Friday Fact 5 Dec 2008 |
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Ditch the detox - it's Friday! Today's Friday Fact is a bumper edition dedicated to one of my favourite carbohydrate-based products... bread! From Wikipedia:
And on that note... did you know that the greatest thing before sliced bread was in fact wrapped bread? The Wiki article above goes on: Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved a success. Battle Creek, Michigan has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread presliced by Rohwedder's machine; historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim. The bread was advertised as, "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped." However, not everyone thinks that sliced bread is all that great. Did you know that sliced bread was banned in the US in 1943?
This ban was met with much dismay. One distraught housewife wrote to New York Times: "I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. My husband and four children are all in a rush during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread I must do the slicing for toast—two pieces for each one—that's ten. For their lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. Afterward I make my own toast. Twenty-two slices of bread to be cut in a hurry!"
The ban was fortunately lifted on March 8th, 1943. Disclaimer: all images belong to their respective copyright holders. |
Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1917 was destroyed in a fire, and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, which produced their first slices on July 7, 1928.
During 1943, U. S. officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure. The ban was ordered by Claude R. Wickard who held the position of Food Administrator, and took effect on January 18th, 1943. According to the New York Times, officials explained that "the ready-sliced loaf must have a heavier wrapping than an unsliced one if it is not to dry out." It was also intended to counteract a rise in the price of bread, caused by the Office of Price Administration's authorization of a ten per cent increase in flour prices.
