The 17 Real People Behind Your Favorite Food Brand Names Slideshow. There, he started selling bottles of his pasta sauce, and soon expanded the operation with a factory in Pennsylvania. And during those years, Boiardi also directed the catering for Woodrow Wilsons second wedding, to Edith Galt in 1915. Even though its now a household name, the people of still have very sentimental memories of Chef Boyardee. The History of the Hydrox, the Cookie the Oreo Once Aspired to Be, The Only Ranch Dressing I've Ever Needed Comes from a Steak House I've Never Eaten At, 6 Ways to Make Jarred Pasta Sauce Taste Homemade, What Happens If You Don't Pop Microwave Popcorn With 'This Side Up', The Surprising (and Speculative) History of Chili, Stanley Tucci Launched His First Recipe Kit for You to Make His Holiday Pasta, Real Or Not? Anne Boiardi would later say that her great-uncle was "proud of his own family name but sacrifices were necessary for progress. [5] Boiardi sold his products under the brand name "Chef Boy-Ar-Dee" because non-Italians could not manage the pronunciation,[6][7] including his own salesforce. As a result of the request, the name was changed to "Beef-a-reeno". From Duncan Hines to Chef Boyardee, here are 33 grocery store items named after real people. Unlike Chef Boyardee, the following brands feature fictitious people: Betty Crocker, Mrs. Butterworth, Aunt Jemima, and Ronald McDonald. With all that said, it's pretty clear that Chef Boyardee was the real deal. The company specialized in three flavors of sauces: traditional, mushroom, and spicy Naples-style. THE #FAMOUSGRAVE OF #CHEFBOYARDEE IN CHARDON #OHIO Born in 1897 in the northern Italian region of Piacenza, Boiardi supposedly used a wire whisk for a rattle and by age 11 was working as an. I didnt say much and handed the phone back to my friends dad who was shocked I wasnt impressed. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. Great story. Colonel Sanders was real. He made quite the impression amongst diners as Italian food wasnt quite as widespread as it is today. Wallace Amos was a entertainment talent agent who worked at the William Morris Agency. Thanks. He supervised the preparation of the homecoming meal served by Woodrow Wilson at the White House for 2,000 returning World War I soldiers. Ettore Hector Boiardi, born in 1897 in Italy, where he was working as an apprentice chef by age 11. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. According to the company, Uncle Ben was a real rice grower known for high-quality product in founder Gordon Harwells native Texas, and the brand was named for him as an homage. As he developed a strong customer base, he found himself in the enviable position of having customers clamber after his food so much, they wanted to take it home with them so they could have it any time. After a stint in prison for continuing to harass and pillage the Spanish after a peace treaty was signed, he was knighted and appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. Boiardi quickly rose through the ranks, earning a spot as the Plaza's head chef just a year later. Early life [ edit] Boiardi was born in Piacenza, Italy, in 1897, to Giuseppe and Maria Maffi Boiardi. | READ MORE. Dean was already a well-known country singer, actor, and TV personality when he and his brother Don founded the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company in 1969. What is Chef Boyardee? Terms of Use He later started a successful flooring and tile company. Chef Boyardee Was a Real Person Who Brought Italian Food to America By Matt Blitz Published on June 22, 2017 Photo: Dorann Weber / Getty Images Colonel Sanders was real. But after rising to the rank of head chef at the Plaza,he started to put food from his birth country on the menu. He thus began bottling up his sauces in old milk bottles and packaging his special blends of cheeses and spices with dried pasta and selling these meal kits to customers. Real. So why would a brand name itself after someone completely fictitious? When World War II erupted in Europe, the food company was put to work making Army rations. Newlyweds Chef Hector and Helen open the restaurant Il Giardino d'Italia, where his Italian cooking becomes the talk of the town. Juan Valdez of these company figureheads is not a real person.Thus, option B is correct.. What is a company? Not only that, patrons were asking to take home his sauce to use at their own family dinners. Unlike the friendly but fictional food faces of Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, Chef Boyardee that jovial, mustachioed Italian chef is real. Chef Boyardee was a very real, very successful chef. Based on that strength, Consolidated