with Chef Boyardee, but before we go on to
• 12:20
  our next iconic brand, have you ever eaten Chef Boyardee d Spaghetti in the canned
• 12:25
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I loved it.
• 12:29
  I'd probably love it today.
• 12:31
  I haven't had it for a while.
• 12:32
  you
• 12:32
  Nancy May: I'd never had Chef Byardee I had SpaghettiOs and I would never eat that
• 12:36
  Sylvia Lovely: really
• 12:37
  Nancy May: That was disgusting.
• 12:38
  Sylvia Lovely: SpaghettiOs?
• 12:39
  Nancy May: SpaghettiOs as a kid, everybody had SpaghettiOs, and one day I remember
• 12:43
  asking my mom, I need SpaghettiOs.
• 12:44
  Have to try it.
• 12:45
  Oh, disgusting.
• 12:47
  But sorry, yeah, I prefer homemade spaghetti.
• 12:50
  Sylvia Lovely: Is that because your mother was a really good cook?
• 12:53
  Is
• 12:53
  that because
• 12:54
  Nancy May: No,
• 12:55
  Sylvia Lovely: Huh?
• 12:56
  Nancy May: no, it wasn't.
• 12:57
  Sorry, Mom.
• 12:59
  Sylvia Lovely: Because that happens sometimes.
• 13:01
  I mean, if you eat food that somebody who's really good at it
• 13:04
  makes it kind of shames some of the other food, even if it's from
• 13:08
  a high-end restaurant or something.
• 13:10
  , They just don't make it like some of the old cooks.
• 13:13
  And maybe that's what happened here, that people loved his spaghetti.
• 13:17
  So go and try it.
• 13:18
  Nancy.
• 13:18
  Give him another
• 13:19
  try.
• 13:20
  Nancy May: I'm gonna have to try Chef Boyardee.
• 13:22
  I believe they're still around,
• 13:24
  Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.
• 13:25
  Nancy May: Our next iconic character is Sarah Lee.
• 13:28
  before we start on Sarah Lee, I had a mentor years back.
• 13:31
  Miles Kane, fabulous fellow, an attorney.
• 13:35
  I, there's something about attorneys that gravitate to me.
• 13:39
  You're an attorney, you just gotta love me.
• 13:42
  It'll keep me outta jail, whatever it is.
• 13:44
  But, he was a, good friend and advisor of the real Sarah Lee, who lived, I
• 13:50
  believe, in Greenwich, Connecticut
• 13:52
  Sylvia Lovely: okay.
• 13:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:53
  Nancy May: But, some of the stories were pretty fascinating, but you've
• 13:55
  got a good story about how Sarah Lee
• 13:58
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
• 13:58
  Sarah Lee was the actual 8-year-old daughter of Charles
• 14:01
  Lubin, a Chicago baker.
• 14:03
  Again, hitting on this idea of
• 14:06
  a little girl and family and, I think one of his, sayings was, if you serve
• 14:10
  it to your daughter, it has to be good.
• 14:12
  Nancy May: I like that.
• 14:13
  Sylvia Lovely: And so, in 1935, Charles and his brother, I love these
• 14:17
  stories these origin stories, to buy a chain of bakeries and they
• 14:20
  called it community bake shops.
• 14:22
  So the rest is history.
• 14:23
  He created and introduced a new line of frozen cheesecakes in 1949.
• 14:28
  And he branded it.
• 14:29
  As I said, if it serve it to your daughter, it has to be good.
• 14:33
  So he, hit on that, you're gonna feed your kids well.
• 14:36
  and later he changed the name of the company to Kitchens of Sara Lee,
• 14:40
  and he sold his frozen cheesecakes to restaurants you find a lot of
• 14:43
  times this stuff happened just as something else was happening.
• 14:47
  This was an era when people started eating frozen foods.
• 14:50
  We hadn't thought about that.
