EATING LIKE YOUR GREAT GRANDPARENTS

I’m not talking about old family recipes here. I’m talking about “bought foods” some from hundreds of years ago, still consumed today. These brands are still popular in the United States; people in other countries are no doubt eating and drinking like their own great grandparents, but I am focusing on the brands I know.

Breakfast

You may be starting your day off by eating (and caffeinating) just like your ancestors!

In 1850, William H. Bovee, the owner of the Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills in San Francisco, built a mill that allowed him to sell pre-roasted, ground coffee. In 1865, A. Folger became a full partner, going on to buy out the other partners and rename the company J.A. Folger & Co. in 1872.  Folger’s Coffee was born.

Farther east, in 1873, Joel Cheek left Kentucky to seek a new life in Nashville, Tennessee. Eventually he launched the Nashville Coffee and Manufacturing Company. In 1892, Cheek created a special blend of coffee that he named after the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, which was one of his biggest customers. Legend has it that in 1907 President Teddy Roosevelt visited Maxwell House, the prestigious Nashville hotel and after finishing a cup of their namesake coffee, he declared it was, “good to the last drop.”

eating Quaker Oats

Ferdinand Schumacher founded the German Mills American Oatmeal Company in the 1850s in Akron, Ohio. With Robert Stuart of Ontario, he opened the Quaker Mill Company in 1877 in Ravenna, Ohio. In 1881, Henry Crowell bought the company and launched a national advertising campaign for Quaker Oats.

John Harvey Kellogg/W.K. Kellogg created Kellogg’s Corn Flakes at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan in 1894. Kellogg was supporting good health through a vegetarian diet. Accidentally invented as a breakfast food to counter indigestion, Corn Flakes, the first dry, flaked breakfast cereal, became the most popular dry breakfast cereal in the world.

Lunch

You can take a break at lunchtime by eating the same lunch your great grandparents enjoyed!

Wonder Bread is an American brand of sliced bread. Established in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1921, it was one of the first companies to sell sliced bread nationwide by 1930. Elmer Cline named the company after the wonder he felt witnessing the launch of hundreds of hot air balloons at the International Balloon Race in Indianapolis.

After working for many years in a Chicago sausage factory, Oscar Mayer opened his first hot dog shop in 1883. Events like the Chicago World Fair in 1893, World War I, the release of the Wienermobiles, and the Oscar Mayer Wiener song made these hot dogs a cultural phenomenon.

In 1898, a LeRoy, New York-based carpenter and cough syrup manufacturer named Pearle Bixby Wait trademarked a combination of granulated gelatin, sugar, and flavoring called Jell-O. The first flavors were strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon.

Baking

Many of the brands modern bakers use have not changed substantially in generations. Even when baking at home, you may be eating the same cake as your great-grandparents!

Pillsbury Flower eating

In 1790, Henry Wood launched a company specializing in importing and distributing English-milled flour in Boston. Henry Wood & Co started milling and selling American-grown flour in 1825, when the Erie Canal made distribution faster and more reliable. They launched a new product in 1895 called King Arthur Flour (the name inspired by the hit musical of the day, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table). 

In 1764, John Hannon and Dr. James Baker started importing cacao beans and producing chocolate in Dorcester, Massachusetts. For 15 years, the duo produced chocolate under the company name Hannon’s Best Chocolate. Hannon went on a cacao-gathering trip to the West Indies in 1779, and never returned. Baker changed the company name to Baker Chocolate Company.

Charles Alfred Pillsbury founded C.A. Pillsbury and Company along with his uncle, John Pillsbury, in Minneapolis in 1872. Pillsbury was the second company in the United States to use steel rollers for grain processing. The Doughboy didn’t come around until 1965.

Carnation Milk eating

Carnation is now a brand of food products, but Elbridge Amos Stuart began as a dairy farmer in 1908. In addition to selective breeding, Carnation Farms aimed to increase milk production through keeping their cows happy and stress-free. The brand was especially known for its evaporated milk product created in 1899, first called Carnation Sterilized Cream and later called Carnation Evaporated Milk.