Foods adopted the name Sara Lee for the whole corporation. Don Callender opened a wholesale bakery to supply pies to restaurants in the late 1940s. [18], In 2015, a class-action lawsuit was brought against the Chef Boyardee company. From there, he worked at a variety of high end restaurants in New York as a cook, eventually working his way up to Chef. The Milton factory started operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 1942, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, Balto's DNA Provides a New Look at the Intrepid Sled Dog, The Science of California's 'Super Bloom,' Visible From Space, What We're Still Learning About Rosalind Franklins Unheralded Brilliance. After the war, the Boiardi family sold the companyaccording to a Boiardi descendant who spoke to NPR, selling to a larger company was the only way to keep all the the factory workers employed. Converted Rice Inc. supplied rice to the American military during World War II, and the owners wanted a new brand name and image when they started focusing on civilian consumers towards the end of the war. While business was going well, Boiardi encountered a minor issue: salesmen and customers couldn't really pronounce his name. Weird History Food said, Chefs significant contributions to Milton, Pennsylvania were never forgotten. Ettore Boiardi was an Italian Italian immigrant who came to the United States at the age of 16 and took the name "Hector Boiardi" while passing through Ellis Island. Clevelander Chef Boyardee (born Ettore Boiardi and known as Hector Boyardee after moving to the United States) found his rhythm right here in Ohio, a state he was not native to but that he effortlessly adopted the culture of. He did have to sell the company soon after the war, though, in order to make sure that all the extra hands hired for the war efforts could keep their jobs. But not all brands involving a person's name have origins that are so cut and dry. To woo potential clients, hed send them packages of his home-made cookies. They came in agreement to sell the company and factory to American Home Foods for nearly $6 million. In short, Chef Boyardee was a real person. I was at a friends house and his father was an actual good friend of the Chef. He later learned more restaurant skills as an immigrant in Paris and London. Boiardi used to grow his own tomatoes and mushrooms in the basement of the factory where his product line was produced. It started out when he was an apprentice at a restaurant in Italy when he was just 11 years old, prior to his departure for New York. Soon after, he was offered a job he couldn't turn down - to be head of the kitchen at Cleveland's famed and very popular Hotel Winton. [19] The lawsuit was dismissed in 2016.[20]. Chef Boyardee is still on store shelves, but the Smurfs version is a thing of the past. Chef Boiardi was awarded a Gold Star Order of Excellence from the United States War Department for supplying millions of rations for American and Allied troops during WWII. At the age of 11, he was working as an apprentice chef at local restaurant "La Croce Bianca", although his duties were confined to non-cooking odd jobs such as potato peeling and dealing with the trash. Later on, the company got sold to American Home Products in 1946, and then later it was turned over to the International Home Foods division in 1996. Chef Boyardee JUMBO Spaghetti & Meatballs Per 1 cup (255 g): 280 calories, 13 g fat (4.5 g saturated fat), 700 mg sodium, 29 g carbs (3 g fiber, 8 g sugar), 11 g protein Who knew that spaghetti and meatballs could come with 8 grams of sugar? Chef Boyardee is an American brand of canned pasta products sold internationally by Conagra Brands. At the time of his death in 1985, at the age of 87 years old, the Chef Boyardee line of food products was grossing over half a billion dollars per year. Ettore Boiardi was an Italian immigrant who worked as a chef in New York and West Virginia hotels (where he supposedly catered Woodrow Wilson's second wedding) before. [12] He had five grandchildren. Soon enough, patrons were asking if they could start making the recipes at home themselves. [4] The idea for Chef Boiardi came about when restaurant customers began asking Boiardi for his spaghetti sauce, which he began to distribute in milk bottles. Chef Boyardee products are available in cans or single-use microwavable cups. They spell the name phonetically to keep American tongues from twisting on the Italian pronunciation. In 1928, the Chef Boyardee Company was born. The Milton factory started operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 1942, according to the company website. When he did so, he took her to a grocery store at 