• 14:51
  You know, probably the precursor to frozen dinners and that kind
• 14:54
  of thing, but they were becoming popular, and so later he extended
• 14:58
  his company to cakes, pies, breads, meats, with that 20th century ethos of
• 15:03
  bathing, food, marketing, and warmth, wholesomeness, and a feminine touch.
• 15:08
  Nancy May: Coziness, but you don't hear of food connected to
• 15:11
  little boys, which is interesting.
• 15:13
  Other than
• 15:14
  I think of Bologna.
• 15:16
  Oscar Meyer, my, my baloney has a first name.
• 15:18
  I you think of little boys saying that for some reason.
• 15:21
  I don't know, maybe I don't wanna get into that story.
• 15:23
  But did you know that the Sara Lee company developed the first flash frozen process
• 15:29
  that worked for baked goods in 1953?
• 15:31
  I think that was really interesting because it's a brand, but they also
• 15:35
  created this technology around the foods, which made them more available to us and
• 15:41
  that grew beyond the brand of the Bake.
• 15:44
  You mentioned cakes and pies and breads and meats, but they
• 15:47
  also owned Kiwi shoe polish.
• 15:50
  Haynes and the Wonder Bra, which I thought was pretty funny, right?
• 15:55
  So I guess you can have your cake and push it up too.
• 15:58
  Sylvia Lovely: Oh, the Wonder Bra, do they still
• 16:00
  make
• 16:01
  this?
• 16:01
  Nancy May: Bra Cake.
• 16:03
  Sylvia Lovely: What's, I don't even remember the Wonder Bra.
• 16:05
  Does it have a special feature other
• 16:07
  Nancy May: Oh, the Wonder Bra.
• 16:09
  I don't know.
• 16:10
  I think maybe that was Jane Russell that did the lift and separate
• 16:13
  Sylvia Lovely: Oh, I love that.
• 16:15
  Nancy May: Too much for food stories right
• 16:16
  now.
• 16:17
  Let's go on to Duncan Hines
• 16:18
  this is a great one too.
• 16:20
  Sylvia Lovely: In my neighborhood.
• 16:21
  That's right.
• 16:22
  Duncan Hines.
• 16:23
  Now we've seen it for years.
• 16:24
  I didn't even know this till pretty recently, that he's
• 16:27
  an actual person and he didn't launch a food company in a sense.
• 16:32
  But let me just tell a story really quickly.
• 16:34
  He is born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which was about two hours away from
• 16:37
  Lexington He was a traveling salesman and he traveled the country and
• 16:42
  had an obsession with cleanliness.
• 16:45
  So he began to rate restaurants that sound familiar, and motels,
• 16:49
  especially for cleanliness and quality.
• 16:52
  He was, I think, a precursor to modern day dining and travel guides
• 16:57
  that we rely on, which has now gone digital and all that stuff.
• 17:00
  But in the forties, he licensed his name for products he promoted.
• 17:04
  again, opportunity met the circumstances of the time.
• 17:08
  This was when people began to.
• 17:10
  Tour the country.
• 17:11
  And they needed to know, right?
• 17:13
  They needed to know what, was good and what wasn't.
• 17:15
  And he was so obsessed and he would tell people, don't go to X, y, or Z
• 17:20
  restaurant because it's not clean enough.
• 17:22
  And, he could make you or break you.
• 17:24
  he said his famous saying, more people will die by hit or miss
• 17:28
  dining than hit and run driving.
• 17:31
  wow.
• 17:32
  Nancy May: Ooh, that's pretty scary.
• 17:33
  Sylvia Lovely: Now I gotta tell you, this is one, that you know, something about
• 17:36
  being from the Northeast Toll house Inn.
• 17:39
  Nancy May: I do know that one.
• 17:40
  Sylvia Lovely: about the Toll House Inn.
• 17:41
  It sounds good, like.
