Tuesday Tidbits: THANK YOU, ELMER DOOLIN!!!

Charles Elmer Doolin (1903-1959) worked in his father’s car repair garage/tire shop as well as the family’s Highland Park Confectionary in San Antonio, Texas. Not content to continue with only sugary treats, he was eager to add a salty snack to the line-up of sweets. He found that tortilla chips staled too quickly and wanted something salted with crunch-staying power.

 

Keeping his eyes open, he spotted Gustavo Olguin’s ad in the San Antonio Express. Homesick Olguin needed money to return to Mexico, so he offered his original fried corn chip recipe for sale along with a modified potato ricer and nineteen retail accounts, all for the bargain price of $100. With one taste, Doolin knew he had found what he was looking for. However, this was 1932 with the Great Depression in full swing. As with most people, that was more money than Doolin had. Even so, he believed in the tasty chips and his mother believed in him, so she pawned her wedding ring to raise the funds.

 

Elmer started manufacturing Fritos with the help of his mother, father, and brother in his mother’s kitchen. They created the Frito Corporation to keep this separate from the other businesses, and sales began out of their garage. They produced roughly ten pounds of chips a day, grossing $8-$10 a day, and after expenses, a net profit of $2 a day. By the next year, sales—and profits—had increased tenfold. Not bad during the Great Depression.

 

Quickly outgrowing the garage arrangement, they purchased the house next door to expand the operation. In 1933-34, they opened plants in Dallas and Tulsa.

The Texas Centennial Exposition displayed Fritos in 1936. By 1947, the company had expanded with plants in Los Angeles and Denver and had franchises across the country. H. W. Lay and Company had an exclusive franchise license to make and sell Fritos all across the Southeastern United States. The Frito Company expanded their line-up by creating other snacks, including Cheetos in 1948.

 

Doolin developed his own hybrid corn and contracted Texas farmers to exclusively grow his special variety. His corn was his secret ingredient.

 

By 1955, the Frito Corporation owned over fifty manufacturing plants and was one of the early Disneyland investors. They had a Casa de Frito Restaurant in Disneyland a month after the park opened.

Inside this Disneyland restaurant stood a large, animatronic Frito the Kid mascot vending machine. Put in a nickel, and Frito the Kid, surrounded by mountains, would come to life, moving his eyes and tongue from side to side. He would call to his partner inside the “Frito mine” mountain, and a bag of delicious, crunchy chips slid down the chute to the customer. This feature remained in Disneyland for ten years. Several other mascots followed from 1967 on, including the Frito Bandito, the Muncha Bunch Gang, and W.C. Fritos.

 

The Frito Company merged with H. W. Lay and Company to form Frito-Lay in 1961, and then Pepsi-Cola Company merged with them in 1965 to become PepsiCo.

A popular recipe using Fritos is Frito Pie, which has apparently been around since almost the beginning. However, this Northwestern gal had never heard of it until my critique partner mentioned it a year ago. Frito pie (a.k.a. a walking taco or Frito boat) consists of three basic ingredients, Fritos, chili, and cheese. Then one can add additional ingredients to taste, like onions, jalapeños, sour cream, tomatoes, or whatever else one fancies. Historically, it was served right from the Fritos bag. Open it up and spoon in the desired ingredients. Though I hadn’t heard this term before, I do love to scoop up my turkey chili with Fritos—a variation on the Frito Pie.

I found conflicting accounts of who created the Frito Pie recipe. Some credited it to Doolin’s wife, Katherine. Other sources say Doolin’s mother, Daisy, came up with it, or Mary Livingston, Doolin’s executive secretary, or Nell Morris who helped develop the official Frito-Lay’s cookbook. Whoever dreamed it up, Frito Pie and various other recipes were printed on the back of the bags, though none were as long lasting as Frito Pie.

Interestingly, Doolin, being highly health conscience by avoiding meat and salt, didn’t consume his own product. On the rare occasion he did fancy to munch a bunch, he took them right off the factory conveyor belt before they were salted.

 

The original Frito’s ingredients were corn, corn oil, and salt. Thankfully, the recipe hasn’t changed. I love Fritos! They are a perfect balance of oil and salt. Mmm, mmm good!!!

 

Here’s a fun vintage commercial with Frito the Kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdmrYwW_36E

THE QUILTING CIRCLE SERIES Box Set

Historical Romance Series

By Mary Davis

THE WIDOW’S PLIGHT (Book1) – Will a secret clouding a single mother’s past cost Lily her loved ones?

THE DAUGHTER’S PREDICAMENT (Book2) *SELAH & WRMA Finalist* – As Isabelle’s romance prospects turn in her favor, a family scandal derails her dreams.

THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Book3) *SELAH Winner* – Nicole heads down the mountain to fetch herself a husband. Can she learn to be enough of a lady to snag the handsome rancher?

THE DÉBUTANTE’S SECRET (Book4) – Complications arise when a fancy French lady steps off the train and into Deputy Montana’s arms.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNZPRRS2/ref=sr_1_7?crid=3NJNTQ5SD1WGB&keywords=the+quilting+circle+by+mary+davis&qid=1700957455&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C155&sr=1-7

 

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a SELAH Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT, THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection, Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at: Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub
 

SOURCES

https://www.npr.org/2007/10/18/15377830/the-birth-of-the-frito

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritos

https://texashillcountry.com/fritos-corn-chips-history/

https://www.snackhistory.com/fritos/

https://atomicredhead.com/2019/08/28/the-forgotten-frito-kid-of-frontierland/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frito_pie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdmrYwW_36E

Tuesday Tidbits: I’LL TAKE MY MARGARINE PINK!

The War on Margarine

As I was researching my topic for my February post, CRISCO, I looked into the fascinating history of margarine. It is older than I realized.

When making a shopping list, my mom would write down oleo. “Huh? What’s that, Mom?” “Margarine.” Why didn’t she just write margarine? I suppose it was shorter, and it was her list, and she knew what it meant. But I digress.

Back in the 1860’s—yes, margarine dates back that far—France had a butter shortage. Emperor Napoleon III offered a prize for the creation of a substitute for butter. He wanted something cheaper for his soldiers and the poor.

French scientist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès took up the challenge and experimented with animal fats. This came on the heels of his success with making bread ingredients yield 14% more. In 1869, he received a patent in France for his oleomargarine making process, which combined beef tallow and skimmed milk. Patents from several other countries followed that same year and years after. His creation was called oleomargarine: “oleo” from the Latin “oleum” (olive oil) and the Greek “margarite” (pearl-indicating luster). So that’s where my mom got oleo from.

I’m not going to get into the science of how it was made, the variations of ingredients from beef to vegetable oil, hydrogenation, and such. Just know there was a lot of science-y stuff in the making and reformulating of it. More interesting is the trouble margarine caused.

Oleomargarine, which was shortened to margarine, became popular in Europe. It didn’t take long for it to spread to the United States where dairy farmers felt their livelihood threatened. Various attempts to crush the spread of margarine ranged from heavy taxes to outright bans to strange colors and absolute lies.

Margarine producers popped up all across the country. Everyone wanted in on this new profitable market. With the invasion of margarine, the dairy industry declared war on the new competition. The battle was fought in the local courts, federal legislation, and on the streets, where margarine was deemed an unhealthy fraud, trying to pass itself off as butter.

Wild accusations claimed that it threatened family farms, the American way of life, and the moral order. Political cartoonists even went so far as to depict margarine factories putting everything from paint and arsenic to soap, rubber boots, and stray cats into the mix. Drummed up scientific reports hinted that margarine might cause cancer and insanity. Some compared it to the witches’ brew in Macbeth.

This led to the 1886 Margarine Act that imposed strict tariffs and fees on margarine producers. The first of many anti-margarine laws, but they didn’t all stick. However, the damage to the burgeoning margarine market had been done. Some states, including Michigan, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and, of course, Wisconsin, put outright bans on margarine.

New Hampshire and other states had mandates, for a while, that margarine must be tinted pink. These were called the “pink laws”. Violators selling non-pink margarine could be fined $100 or sixty days in jail. The whole idea of pink margarine was to make it unsalable, and they were right. However, the Supreme Court struck down that law in 1898, stating that margarine wasn’t naturally pink. Other “tasty” shades of margarine were red and brown.

No state fought harder against margarine than Minnesota, creating law after law to make it nearly impossible to sell it in their state—a dairy state. However, most of their laws got shot down in court as unconstitutional.

The dairy industry managed to get a law passed where margarine—which is naturally white-ish—could not be colored yellow in an attempt to fool consumers. To get around this, margarine producers packaged it in plastic bags with a tab that could be broken to release yellow dye. Then the bag would have to be kneaded for about twenty minutes to mix in the food coloring to make the margarine yellow.

Both World Wars helped increase margarine sales when butter was too expensive and scarce. The health benefits of margarine over butter went up and down. One minute it was superior to butter, and the next it was detrimental to one’s health.

Until the 1950s and 60s, some states still had laws on the books pertaining to the color of margarine. Minnesota didn’t relinquish their laws on yellow margarine until 1963 but still taxed margarine, along with North Dakota, until 1975.