1am, this followed: Wife: I thought he was going to tell me it was a no-go and that he thought the relationship was a mistake, so I said, Look, its been great. Aunt Jemima was later brought to life when the businesss new owner hired Nancy Green, a former slave, to portray the character in ads and at events. These names are probably all over your kitchenbut did they belong to real people? Gotta watch out for gold diggers (especially today) but I also think he was his own man and wanted to be known for himself and not the family business. In 2013, the town erected a statue honoring him at the entrance to the factory. He later came to the states through Ellis Island and became a well-known celebrity chef, working at various fancy hotels (and even catering Woodrow Wilsons wedding) before opening his own Italian restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1924. But despite all that cynicism, there's at least one food brand out there whose namesake was not only real, he was a pioneering figure who helped change how America understood Italian food. From there, he worked his way up the ranks and became the head chef. Ettore Boiardi (October 22, 1897 June 21, 1985), also known by the Anglicized name Hector Boyardee, was an Italian-American chef, famous for his eponymous brand of food products, named Chef Boyardee. Later, in 2000, ConAgra bought IHF, and they currently own the Chef Boyardee name. Boiardi appeared in many print advertisements and television commercials for his brand in the 1940s through the 1960s. Boiardi was born in Piacenza, Italy, in 1897, to Giuseppe and Maria Maffi Boiardi. Did all the can move on their own? Others, like Mr. Coffee, well, we don't think they were trying to fool anyone with that one. Fields began franchising in 1990 and then sold the business while staying on as the companys spokesperson. Cookie Settings. Chef Boyardee. Meet The Real Chef Behind The Chef Boyardee Brand. Boiardi met his future factory superintendent when he approached the then employee of Vincennes Packing Co with the idea of canning his sauces. In the episode "The Rye", Kramer is allowed to operate a Hansom cab for a week, and feeds the horse excess cans of Beefaroni, which causes frequent and foul smelling flatulence. Chef Boyardee pasta products contain no artificial ingredients, no artificial colors, and no preservativesjust the time-tested taste your family loves. Advertising Notice This will help you not spill any sauce as well as create little whirlpools in the sauce as the curve side down glides through the sauce; this provides optimal mixing. With his brother's help, he got a job in the kitchen at the Plaza. However, a version of . I actually talked with Chef Boyardee on the phone when I was 10 years old. Answer: While Juan Valdez might sound like the name of a Colombian coffee grower, however his name is completely fictitious. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine From Chef to "King of the Spaghetti Dinner", How to Know if Your 'Italian' Ingredients Are Actually Italian. ", SLEEPYTIME TEA AND THE LITTLE-KNOWN RELIGION BEHIND IT, THE NOT-SO-AMERICAN HISTORY OF CHEEZ WHIZ. Chef Hector plays a major role on the home front by making food for the troops. So, who was Chef Boyardee? There are plenty of brands out there that are named after real people, who once lived real lives and, in many cases, actually invented the product that's named after them. [6] American Home Foods turned its food division into International Home Foods in 1996. In other cases, they were created by advertising agencies to give a friendly face to a faceless company. By clicking submit you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. They also procured distribution across the United States through their grocery's wholesale partners. That would be one Ettore "Hector" Boiardi, a very real Italian-American chef. Hector Boiardi ran a popular Italian restaurant in Cleveland in the 1920s, and his recipes were so popular that people convinced him to mass-market them. Chef Boyardee Juan Valdez Colonel Sanders Duncan Hines. Turns out Chef Boyardee wasnt just a mascot for canned raviolihe was a real boy(ardee)! This article is about the canned pasta product line. Peppers Pepsin Bitters. According to the Dr Pepper Museum, there are dozens of stories that connect the name to real-life Doctor Peppers that Morrison might have known, but no conclusive links have been established. From the Chef Boyardee website: . His brother Paul worked there as maitre dhotel. Kat Eschner Whats more: Hector Boiardi was a respected chef who even helped cater Woodrow Wilsons second wedding. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. He stayed on as a consultant there until 1978. Pharmacist Charles Alderton developed the formula for Dr Pepper while working at W.B. There are now more than 650 Mrs. Fields stores in the U.S. Real. The wedding, which took place after a brief courtship, was held at Galts Washington, D.C. home. His food was very popular, and his customers were always asking to take home samples of his sauce. ", "Natural History of the Kitchen: Chef Boyardee", "Canned & Microwave Spaghetti | Chef Boyardee", "Mastercard Priceless | Experiences make life more meaningful", "Chef Boyardee Maker Hit With False Advertising Class Action", Hector Boiardi (Encyclopedia of Cleveland History), Gallery of classic graphic design featuring Chef Boyardee, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chef_Boyardee&oldid=1134715590, Companies based in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, Articles lacking reliable references from September 2020, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Spaghetti & Meatballs (can, microwavable cup), Mini Spaghetti Rings & Meatballs (can, microwavable cup), Cheese Ravioli In Meat Sauce (microwavable cup), Mini Beef Ravioli & Meatballs (can, microwaveable Cup), Mini Micro Beef Ravioli (microwaveable cup), Pasta With Chicken And Vegetables (microwave cup), Spaghetti In Tomato Sauce (microwave cup), Pasta In Butter Sauce (can, microwaveable cup), Rice With Chicken & Vegetables (microwavable cup), Mini ABC's & 123's With Meatballs (can, microwavable cup), Mini ABC's & 123's Without Meatballs (can), Justice League Pasta Shapes with Meatballs, Roller Coaster Pasta Shapes with Mini Meatballs, Sir Chomps-a-lot Bite-Sized Cheese Ravioli, The Smurfs Mini Pasta Shapes with Meatballs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pasta Shapes with Mini Meatballs, This page was last edited on 20 January 2023, at 05:35. Required fields are marked *. Before Tim and Nina Zagat, there was Duncan Hines, a traveling . Sara Lee didnt follow her father into the baking business, but instead has worked to encourage and support women working in science. After the war ended, Boiardi had to choose between selling the company or laying off everyone he had hired. The company was founded by Italian immigrant Ettore Boiardi in Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 1928. The brand's signature tomato sauce has always been sweet and sort of thin, . At this point in history, fine dining was synonymous with French food, according to NPR. As Boiardi himself later explained it, "everyone is proud of his own family name but sacrifices were necessary for progress.". Born in 1897 in Northern Italy, Boiardi was 11 when he landed a job apprenticing for a chef at a hotel in his hometown of Piacenza, per the Chef Boyardee website. Chef Boyardee Real. So he changed his last name's spelling to make it easier to pronounce, slapped it on a can, and boom, Chef Boyardee was born. I needed that information for ia project I am doing on Chef Boyardee. Their product labels stated that they contained no preservatives, yet they contained citric acid. If ever a man was fit for that title, it was Boiardi. by Audrey Engvalson BuzzFeed Staff 1. Joined by Paul and his other brother Mario from Italy, Hector launched the Chef Boiardi Food Company in 1928. Chef Boyardee was a real man, but he spelled his last name a little different from what you see on the cans of his pasta in sauce. The Chef Boyardee brand was created by a real Italian chef, Ettore Boiardi. So in order to make the fledgling business more palatable to American eaters, the company became Chef "Boy-Ar-Dee" to phoneticize the spelling. Their first product beyond simple sauce was prepackaged spaghetti dinners in clear cellophane covered containers that included a canister of grated parmesan cheese, a box of spaghetti and a large jar of spaghetti sauce. Once he arrived, he landed a job at the famous Plaza Hotel. When I see cans of Chef Boyardee Lasagna, I think of ads using Weird Al Yankovics Lasagna as background music. As a Change.org petition advocating for a Boiardi statue in Cleveland notes, the company also churned out cans to feed America's troops during World War II, earning Boiardi a gold star from the U.S. government. Boiardi was survived by his wife Helen Wroblewski Boiardi, who eventually died in 1995, and his son Mario Boiardi, who in turn died in 2007. Hector Boiardi remained on as a consultant and the face of canned pasta until 1978. At the time the statue went up, Chef Boyardee had provided jobs for more than 10,000 workers in the Milton area.. And, perhaps most importantly, who is Chef Boyardee? Ettore and his wife Helen opened up Il Giardino d'Italia in 1924, quickly attracting attention