• 17:42
  Nancy May: So the Toll House Inn is in Whitman, Massachusetts and of, I
• 17:46
  guess he used to come down from the northeast, from Boston area into the Cape.
• 17:51
  so he visited the Toll House Inn and it was not too far from Bridgewater,
• 17:56
  Massachusetts, which is where.
• 17:57
  We didn't live in Bridgewater.
• 17:59
  We lived in Rochester for a while.
• 18:00
  When we moved, when I was in, in high school, and we would
• 18:03
  go through Bridgewater area and we'd pass by the Toll House Inn.
• 18:07
  Sylvia Lovely: and they were actually related to the Tollhouse cookies,
• 18:09
  right?
• 18:10
  Nancy May: Well, there's a debate about that, I think.
• 18:13
  Yes, it's the tall house cookies there, but there's another one
• 18:16
  in, they call the Toll House.
• 18:18
  Over in Connecticut, in the Litchfield area that.
• 18:21
  Well, they say they were the oldest Inn versus, the cookies.
• 18:24
  But even still a toll house for those people who are listening and don't know,
• 18:28
  a toll house of the day was where they would collect the toll just like you
• 18:33
  would have tokens in the day and age and the easy passes that you have today.
• 18:37
  And people don't think about tolls necessarily 'cause you just
• 18:41
  drive right through them today.
• 18:42
  And the fascinating thing is.
• 18:44
  There's, there was a group of people, this is somewhat on the same concept of
• 18:48
  Duncan Hines going on the side route.
• 18:50
  There were a group of people who referred to themselves as Shun Pikers.
• 18:54
  Do you know what a
• 18:54
  Shun piker is?
• 18:55
  A Shun Piker is somebody who shuns the tolls.
• 18:59
  So you shun a turnpike and you go around the tolls and you go on the side roads
• 19:03
  and the country roads, and you find places like the toll house in and hopefully
• 19:08
  a little bit more cleany places to eat.
• 19:11
  Not that the toll house isn't cleanly, but some of the things that Duncan Hines
• 19:14
  Sylvia Lovely: So,
• 19:14
  so that was a label for me.
• 19:16
  I would go,
• 19:17
  no, I didn't.
• 19:18
  Nancy May: you are Shun Piker.
• 19:20
  Well, it's not that they're that they shun the laws, they just find alternative
• 19:25
  routes because you could do that.
• 19:26
  So you
• 19:26
  Sylvia Lovely: I love that.
• 19:27
  Nancy May: road as opposed to
• 19:29
  Sylvia Lovely: That's a great way to put it.
• 19:30
  Scenic route.
• 19:31
  A scenic route.
• 19:32
  so he made the place famous.
• 19:33
  Now it didn't hurt that it was on their way to Cape Cod,
• 19:36
  right?
• 19:37
  And, he extolled their virtues and at one time they had 1500 to 2000 customers.
• 19:43
  If you have a 1500 to 2000 customers in a period of time, that's pretty good.
• 19:48
  I don't know if it was weekly, but
• 19:49
  Nancy May: Well at
• 19:50
  Sylvia Lovely: yeah, that's a lot
• 19:51
  Nancy May: Right?
• 19:51
  Sylvia Lovely: the food there made him say.
• 19:53
  It is when I wish I had a hollow leg.
• 19:56
  he was a man with, the quip, but his self-published guides were
• 19:59
  sold for a dollar 50 each.
• 20:01
  I love it.
• 20:02
  And he sold, this is so cute.
• 20:04
  He sold, recommended by Duncan Hines signs for $38 a year.
• 20:08
  Nancy May: That was a lot back then lot back then.
• 20:10
  in the twenties
• 20:10
  Sylvia Lovely: but it made a difference apparently.
• 20:12
  Then we haven't heard about this.
• 20:14
  I'm surprised we haven't.
• 20:15
  he continued lending his name, including to cake mixes and just as
• 20:19
  ready to eat and prepare food again.
• 20:22
  serendipity was arriving in the grocery store.