In 1912, a group of California raisin growers created the California Associated Raisin Company, which became Sun-Maid Growers of California. So, while not as old as some, Sun-Maid Raisins have still been around longer than today’s consumers. 

Sauces

Even if the other ingredients change, the flavors of what you’re eating may not be very different from what your great-grandparents ate.

When Edmund McIlhenny and his wife Mary Eliza first settled Avery Island, Louisiana, in 1859, they made a mint harvesting salt and selling it to the Confederates. The Union Army ransacked his entire operation. When McIlhenny inspected his land after the war was over, he noticed something growing: a spicy pepper native to the Mexican state of Tabasco.  McIlhenny planted tabasco peppers all over the island, and started selling his Tabasco Hot Sauce, made with those peppers and Avery Island salt, in 1868.

The story of Heinz Ketchup began in 1876 when it was first marketed as “catsup” by Henry J. Heinz. In the Unites States, many assume ketchup is always tomato-based, but that is an American invention. Around the world, people have made ketchups with all sorts of main ingredients, for example, mushrooms or bananas.

Drinks

In addition to eating like your ancestors, there is a very good chance you’re drinking like them!

Johannes “Reginald” Beam, a Kentucky farmer, began producing whiskey in the style that would eventually become known as bourbon, and sold his first barrel of corn whiskey, which he called Old Jake Beam Sour Mash, in 1795.  Today this is Jim Beam Bourbon, of course.

On May 8, 1886, Dr. John Pemberton poured the world’s first glass of Coca-Cola at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta, Ga. He served about nine drinks. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it didn’t catch on immediately. The first recipe for Coke contained both wine and cocaine, and was marketed toward upper class intellectuals.

Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist in New Bern, North Carolina, invented a concoction that he originally called Brad’s Drink in 1893. He changed the name in 1898 to Pepsi-Cola, to advertise that his drink got its flavoring from kola nuts and could treat dyspepsia. Though the original recipe did not have any pepsin, it did contain vanilla and sugar, which Bradham claimed would aid in digestion and boost energy.

Yuengling Beer is a product of D. G. Yuengling & Son, established in 1829, is the oldest operating brewing company in the United States. In 2018, by volume of sales, it was the largest craft brewery, sixth largest overall brewery, and largest wholly American-owned brewery in the United States. Its headquarters are in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

Thomas Lipton opened a small grocery shop in 1871 in Glasgow, Scotland. While traveling to source new stock for his store, he purchased tea gardens in modern-day Sri Lanka in 1890. He was able to control the entire supply chain, selling Lipton Tea in packets with the slogan “Direct from the tea gardens to the teapot.”

Snacks

Between meals, there’s a good chance you’re eating the same snacks as your great-grandparents. Though the recipes have no doubt changed, you may be reaching for the same brands and labels.

Encyclopedia Britannica

According to a taste test by Bon Appetit, the best potato chips today are Lay’s Classic.

The Rueckheim Brothers of Chicago, Il. trademarked the Cracker Jack label in 1896. However, coated popcorn and peanut mixtures had been around since at least the late 1850s and people were described eating them in articles dating from about 1857 to the 1880s. The contribution of the Rueckheim Brothers was largely to make the product less messy to eat by means of a carefully guarded process of processing. Circa 1899, Henry Eckstein joined Frederick Rueckheim & Bro, adding the packaging that would be familiar to anyone who bought Cracker Jacks well into the 1960s and beyond.

Not so old, but the Hershey Company is one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. The name of the company has changed over time: Hershey Chocolate Co. (1894–1927), Hershey Chocolate Corporation (1927–68), Hershey Foods Corporation (1968–2005). Whatever the name, Hershey chocolates are classic.

Tootsie Rolls are a chocolate caramel candy that has been manufactured in the United States since 1907. It was the first penny candy to be individually wrapped in America. According to the company, they make over 65 million Tootsie Rolls daily.

Bottom Line: If the original product is good, subsequent iterations can go on indefinitely.

