Although we never had any of his products in our house, with the rare exception of some canned raviolis when we were very young and home from school, almost every other husehold in our neighborhood always had some of his products in their panrties - especially the Irish families who thought it was legit Italian food. Anyway, Ettore Boiardi was interested in cooking from a young age. By the time he was 11, he was peeling potatoes and taking out trash at a restaurant in his hometown of Piacenza, Italy. Then, at 16, he immigrated to the United States, arriving through Ellis Island in 1914. He started working in New York's culinary industry, and within a year, he was the head chef at the Plaza Hotel. In 1917, Boiardi moved to Cleveland, where he cooked at several other hotels before starting his own restaurant in 1924. His food was so popular that people lined up down the block to get a taste, and he decided to start selling take-out meal kits that included enough dry spaghetti, Parmesan cheese, and tomato sauce to feed a family of four for 60 cents.
These take-out kits proved so successful that Boiardi and his brothers decided to launch the brand Chef Boyardee, and soon, their products were in stores across the nation. In the 1930s, the company moved to Pennsylvania to be closer to tomato fields, and at one point, it was the largest importer of Parmesan cheese in the U.S. The business did particularly well during the Great Depression, as the canned meals were tasty but inexpensive.
And during World War II, Chef Boyardee helped provide field rations for soldiers. By the time Boiardi died in 1985, his company was worth $500 million, and it remains an iconic brand to this day.
The recent news has shown how valuable one of these can be.
No comments:
Post a Comment