• 20:25
  It was said that his endorsement or not could make it or break a
• 20:28
  restaurant, and he made a lot of money.
• 20:31
  So I mostly see the cake mixes.
• 20:34
  Nancy May: So this is interesting.
• 20:35
  He's really the precursor to the Michelin
• 20:37
  Guide, which is all about tours and getting around, and a lot of
• 20:40
  companies have money by starting out as tour guide type of companies with
• 20:45
  really being traveling salesman.
• 20:47
  I know family business who did that, that was and their grandfather who started
• 20:52
  that is rather fascinating, but I. Didn't realize he started out as a tour guide
• 20:58
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
• 20:59
  Interesting, interesting.
• 21:00
  Sort of a little twist, right?
• 21:02
  but anyway, you know, these were an interesting kinda a picking like these.
• 21:06
  Interesting, iconic folks.
• 21:09
  I mean, there are so many we could be covering, but I think the trending
• 21:13
  that we started seeing, and if you go through the grocery store and you
• 21:16
  think about this like we do, it's.
• 21:18
  Interesting that at one time it was all, girls and women and it was about this
• 21:24
  image they projected and make you trust them because you trusted your mom, right?
• 21:28
  You trusted your grandmother and they carried that forward.
• 21:32
  You would feed good food to your daughter.
• 21:34
  Right?
• 21:34
  Nancy May: And Aunt Jemima right?
• 21:36
  all the pancake stuff.
• 21:38
  Sylvia Lovely: there's just, it's an in endless supply.
• 21:39
  And Colonel Sanders.
• 21:41
  And that was an interesting one because Colonel Sanders was a real
• 21:44
  person, but he went around, made speeches and all of that kind of stuff.
• 21:48
  But what started happening more, I think, and it'll be
• 21:51
  interesting to see how this goes.
• 21:53
  Authenticity started counting for a lot and.
• 21:56
  Each person with their flaws or companies with flaws and failures, origin stories.
• 22:01
  Those were, were the good ones.
• 22:03
  You know, we started our company in a garage.
• 22:05
  We started our company in Grandma's Kitchen and then
• 22:09
  depicting Grandma's Kitchen and.
• 22:11
  Literally, spotlighting customers became more kind of what you do,
• 22:16
  even if they're not real slick photographs, they're real people.
• 22:20
  So stories around the product and that became the brand.
• 22:24
  Nancy May: So do you think today that we've gotten away from some of that,
• 22:28
  or are we really still more intrigued with, well, I'll ask you are, are
• 22:34
  you more intrigued with what the product is or does the personality
• 22:38
  of a brand character bring you in?
• 22:41
  Sylvia Lovely: I don't think I'm as captivated by the
• 22:43
  character, but who knows?
• 22:44
  A lot of those is subliminal.
• 22:46
  We don't even consciously make decisions, right?
• 22:51
  . . Now, I'm not likely to go out and buy it, but I might say to my grandkids,
• 22:55
  Hey, why don't you try this?
• 22:57
  And it's because
• 22:58
  I
• 22:58
  became conscious.
• 22:59
  Yeah.
• 23:00
  I, you know, and so I don't know, you know,
• 23:02
  Nancy May: We could do a whole separate show on serials as kids.
• 23:06
  You think of every personality, Tony the Tiger, and what's the fruit loop guy?
• 23:11
  Right?
• 23:11
  or lucky Charms, because they're magically delicious.
• 23:15
  I don't know what other people thought, but I. I was captivated
• 23:19
  by Captain Crunch as a kid.
• 23:20
  So, but we were not allowed Captain Crunch because that was basically dessert, right?
• 23:25
  Not cereal.
• 23:26
  But today we have other influencers we have real actors that are taking place.
• 23:30
  We certainly have Martha, we have Jacques and Julia.
• 23:33
  We have Ina Garden.
• 23:34
  But they're not brands necessarily for the foods.
