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Short Stuff: The Best Episode Since Sliced Bread · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. So
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: this is an official bonafide short stuff.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: That's right big thanks to History of Bread dot com,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: History dot com, oral prints at houstuffworks dot com, and
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the surprisingly instructive Goldmetal Bakery dot Com.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I also want to shout out Mental Flaws and Zachary
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Krockeatt on Pricenomics.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Great because this is about slice bread. That you've heard
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: the term, of course, the best thing since slice bread.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: And oddly enough, well not oddly, but slice bread has
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: been around less than one hundred years, even though bread
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: has been around for tens of thousands of years.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think in either a bread episode or a
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: beer episode, we explored whether or not bread was created
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to make beer portable, a beer starter portable. But regardless,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it's been around for a very very long time. And
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: yet would you say thirty thousand years?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I said tens of thousands, But yeah, that's a little
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: more specific.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's say bread was invented thirty thousand years ago.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It took twenty nine nine hundred years before this point
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: for somebody to think of pre sliced bread or if
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: they thought of it to actually follow through with that idea.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: And we have a hero hero named Otto Frederick Rowedter
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to thank for that. We'll meet him in a minute.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean you can listen to our bread episode.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: We don't need to go over all that, but suffice
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: it to say, for twenty nine nine hundred years Ish
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: people were generally tearing off chunks of bread. That's where
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: we get the term breaking bread. There were sandwiches, I
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: believe the first like credit for the real sandwich goes
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: to Rabbi Helll the Elder who put lamb and bitter
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: herbs on in between two pieces of matzo the hill
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: El sandwich. And then in eighteen forty woman miss Leslie
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Eliza Leslie published Directions for Cookery in which she talked
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: about what's thought to believe be like the first ham sandwich,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: where she talks about cutting slices of bread very neatly.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So people were slicing their bread at home. It's not
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: like they were like, I want to make a sandwich,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: but I just tear it off in these big chunks.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: And I don't understand people were home slicing bread to
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: make sandwiches. But that all changed on July seventh, nineteen
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: twenty eight.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, because that guy I mentioned before, Auto Frederick Roeder,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the father of sliced bread. He had been tinkering with
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: this for well over a decade, right Rove.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: He was to be German.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: It has to be. Well, his name is Auto Frederick first,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, those are your first two clues, and then
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: they really trying to drive it home on the third.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Name then Alf Deutsch he.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: No, he was, You're not gonna do it from what
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the road, Vetter.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I just want you to say it German.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Auto Friederic Throvetter, Yeah, there even't even though I could
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: roll my rs, you're calling him row it Er. Well,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, from Georgia, in Ohio, in Florida. All right,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: all right, so anyway ot or OFR. I know it's
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that it's initials. I'm trying to think of something else
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to call him that you won't make fun of him
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: me for how about Auto? So Auto he was an inventor,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and I don't I didn't see anywhere where he got
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the idea to do this, but just suddenly sat up
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: one days, like sliced bread, we should make sliced bread
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: so you can just go buy store buy at the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: store pre sliced bread. And he got to work making
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a machine all the way back in nineteen seventeen. But
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: you mentioned it wasn't until nineteen twenty eight that people
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: started being able to buy pre sliced bread at the store.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And that's because he got pretty far, got a prototype, developed,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: had all these blueprints for making this machine, and there
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: was a fire at his office that just wiped everything out.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: That's right. It's very sad, Yeah, and it took him
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: a long time to get back up to speed. I
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: do think we should point out that this guy was
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: a jeweler. He was not in the food business at all.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: He had an ophthalmology degree. Yet he became a jeweler
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: and had three jewelry stores that he owned. But he
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: was an inventor and he would sell those jewelry stores
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: and that's what financed his I guess, just strange idea
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: to slice and package bread.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean think about how just normal that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: seems now, just to imagine that somebody had to have
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that idea at one point, and then we know the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: person who did. His name is Auto. I just find
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: that fascinating. That's right, mister Rouiter, if you want to
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: put it like that. Should we take a break?
