There, he started selling bottles of his pasta sauce, and soon expanded the operation with a factory in Pennsylvania. Later, in 2000, ConAgra bought IHF, and they currently own the Chef Boyardee name. He and his wife would hand them out using old milk bottles. Today I found out Chef Boyardee was a real person. The wedding, which took place after a brief courtship, was held at Galts Washington, D.C. home. Introduction: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to learn about Chef Boyardee - a real person who helped greatly during WWII.Gena is a genealogist and author of the book "From the Family Kitchen." There are a number of food spokespeople that are familiar to most Americans. Not only that, patrons were asking to take home his sauce to use at their own family dinners. In some cases, the name simply sounds good. In 1938, production was moved to Milton, Pennsylvania, where they could grow enough tomatoes to serve the factory's needs,[5] which reached 20,000 tons of tomatoes per season at peak production; they also began growing their own mushrooms on location in the plant. 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. Required fields are marked *. Fictional. The Milton factory started operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 1942, according to the company website. At the age of 24, he moved to Cleveland and opened a restaurant with his wife. With his brother's help, he got a job in the kitchen at the Plaza. 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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 . He later started a successful flooring and tile company. Today, Chef Boyardee sells a variety of classic pasta dishes in both cans and those little microwavable cupsSpaghetti & Meatballs, Beefaroni, Lasagna, and, of course, both meat and cheese ravioli. Cookie Policy Unlike Chef Boyardee, the following brands feature fictitious people: Betty Crocker, Mrs. Butterworth, Aunt Jemima, and Ronald McDonald. 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. But Chef Boyardee was not, as commonly believed, a fictional creation whose name was formed from the given names (Boyd, Art, and Dennis) of the men who created him. In short, Chef Boyardee was a real person. Look at Chef Boyardee, for example. The take-out business got big enough that the family started thinking about selling their sauce on a larger scale. With all that said, it's pretty clear that Chef Boyardee was the real deal. 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. Not much else is known about the real Ben, and its not even his picture on the box. 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. By Tim Nelson Published on February 13, 2021 When it comes to food brands and their human "mascots," you really can't believe everything you see. Lets try!. That's thanks to Chef Boyardee adding high fructose corn syrup to their sauce. Chef Boyardee Was A Real Person - Smithsonian Magazine Is Chef Boyardee Actually Three People? | Snopes.com So we salute you with a tip of the cap and a chef's kiss, Chef Ettore "Hector" Boiardi/Boyardee. Fast forward around 4 years and the volume of his carry out meals being sold per day required a factory to produce. keep up the great work! Four years later, Boiardi and his brothers started the Chef Boyardee Company. As a kid, I had so many questions. Again, what a dude! Chef Boyardee was a very real, very successful chef. Born 119 years ago this month (October 22nd, 1897) in the northern Italian city of Piacenza (part of Italy's famous "food valley"), legend has it that cooking was so ingrained in Boiardi that he used a wire whisk as a rattle. Using brother Peter's Plaza Hotel connections, Chef "Boy-Ar-Dee" meals ended up on the shelves of A & P grocery stores across the country, by far the largest food retailer in America at the time. He also held a degree in business and co-owned a steel mill with his father. Chef Boyardee Was a Real Person - Today I Found Out [15], In 2018, Barbara Lippert of Advertising Age compared the 1966 Young & Rubicam ad for Beefaroni to The 400 Blows and running of the bulls. For its founder, see, "The Man, The Can: Recipes Of The Real Chef Boyardee", "Your favorite food icons: Fact or fiction? In 1928, the Chef Boyardee Company was born. In 1938, the company moved to Pennsylvania where it is still today. Chef Boyardee: Chef Boyardee The famous canned pasta is named after its founder, Hector. Ettore Boiardi was an Italian-American immigrant born in 1897. The Chef behind the brand: the true face and life of Ettore Boiardi The best. The company he sold to was American Home Products (today called International Home Foods). Maybe real. 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. So, he changed the product's name to the phonetic Chef "Boy-Ar-Dee." The ad features a large group of children running through Venice singing, "Hoorayfor Beefaroni!" Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. Again, I was 10 and you could have put me on the phone with the president of the US and I would care less (same goes for today). Joined by Paul and his other brother Mario from Italy, Hector launched the Chef Boiardi Food Company in 1928. 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. 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. Betty Crocker was not. By the late 1930s, Hector was headed east to set up his kitchen in Milton, Pennsylvania . Weve all had at least one meal from Chef Boyardee. With the stock market crashing a year after the company's launch, the Great Depression was a boon for Chef Boyardee and its inexpensive, prepackaged meals, which helped to bring Italian food to the masses. 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. [1], On May 9, 1914, at the age of 16, he arrived at Ellis Island aboard La Lorraine, a ship of French registration. Great story. He dubbed the canned and bottled products Chef Boy-Ar-Dee to help consumers pronounce his name. Chef Boyardee REAL:An Italian immigrant, Chef Ettore Boiardi had a restaurant in Cleveland. Who Was the Real Chef Boyardee? - YouTube Did you know that Chef Boyardee was a real person? The company specialized in three flavors of sauces: traditional, mushroom, and spicy Naples-style. This forced them to scale up and have the factory operate 24 hours a day. 