• 23:37
  They have become characters.
• 23:39
  I say characters, real life people that influence decisions of other
• 23:44
  products as opposed to brand name.
• 23:46
  Well, I shouldn't say that.
• 23:47
  Martha does have her name on, some wine, which we have tried
• 23:52
  and it's, what do they call it?
• 23:54
  It's something.
• 23:55
  like the, the incarcerated or something
• 23:57
  like that.
• 23:58
  Sylvia Lovely: wow.
• 23:59
  Nancy May: Her and another couple of other characters, we tried it and it's
• 24:02
  it's terrible.
• 24:03
  I shouldn't say don't buy Martha wine because you might like it, but it was not
• 24:07
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
• 24:08
  yeah.
• 24:09
  so yeah, I think one of the more interesting trajectories to see if more
• 24:13
  people do it is the Ben and Jerry's, kind of thing, because they became
• 24:16
  very controversial with their views.
• 24:19
  Nancy May: Well, they came outta the sixties and the seventies, which
• 24:21
  was kind of that time and error.
• 24:22
  , And I agree, Ben and Jerry's has done a lot to change the thinking of food from
• 24:28
  not just a brand, but standing for a
• 24:30
  meaning something
• 24:31
  Sylvia Lovely: Then what is
• 24:32
  Nancy May: So, and they, although they sold their business, they
• 24:35
  still get into, I'll call in quotes,
• 24:36
  trouble.
• 24:37
  and then you've got Dolly Parton today, as I mentioned earlier.
• 24:40
  Dolly Parton is doing her stuff and.
• 24:43
  Doing really good things from a give back perspective with some
• 24:47
  of the foods that she's created.
• 24:49
  Although I have to say, when Dolly stuff first came out, we were walking
• 24:53
  down the grocery store aisle at one day and I looked at the box and it's this.
• 24:59
  God awful bubble coming pink.
• 25:01
  It's just, I mean, it's, it's the, it's the worst caricature
• 25:05
  you could see of Dolly ever.
• 25:06
  Just bad drawing.
• 25:07
  And I said, what on earth were these people thinking about?
• 25:10
  And there happened to be like one of the grocery clerks that was
• 25:13
  walking by me and he stopped.
• 25:15
  He turned at me and he laughed and he said, you know, when those products
• 25:18
  came into the store, Every one of us in the store said the same thing.
• 25:22
  What were they thinking?
• 25:23
  But.
• 25:24
  I've met people and talk to them and said they absolutely love it.
• 25:27
  A friend out in California who I would never think would be
• 25:30
  gravitated to pink bubble gum dolly with bad yellow hair on a box.
• 25:35
  So it's really good.
• 25:37
  So, um,
• 25:38
  go figure.
• 25:39
  Sylvia Lovely: Or the
• 25:39
  packaging
• 25:40
  Nancy May: she mentioned, the box cakes were
• 25:41
  Very very good.
• 25:43
  Sylvia Lovely: Well, interesting
• 25:44
  out.
• 25:44
  Nancy May: So.
• 25:44
  I haven't made a box cake.
• 25:46
  If I'm gonna make a cake, I'm probably gonna make it from
• 25:48
  Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, I know.
• 25:49
  And I,
• 25:50
  Nancy May: It's not that difficult to
• 25:51
  Sylvia Lovely: yeah, the problem with the cake is you gotta have
• 25:53
  somebody to feed it too, and
• 25:55
  so you don't eat
• 25:56
  your
• 25:56
  Nancy May: Well, I, I, I agree.
• 25:58
  I agree.
• 25:59
  I will have to say, I convinced Bob, earlier this year to not
• 26:02
  buy the box of pancake mix.
• 26:05
  He said, we gotta buy it.
• 26:06
  You gotta buy the pancake mix.
• 26:07
  And I said, Nope, we don't need to buy the pancake mix.
• 26:09
  And he says, why?
• 26:11
  I said, because you can make it from scratch.