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, all right, I'll be right back. Stuff U s.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So Auto had that fire in nineteen seventeen and he
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: kept working at it, and eleven years later he had
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a working machine that was pumped by foot. I saw
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: it like a sewing machine of the era, and it
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: was two sets of very sharp blades, some going up,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: some going down at the same time, and a loaf
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: of bread would come from a top down a ramp
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: past the blades and come out the bottom of the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: machine sliced, but kind of a mess. They were just
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: kind of laying all over the place, and a loafish shape,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: but really a pretty messy loafish shape.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They were half inch slices because he did a
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: lot of research and came up with a half inches
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: sort of like the perfect uniform with for a piece
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: of bread, for a sandwich or whatever else you want
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: to do with it, I guess, yeah. And he sold
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: that first slicer to a guy named a friend of
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: his name Frank Bench, who was a baker in Missoura
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: at a place called the Chilicoke Baking Company, and that
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: was the first one sold. The second was sold to
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: another baker named Gustav Poppindick. And this is the guy
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: who improved it. He was like, hey, you got these
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: slices that are coming out, but they're all falling apart.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: He came up with a way to slice it where
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: they stayed you know, packaged together. They stayed fresher longer,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: and they just made the wrapping process much easier. So
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: he improved upon it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So two things. Frank Bench was a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: baker on the verge of bankruptcy and just decided to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: take a chance and pay his friend for this machine.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And number two, the before Gustav Poppindick came along. Auto's
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: solution to these floppy, flimsy like falling apart loaves of
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: bread was to stick a hatpin in them. And then
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: part of the instruction was to take the hat pin
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: out just far enough so that you could take some
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: however many slices you wanted from it, and then push
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the hat pin back in. And everybody's like, that's a
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: terrible idea. What else you got, And luckily Papindick was like, no, no, no,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: we'll have it wrapped so that by the time it
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: comes out of the slicer, this loaf isn't falling apart,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and it's wrapped for freshness. It was a great, great
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: improvement because without it, sliced bread would have gone nowhere.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, I wonder if Rovetda was like, have you
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: seen a kincake? They got a freaking plastic baby in.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Those things, right, and you guys are you can deal
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: with a hat pin, right, You're not going to choke
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: on a hat pin. But eighteen people a year choke
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: on a king cake baby.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't surprise me, so the ref diference. The first
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: reference to slice bread and print apparently was in nineteen
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: twenty eight when that local paper from Frank Bench's bread
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: company there in Missouri had an article that said slice
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: bread is made here. That was the headline. I'm sorry,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: it was an advertisement. Slice bread is made here, and
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: they are, of course the home of the original slice bread.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: They're in Missouri, which is quite a claim to fame,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I'm sure. But when this stuff came out, it wasn't
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: like everyone was like, oh my god, this is the
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: best thing since since whatever the previous best thing was.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: People are like, this is weird because they had been
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: slicing their own bread. They didn't know what to think
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: about it. They had to convince, you know, people to
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: get on board, to get bakeries on board, and who
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: got on board was generally homemakers, which at the time
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: was largely women. These women who were packing lunches for
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: husbands and kids. They were like, this is incredible. You
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: have no idea how much easier this is. And I
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: don't have kids arguing about different sized slices, and Johnny's
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: thing is bigger than me, and the sandwich looks janky
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: because the bread slopes at the end. And I got
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: a small piece and a big piece and it's made
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: everything quicker and streamlined my routine, and this is the
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: new best thing.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Right And to help them out, I think Wonderbread first
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: came out. It was I think the first slice bread
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: nationally available or widely available, and it became the most popular.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: And originally it was called wonder cut because it became
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: pre sliced, and they shortened it to wonder bread. But
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, seriously, how much of a timesaver is this?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And then I read a quote from a woman who
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: was upset. We'll talk about why she was upset in
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: a minute. But she makes a really good case that, like,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: if you're having to slap together sandwiches really quickly for