I never realized there was so much angst over margarine.

Have you ever heard of pink margarine or remember mixing yellow dye into a pouch of margarine?

THE QUILTING CIRCLE SERIES Box Set

Historical Romance Series

By Mary Davis

THE WIDOW’S PLIGHT (Book1) – Will a secret clouding a single mother’s past cost Lily her loved ones?

THE DAUGHTER’S PREDICAMENT (Book2) *SELAH & WRMA Finalist* – As Isabelle’s romance prospects turn in her favor, a family scandal derails her dreams.

THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Book3) *SELAH Winner* – Nicole heads down the mountain to fetch herself a husband. Can she learn to be enough of a lady to snag the handsome rancher?

THE DÉBUTANTE’S SECRET (Book4) – Complications arise when a fancy French lady steps off the train and into Deputy Montana’s arms.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNZPRRS2/ref=sr_1_7?crid=3NJNTQ5SD1WGB&keywords=the+quilting+circle+by+mary+davis&qid=1700957455&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C155&sr=1-7

 

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a SELAH Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT, THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection, Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at: Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub

SOURCES:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2021/08/30/dont-spread-it-around-the-strange-story-of-pink-margarine/
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/i-cant-believe-its-pink-margarine/
https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/15032395622
https://www.mnopedia.org/minnesota-s-margarine-battles-1885-1975
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1870s-dairy-lobby-turned-margarine-pink-so-people-would-buy-butter-180963328/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_M%C3%A8ge-Mouri%C3%A8s

Tuesday Tidbits: AMELIA EARHART: A DIFFERENT KIND OF RUNWAY

    The name Amelia Earhart conjures up images of a daredevil aviatrix, and we ponder what happened to her when her plane disappeared. But there is more to her story than flying and tragedy. As tomorrow, July 24^th, is her birthday, I thought it fitting to give her some attention. However, I didn’t want to do the same ol’ same ol’.

Did you know she was a fashion designer for a short stint? A very short stint.

Yep, in 1933, she developed clothing for an active lifestyle. She planned to use her line to help finance her aviation endeavors. It wasn’t as big of a leap from flying to fashion as one might think. She was no stranger to sewing. Before this foray into the rag trade, she had stitched some of her own clothes as a teenager. Because flight suits were designed for men and didn’t fit her well, she had also crafted a practical flying suit to better fit the female form in 1929.

It is thought that the idea of her own clothing line was prompted by her husband, George Putnam, publicist and publisher. The couple had attended a fashion show in February of 1933. Earhart talked to the designer about functional “active living” clothing.

Nowadays, numerous famous people have clothing lines, but Earhart may have been the first one to attempt a celebrity fashion brand. Like so many things in her life, she was the first.

 

She ended up not working with the designer she originally talked with. Instead, with a sewing machine and one seamstress, she created a line in her living room apartment. Her fashions launched late in 1933, and a flurry of publicity ensued early in 1934.

Her line didn’t consist of full outfits purchased as one (as was usual of the day) but of separates: dresses, skirts, tops, trousers, outerwear, and more. Not only could a woman choose a different sized top and bottom to fit her figure, these individual pieces could be combined into twenty-five different ensembles. This made her the first to popularize this idea of separates in clothing. Earhart’s blouses had longer tails than were typical of the day so they would stay tucked in.

 

She, also, chose some unconventional fabrics like parachute silk and textiles used for airplane wings. In keeping with her aviation inspired line, she had propeller shaped buttons on some of her flying themed garments.

 

Her clothing line debuted in 30 department stores across the country. For women who couldn’t afford the ready-made garments, her patterns were sold through Women’s Home Companion magazine. Though her designs were moderately priced, they, unfortunately, didn’t fly off the racks, due in a large part to the Great Depression and were pulled from the shelves soon after takeoff.

 

Surprisingly, with all these mix and match separates, there was no bomber jacket in the line. Oversight? Or intentional?

From tarmac runway to fashion runway, Amelia Earhart seems to have done it all.

If she hadn’t perished on that fateful flight around the world in 1937, what else would she have accomplished?

 

MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR (Heroines of WWII series)
2023 SELAH Award 3rd Place in Historical Romance

A WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) flies a secret mission to rescue three soldiers held captive in Cuba.