• 26:12
  It's like three ingredients.
• 26:14
  And he's like, no it's not.
• 26:15
  I said, yes it
• 26:16
  is.
• 26:18
  So he said, well prove it.
• 26:19
  So I did.
• 26:19
  And he's like,
• 26:20
  oh, look at that, tastes just as good, if not better.
• 26:23
  I said, well, it better
• 26:24
  Sylvia Lovely: yeah.
• 26:24
  ' Nancy May: cause I made it.
• 26:25
  Sylvia Lovely: not ultra processed.
• 26:27
  Nancy May: Yeah, well who knows where our flour comes from,
• 26:30
  but you're absolutely right.
• 26:31
  yeah.
• 26:32
  Before we go, I wanna mention one other kind of product that I
• 26:35
  remember, and I don't know if you remember Annie's Mac and Cheese.
• 26:39
  Do you remember
• 26:39
  Annie?
• 26:40
  Sylvia Lovely: yeah,
• 26:41
  Nancy May: Annie started as her focus was on organic and sustainability and
• 26:46
  health, and I think she's still around.
• 26:48
  She's not that old, up in the New Hampshire area.
• 26:50
  A bit of an introvert, but she created the iconic, the little
• 26:53
  Bunny, and people loved that.
• 26:56
  Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.
• 26:57
  Nancy May: the idea that it was, it was a boxed food, but
• 26:59
  Sylvia Lovely: I think
• 26:59
  that's true and
• 27:00
  I, I've gotten, gotten that for my kids is she makes a mac and cheese.
• 27:04
  So if I make her mac and cheese, I have to hide the box.
• 27:08
  ' cause my kids are addicted to
• 27:10
  Nancy May: Oh yeah, we need to do a whole show on, on mac and cheese because Kraft
• 27:14
  has really had a very difficult time.
• 27:17
  They used to be almost a hundred percent of the market, like 99.9%.
• 27:21
  They are now down quite a bit because of, Great companies like Annie that have come
• 27:25
  along and made some very interesting, delicious macs and cheese, but
• 27:29
  I'm not a mac and cheese person
• 27:29
  Sylvia Lovely: I am, I'm not either.
• 27:31
  Uh, it's amazing to me that it's on every menu and, you know, my
• 27:34
  kids like the fashioned stuff.
• 27:37
  I don't know
• 27:37
  Nancy May: Yeah, I think that's a great trend that, we haven't
• 27:40
  forgotten some of our, our history and our roots, whether they be
• 27:43
  commercial brands or not, but there's something about the nostalgic and the
• 27:47
  tradition of bringing everything back, even in a brand name
• 27:51
  product that mom and dad
• 27:53
  used that so brings it
• 27:54
  back home.
• 27:55
  Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
• 27:56
  Interesting.
• 27:56
  Nancy May: Yeah, so before we go, please remember to like and
• 28:00
  subscribe a show at Podcast dot family tree food stories dot com.
• 28:03
  I'll say that a little slower.
• 28:04
  Podcast Dot Family Tree Food Stories Dot Com.
• 28:08
  And of course if you're on Facebook, you'll always see me doing the Weekly.
• 28:11
  Hello, it's Nancy, your podcast at Family Tree Food Stories.
• 28:14
  They're a little fun to take a look at because every meal has a story
• 28:17
  and every story is a feast and there's so much more in store that
• 28:21
  Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.
• 28:21
  Oh yeah.
• 28:22
  We're having fun.
• 28:23
  Send in
• 28:23
  ideas.
• 28:24
  We'd
• 28:24
  love to hear
• 28:25
  things you always want to know.
• 28:26
  Nancy May: and let us know what your favorite brands are because
• 28:28
  we'd be curious to know as well.
• 28:31
  eat up and enjoy.
• 28:33
  ' because every meal has a story and every story is a feast.
• 28:36
  Take care.
• 28:36
  Bye-bye.