history - cooking: evolution of cookery part 6

(history of cooking continued)

20th Century

1900

Escoffier and Cesar opened the Carlton in London which served five hundred covers at service with a kitchen brigade of sixty.
The standard can for processed food was first used in the early 1900s.

1901

The famous team of Cesar Ritz and Escoffier broke up when Cesar had a nervous breakdown.

1903

The first Goncourt Prize was awarded at the Champeaux Restaurant, on the Place de la Bourse, Paris.
The ice cream cone is said to have been invented/created/patented in this year by Italo Marcioni of New York. However other contenders to this creation are also said to be:

• Paradise Ice Cream Co., New York City - 1897.
• Max Goldberg, Illinois Baking Company. Chicago, Illinois - 1903.
• David Avayou. Atlantic City, New Jersey or Ernest A. Hamwi. Damacus, Syria. at the World's Fair in St. Louis - 1904
• Abe Doumar. an Holyland souvenir vendor at World's Fair who said he gave the idea to the waffle vendor - 1904
  
• Charles E Menches of Akron, Ohio during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis, Missouri - 1904

The story goes that someone was selling waffles when the stall next to them which was selling ice cream, ran out of containers. A fresh waffle was wrapped into a cone and the ice cream placed inside?

1904

The teabag was invented in America.
Iced tea was created at the World's Fair in St Louis.

1906

Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle leads to the US Pure Foods and Drugs Act.

1907

Until the early 1900s most city hotels in the United States were either luxurious and expensive, or inexpensive and uncomfortable. Ellsworth Statler, however, established a chain of middle-class hotels that set new standards for comfort and cleanliness at moderate prices. His first important hotel, the Buffalo Statler (1907), offered "a room and a bath at a dollar and a half." Convinced that private rooms with baths would give him a vital competitive edge, Statler designed a plumbing shaft that permitted bathrooms to be built back to back, providing two baths for little more than the price of one and allowing him to offer many private rooms with adjoining private baths. Statler was the first to put telephones and radios in every guest room, as well as full-length mirrors, built-in closets, and a special faucet for ice water. Restaurant recipes were standardised, and identical silver, china, and linens were purchased in quantity for use in all the system's hotels. Eventually, Statler hotels were opened in many major cities in the United States, and Statler's success inspired the formation of other hotel chains. The Statler chain was bought by the late hotel mogul Conrad Hilton in 1954. Hilton's chain is now among the world's largest. The world's largest lodging systems are the Memphis-based Holiday Inns, Inc., and Best Western, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
Gastronomie Pratique published by Henri Babinsky (born Paris 1855, died 1931).

1912

Clarence Birdseye; an American physicist, introduced a new commercial process for freezing foods.

1913

Harry MacElhone takes over as owner of Harry's Bar in Paris, famous for his cocktail creations: Bloody Mary (1921) and the Sidecar (1931). It was his son, Andrew who later created the Blue Lagoon cocktail in 1972.

1914

The electric range was introduced.

1916

The first store designed as a self-service, departmentalised food market was opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders. From it grew the first supermarket chain, Piggly Wiggly, precursor of the giant A&P, Safeway and Kroger organisations.

1918

Cesar Ritz died.

1919

August Escoffier retires aged 73 from the Carlton in London
Conrad Hilton bought his first hotel, the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas.

1920

Escoffier was awarded the Legion d'Honneur.
The beginnings of cellophane manufacture in the 1920s opened the era of transparent wrappings.
After World War I, particularly in the 1920s, the domestic refrigerator began to displace the icebox.

1925

Caviar introduced to France at the Universal Exhibition.

1926

French Chef Paul Bocuse born in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or.

1929

Demolition of The Famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York, commenced; to make way for the equally famous Empire State Building. (See 1897)

1930

Abundance of Brazilian coffee beans sees thousands of tonnes of beans tipped into the ocean or burned.
The first instant coffee introduced.

1931

Joy of Cooking published, a cookbook that ranks with Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook (1896) in its impact on the American diet, Joy of Cooking has clarified American cooking techniques and considerably enlarged the American cuisine. Written in 1931 by Irma Starkloff Rombauer and her daughter Marion Rombauer Becker (who also provided the original illustrations), the work - now in its 13th edition - is an encyclopaedic compendium of classic American and European recipes, lucid explanations of culinary techniques, and detailed discussions of every important aspect of food preparation. A perpetual best seller, the book to date has sold about 8,000,000 copies

1935

Georges Auguste Escoffier, died February 12, 1935.
Insitut National des Appellations d'Origin created in France to control the production, quality of wine. It is made up of wine professionals and representatives of other interested/concerned bodies.

1938

Nestlé introduce their Nescafé brand of instant coffee.
Prosper Montagne publishes the "Larouse Gastronomique".

1940

Major advancements in food technology and preservation, born out of the need to get fresh foods to the troops during the Second world war.

1945

Films made of polyethylene, polyester, and other plastics came into use after World War II. Plastic bottles and aerosols were first introduced.

1948

Conrad Hilton formed the Hilton International Company.
Aaron Lapin invents whipped cream in a can (USA).

1950s

French Chef Raymond Oliver is recognised as the first Chef to use the media of television for cooking demonstrations.

1952

Colonel Harland Sanders, passing through Salt Lake City, persuaded Leon "Pete" Harman to let him serve a chicken dinner at Harman's Utah Fried Chicken restaurant. Harman then invented the now iconic paper bucket and in August 1952 he filled them with 14 pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes, rolls and gravy and charged $3.50.

Sanders was one of the first people to actually cook chicken in a pressure cooker. Sanders perfected his technique in the late 1930s and sold his food to patrons of his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. The Colonel died in 1980 at the age of 90.

1954

The Statler chain was bought by the late hotel mogul, Conrad Hilton, in 1954.
Cheese and onion crisp flavouring was invented by shopkeeper Henry Walker in 1954 and has proved to be an enduring culinary combination.

1955

April 15: Ray Kroc opens the first of the McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, USA after buying the rights to the name from a hamburger stand's owners in San Bernadino, California. The burger was 15 cents and the fries 5 cents.

1970

Norman Borlaug wins the Nobel Peace Prize for breeding miracle wheat strains.

1980

Restaurateurs in Marseille, Provence sign a charter designed to protect how bouillabaisse is made. All who sign the charter agree to only prepare the famous regional dish only from certain ingredients and to a certain method. Leeway is given for individual flare.

Colonel Harland Sanders of KFC fame dies at the age 90 (see 1952 & 2004 also)

2004

Tuesday 20 April: The very first KFC (opened in 1952) closes and is demolished to make way for a KFC museum to tell how buckets of crispy fried chicken came to be sold at nearly 12,000 restaurants around the globe, generating annual sales of around $10 billion

Because of the Salt Lake establishment's special status in fried-chicken history, it remains a franchise of Harman's KFC. All the others are clients of Yum! Brands Inc, whose portfolio also includes Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

The original owner: Pete Harman, now 85 and living in Los Altos, is expected at the grand opening of the new Salt Lake City restaurant. One thing that won't be at the museum is the recipe for the colonel's secret blend of eleven herbs and spices. That remains locked in a vault at KFC headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky (information obtained from a CNN story).

The information contained on all my historical web pages is supplied for your interest only and further research may be required. I have gathered it from many sources over many years. While I attempt to insure they are crossed referenced for accuracy, I take no responsibility for mistakes - additions or corrections are welcomed.

email chef@tallyrand.info