Margaret “Peggy” Witherspoon is a thirty-four-year-old widow, mother of two daughters, an excellent pilot, and very patriotic. She joins the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). As she performs various tasks like ferry aircraft, transporting cargo, and being an airplane mechanic, she meets and develops feelings for her supervisor Army Air Corp Major Howie Berg. When Peggy learns of U.S. soldiers being held captive in Cuba, she, Major Berg, and two fellow WASPs devise an unsanctioned mission to rescue them. With Cuba being an ally in the war, they must be careful not to ignite an international incident. Order HERE!

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET

(Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.
Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:


Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub

Sources:

~Who Knew?: Women in History by Sarah Herman

~https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/653137/amelia-earhart-designed-clothing-line

~https://www.thehenryford.org/explore/blog/amelia-earhart/

~https://www.history.com/news/amelia-earharts-other-runway-the-aviators-forgotten-fashion-line

Tuesday Tidbits: CRISCO-A New Era in Lard

Lard? Or shortening?
 

What’s the difference?
 

A whole lot and not much.
 

To understand Crisco, I needed to understand what lard was. I heard this term growing up but never quite knew the exact definition. All I knew was it was shortening but not shortening. I honestly didn’t care enough to look it up as a child. What child would?
 

Anyway, lard was made from animal fat, generally pork. Families could make this themselves on their farms and was the popular cooking product for decades. By the late 19th century after the fall pig slaughter, meat processing companies began making lard on an industrial scale.

People didn’t seem to mind that everything they cooked with it—even cakes and pies—had a hint of a pork taste. I guess if that was what you were used to, you wouldn’t know the difference. Pork cookies, anyone?
 

The robust cotton industry produced piles and heaps and mountains of useless cottonseeds. Most rotted in those mounds. Because these seeds were highly abundant and way cheaper than animal fat lard, cottonseed oil was create. However, the early attempts to mill them made an oil that was both smelly and a dark color, and oh so unappealing.
 

Enter David Wesson who pioneered bleaching and deodorizing techniques in the industry in the late 19th century, which caused cottonseed oil to be both clear and neutralized the stench. Companies began selling this new cottonseed oil by itself or mixed with animal fat to create shortening, which they then sold in pails to resemble lard. Because lard was what people were used to, hence they would know how to use it.

Crisco was a different kind of fat. Instead of mixing an animal fat with liquid oil to make it solid, Crisco was the first solid shortening made entirely from plant oil, using a process called hydrogenation. A French chemist Paul Sabatier first developed the hydrogenation process, which others, including Proctor & Gamble, advanced further. This came to be known as “the Crisco process”.

Cottonseed oil had a bad rap because people associated it with clothing, soap, dyes, roofing tar, and explosives, but not food. With that list of atrocious uses, I don’t know that I would want to cook with it. Exploding food doesn’t sound appealing.
 

So in 1911 when Crisco launched, Proctor and Gamble went a different route than other companies who highlighted that their product came from cottonseeds. P&G chose to avoid mentioning the main—and only—ingredient to focus on trusting a reliable brand and not worrying about what was in it. No laws at the time prevented this lack of disclosure.
 

This marketing ploy worked wonders for them and was so successful that other companies followed suit. In the first five years, sales skyrocketed, selling sixty million cans annually in the U. S. That’s three cans a year per family.

Unlike lard, butter, and olive oil, Crisco had a neutral taste, could last for years on the shelf, and had a high smoke temperature for frying. The perfect fat. (If there is such a thing.) To help sales even more, P&G gave away cookbooks that called for Crisco in every recipe.

To stay away from any connection to cottonseeds, the phrase “crystallized cottonseed oil” was modified into Crisco. So, we went from lard made from animal fat, to a lard/vegetable oil mixture, to Crisco—an all-vegetable solid shortening.
 

Back to my original question—what’s the difference between lard and shortening?
 

Pork flavored desserts!

 

UNPUZZLING THE PAST

1990s Cozy Mystery

Written by Mary L. Chase, Edited By Mary Davis

When secrets and lies are uncovered, will Mar be able to put the pieces together to learn the truth? A year after her mom’s death, Margaret “Mar” Ross discovers the proverbial skeleton in the closet. Most families have a secret or two. Some are best left in the dark. Others need to be brought into the light of day to heal old wounds. With the help of her best friend, a lawyer, and a handsome doctor, Mar is determined to hunt down all the facts. When she does, will she find what she’s searching for? Or should she let this puzzle R.I.P.?

https://books2read.com/u/bpkj6l

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR, THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Quilting Circle 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in Colorado with her new Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

 Books2Read  Newsletter  Blog   FB  FB Readers Group   Amazon   GoodReads   BookBub

 Sources

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-crisco-made-americans-believers-industrial-food-180973845/
https://www.livescience.com/history-of-crisco.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco
https://crisco.com/our-heritage/