Consider Coffee

Consider Coffee
In the U.S. 83% of adults drink coffee, and 64% drink coffee daily. In a study published in the Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, it was found that 17 percent of Americans drink more than five cups of coffee a day. So? Chances are most if not all of your characters drink coffee. But it turns out, drinking coffee isn’t always the same—e.g., you can order coffee 25,000 different ways at Dunkin’ Donuts. Here are the high points of what coffee choices say about your character’s personality, from a study by clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula.
 
coffee beans
Drink Personality Traits The Light Side The Dark Side
Black coffee
  •  Old school
  •  Purist
  • Keep things simple
  • Patient
  • Efficient
  • Can be quiet and moody
  • Abrupt and dismissive
  • Sort of set in their ways
  • Resistant to making changes
Latte drinkers (folks who add milk/cream and sugar)
  • Comfort seekers
  • People pleasers
  • Open book
  • Like to soften the bitterness of life (like they soften the bitterness of coffee)
  • Generous with time
  • Will go out of their way to help others
  • Can get over-extended
  • Don’t always take great care of themselves
Frozen/ blended coffee drinks
  • Try lots of new things
  • Socially bold
  • Trendsetters
  • Childlike
  • Spontaneous
  • Imaginative
  • Fall for quick fixes
  • Don’t always make healthy choices
  • Can be reckless
Decaf/soy milk/ Very specifically ordered coffee
  • Like being in control
  • May be labeled selfish
  • Obsessive
  • Perfectionist
  • Very aware of their health and bodies
  • Monitor their health
  • Tend to make healthy choices
  • Overfocus on rules, control, and order
  • Overly sensitive
  • Tend to be worriers
Instant coffee
  • Traditional in some ways
  • Laid back
  • Procrastinate
  • Take life as it comes
  • Don’t get too lost in details
  • Too laid back
  • Put things off and may neglect basic health issues
  • Poor planners
Bear in mind that these are group data and may not apply to every individual. But if you are trying to create an image, know when you are going with the majority and when you are working against it.

 

coffee
 
A study published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 2014 found that heavy coffee drinkers were more likely to exhibit traits of alexithymia — aka, difficulty identifying and describing their emotions. What’s more, those who drank a lot of coffee were also more likely to have anxiety and be more sensitive to the negative consequences of getting in trouble. It’s important to note that this study used self-reporting methods and only included 106 participants.

 

Consider Coffee
Other research indicates that the only negative personality trait associated with excessive coffee drinking came after 10 cups. People who drink more than 10 cups of coffee a day are more likely than the general population to have a personality disorder. On the upside, the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Health Publishing reported that there are myriad health benefits to drinking a moderately large amount of coffee (say three to four cups per day: longer life expectancy, protecting against Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease, including liver cancer. Coffee also appears to improve cognitive function and decrease the risk of depression. For migraine sufferers, it can also help ward off a crippling migraine.
coffee beans

A Few Fun Facts that May or May Not Contribute to Your Story Line

Only two U.S. states produce coffee: Hawaii (Kona coffee), and more recently, California. Most of the world’s coffee comes from Brazil.

 

Coffee beans are technically seeds, the pits of the cherry-like berries found on the flowering shrubs. Coffee was originally chewed, and the cherries can be eaten as a food. The cherries can also be fermented to make a wine-type drink.

 

You can overdose on coffee. According to VOX, drinking about 30 cups of coffee in a very short time would be a lethal or near-lethal amount of caffeine. A video from AsapSCIENCE asserts that it would take 70 cups of coffee to kill a person weighing roughly 150 pounds.

 

Decaf doesn’t mean caffeine-free. Eight ounces of brewed decaf contains 2 to 12 milligrams of caffeine, compared to regular coffee which contains 95-200 milligrams. (A cup of cola has 23-35 milligrams of caffeine.)

 

instant coffee
Although coffee consumption has been around since about 800 A.D., there were periods when various movements to ban coffee were prominent, especially from 1500 through the 1700s, so be aware if you write historical fiction. Also, FYI, instant coffee has been around for nearly 250 years.
 
One cup of black coffee has only one calorie.

 

Coffee grounds can be used as an exfoliant, to make skin feel smoother and look brighter.

 

There’s a Starbucks at CIA.

 

We spend, on average, $1,110 per person per year on coffee.

 

Consider Coffee