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: your family's lunches before they go out the door, and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you're also cutting bread to make toast for them at
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the same time, like you might have to slice thirty
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: slices of bread really quick, right, and that's actually kind
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of time consuming. So if you can buy pre sliced bread,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that's going to save you some time and effort, and
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: it actually is worth it. So I finally wrapped my
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: head around how much of a timesaver slice bread actually is.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got six kids, I got a husband, I
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: got a divorced neighbor who doesn't understand how to make
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: a sandwich. Art, Yeah, arts force. He didn't know how
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: to make a sandwich. Everyone wants toast, everyone wants sandwiches.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: You can't take this away from.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Us, No, And they tried to, didn't they.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I didn't the government step in and
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: literally try to stop slice bread.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, So, as part of the wartime conservation in the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: United States for World War Two, Claude R. Wickert, who
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: was the US Food Administrator.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's vickered.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Sorry, you're probably right, but I'm going to call him
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Claude Wickered. He ordered a bay on sliced bread in particular,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: not bread, not anything else, just sliced bread. And his
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: reasoning was, you have to use thicker wax paper to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: keep pre sliced bread fresh because there's a lot of
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: holes in it. Now there's a lot of extra service
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: area to go stale, so that means you're using more paraffin.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And god knows what else they were trying to use
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: paraffin for, probably water proofing stuff like clothing and things
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: like that at the time. Yeah, so they needed the paraffin.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And then at the same time, they're also like, the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: price of grain is about to go up, and we
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: don't want bakers to be able to use sliced bread prices,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: which is more expensive to hide passing on higher grain prices.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So we're just gonna say you can't have sliced bread.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And Claude Wicker walked away whistling and like dusting his
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: hands off, and he thought that was it, and he
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: ran into America's homemakers, who surged up like a tidal
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: wave of angry people wearing aprons. It came out after him,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and he ended up backing down pretty quick. Yeah.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: He put on his canvas wax, his wax canvas field jacket.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Right, and he marched out of the room his veiled backet.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you for getting on board. So back to Roevet.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: He sold his patent rights to a company called the
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: micro Westow Company in Iowa. I think we didn't mention
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: he was. I think he was from Iowa.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Right, Davenport.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And he actually was one of those deals where
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: you sell the patent rights, but then you come on
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: board as a sort of spokesman and salesperson. So he
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: led the Rovetta Bakery Machine division, selling these things to
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: more and more bakeries. But he never became like some
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: huge name. I think there are many, many more inventors
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: of very common items that are much more well known.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: He lived a very quiet life in Louisiana, and I
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: think he retired in seventy one and passed away at
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: what close to.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Eighty His age was supposed to eighty, yeah, as opposed
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to what died nineteen eighty?
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, I got you, Yeah, close to eighty.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know what year it was, though, do you
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: know I don't as a matter of fact, but we
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: could kind of guess he lived. He was nineteen sixty.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: There it is, right there. I was going to do
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: some matha. Luckily I was bailed out at the last minute. Yeah.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So there you have it with slice bread, right.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well there's one other thing. There's an extra happy
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: end to this story. That guy Frank Bench, the nearly
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: bankrupt baker who took a chance on his friend Auto
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and his new machine. His sales increased by two thousand
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: percent when he started selling sliced bread and he was saved. Wow, yep,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: pretty cool.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: That's amazing. I think it's pronounced big.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I hope, I really hope that Auto's like great grandson
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Tim rice In and he's like, it's row Weather.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Well it may have been since they were in Iowa.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: A lot of people, you know, change their very German
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: or French or whatever pronounced names to more American sounding sure,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: like Clark, what was Clark?
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Clark?
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Bryant was probably O'Briant at some point.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: No, Clark was Clark. It's a derivative of clerk. So
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I come from a long line of pencil pushers.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Well, how weirdly inappropriate I agree.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that. Thank you. Yeah, well, I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: guess short Stuff's out.
• 14:37
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• 14:40
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• 14:45
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