for the quality of their traditional cooking at a time when Italian cuisine was much less common than it is today. Behind the label is a whole impressive history, beginning with the origins of Ettore Boiardi, who became Hector Boyardee the chef we all know and love. You know his raviolis. At this time, Italian restaurants were just becoming immensely popular on the east and west coasts (thanks in large part to the influx of immigrants to these areas of the country) but it hadn't quite hit middle America yet. Afterward, Bioardi ended up moving to Cleveland, Ohio, where he opened up his very own restaurant. Hector Boyardee himself died a millionaire in 1985. The Gruesome Tale of the Laughing Death Epidemic, The Greatest Air Race of All Time Which Helped Give Us the Global Airline Industry, An Ode to Glorious Chips (And Who Invented Nachos), What Those Nasty White Chunks That Sometimes Come From Your Throat Are, The Difference Between a Fact and a Factoid, Marilyn Monroe was Not Even Close to a Size 12-16, A Japanese Soldier Who Continued Fighting WWII 29 Years After the Japanese Surrendered, Because He Didnt Know. And that is when they changed it to the phonetic spelling of their family name: Boy-Ar-Dee. Did you know that Chef Boyardee was a real person? Morrison & Co. Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas in 1885. I usually avoid commenting on all the grammar mistakes, but this one is really bad: in the first paragraph, He later immigrating to America at the age of 16 should be He later immigrated to America at the age of 16. He worked as a cook at his first restaurant at the tender age of 10 years old in Italy. That's thanks to Chef Boyardee adding high fructose corn syrup to their sauce. Ettore Boiardi was an Italian immigrant who worked as a chef in New York and West Virginia hotels (where he supposedly catered Woodrow Wilsons second wedding) before opening his own restaurant in Cleveland. Writes History.com: Il Giardino dItalia, The Garden of Italy in English, soon became one of Clevelands top eateries with customers regularly lining up to wait for tables and dine on Boiardis signature cooked-to-order spaghetti with its savoury sauce and tangy cheese. [3] Four years later, in 1928, Boiardi opened a factory and moved production to Milton, Pennsylvania, where he could grow his own tomatoes and mushrooms. The dish was so popular that patrons wanted to make it for themselves at home, so Boiardi began to assemble take-out meal kits that included dried pasta, cheese and cleaned milk bottles filled with marinara sauce along with instructions on how to cook, heat and assemble the meal. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. And in 1928, the Chef Boiardi Food Company was born, launched by Hector, Helen,and Hectors brothers Paul and Mario. In 1917, NPR writes, he moved to Cleveland, where in 1924 he opened a restaurant with his wife Helen Boiardi. With his brothers Mario and Paul, Chef Hector starts the Chef Boyardee Company. Boiardi continued developing new Italian food products for the American market until his death in 1985. However, there was one tiny detail to figure out. Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli: A Delicious And Convenient Meal. Soon, he moved up to the ranks of matre d', becoming one of the most well-known hosts in the city. Real. By the age of 22, Hector Boiardi was one of America's most famous chefs - essentially Bobby Flay meets James Beard if they had barely finished going through puberty when they became big names. During the Depression, Boiardis company grew by leaps and bounds due to the fact that his product was incredibly cheap compared to most other meals and was very tasty (one assumes more tasty than now back then when Boiardi was directly involved in the production and quality control). Real. Real. Few people are aware that Chef Boyardee, the iconic mustached man on the can of ravioli, was a real person with an amazing story. As Anna Boiardi writes in her book, "I think it is fair to say that those three men (the Boiardi brothers), with no formal education and very little money, can be credited with bringing Italian food to America.". He is buried at All Souls Cemetery in Chardon Township, Ohio. Betty Crocker, Uncle Ben, Orville Redenbacher, and Dr. Pepper are a few that come to mind. Had Chef Boyardee created the worlds first perpetual motion machine? [5] Touting the low cost of spaghetti products as a good choice to serve to the entire family, Boiardi introduced his product to the public in 1929. The take-out business got big enough that the family started thinking about selling their sauce on a larger scale.
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