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. He was indeed a real. JUSTICE LEAGUE and all related characters and elements & DC Comics. It was famous for spaghetti and meatballs. [12] He had five grandchildren. 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. We've all had at least one meal from Chef Boyardee. To woo potential clients, hed send them packages of his home-made cookies. Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli is made with fresh pasta, hearty, Italian-flavored tomato sauce, and real beef, giving it the classic flavor everyone loves. When World War II erupted in Europe, the food company was put to work making Army rations. But what about the chef behind the raviolis. Chef Boyardee products are available in cans or single-use microwavable cups. In 1917, NPR writes, he moved to Cleveland, where in 1924 he opened a restaurant with his wife Helen Boiardi. Lippert believed the ad influenced other famous commercials such as Prince Spaghetti (known for "Anthony! He worked as a cook at his first restaurant at the tender age of 10 years old in Italy. He later immigrating to America at the age of 16 and took the name "Hector Boiardi" as he passed through Ellis Island. The name, Boiardi. In a world of fake food mascots, Ettore Boiardi was the real deal. While Boiardi's culinary resume was already quite impressive by the time he relocated to Cleveland, that's where his transformation from Ettore Boiardi to Chef Boyardee began in earnest. That image is instead said to be based on the matre d' of the restaurant where Harwell and his business partners sometimes met. Chef Boyardee is still on store shelves, but the Smurfs version is a thing of the past. Hector Boiardi was born in Piacenza, in northern Italy. 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. Chef Boyardee - Wikipedia Behind the label is a whole impressive history, beginning with the origins of Ettore Boiardi, who became Hector Boyardee . Did You Know Chef Boyardee Was a Real Person? | Kitchn Chef Boyardee Cooked Up Success In Cleveland, Ohio - OnlyInYourState The short answer is probably not, unfortunately. The Chef Boyardee brand was created by a real Italian chef, Ettore Boiardi. (Clearly, the spelling change was to help consumers know how to pronounce his name.) By 11, according to his great-niece Ann Boiardi's 2011 book, he was already a chef's apprentice at a restaurant called "La Croce Bianca," where he mostly peeled potatoes and took out the garbage. Believe it or not, Chef Boyardee was a real live chef, and Chef Boyardee's history is pretty amazing. As for how the whole iconic cheap canned pasta thing started, Ettore decided to help out by producing military rations for the troops overseas during World War II, which kind of sort of made him an American hero. Ettore's journey from immigrant to figurehead of a burgeoning canned pasta empire is enough to store even a cynic's wavering faith in the American dream. From there, he worked at a variety of high end restaurants in New York as a cook, eventually working his way up to Chef. Boiardi continued developing new Italian food products for the American market until his death in 1985. Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli: A Delicious And Convenient Meal. Unlike the friendly but fictional food faces of Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, Chef Boyardee that jovial, mustachioed Italian chef is real. [1], Boiardi followed his brother Paolo to the kitchen of the Plaza Hotel in New York City, working his way up to head chef. May your love of pasta continue to inspire cooks for generations to come even if they're just using a microwave. Advertising Notice Boiardi's product was soon being stocked in markets nationwide the company had to open a factory in 1928 to meet the demands of national distribution. Don Callender opened a wholesale bakery to supply pies to restaurants in the late 1940s. It wasnt long before the sale totals of these products surpassed his restaurant earnings, despite the restaurant itself doing booming business. His entrepreneurial skill became polished and well known when he opened his first restaurant, Il Giardino d'Italia, whose name translates as "The Garden of Italy", at East 9th Street and Woodland Avenue in Cleveland, in 1924. Did you know this already? [2] The patrons of Il Giardino d'Italia frequently asked for samples and recipes of his spaghetti sauce, so he filled cleaned milk bottles.[3]. Anthony!") 1. Take a Break from Tuna with the Best Canned Salmon, All of the Tapatio Products You May Not Have Known Exist, The 5 Best Bread and Butter Pickles Are Sweet, Sour, and Sensational, Sporkeds Guide to the Best Nachos Fixins, 3 Best Frozen Chicken Patties for DIY Fast Food. They even hired a former slave, Nancy Green, to be the first spokesperson. He supervised the preparation of the homecoming meal served by Woodrow Wilson at the White House for 2,000 returning World War I soldiers. Before Tim and Nina Zagat, there was Duncan Hines, a traveling . Smashing 20,000 tons of tomatoes a season, the Milton factory produced upwards of 250,000 cans of sauce a day. As for the products that Hector Boiardi left as his legacy, Anna Boiardi admits that they may not be the same as when her great-uncle made them but it is an alternative for those who just don't have the time to cook. This article is about the canned pasta product line. Anastasia Arellano. Dorann Weber / Contributor / Getty Images. Whether you loved his lasagna or his spaghetti dinners, the man's history is fascinating. [13], In June 2000, ConAgra Foods acquired International Home Foods. Get all the top food rankings, new product reviews, and other grocery content delivered to your inbox every other week. The company, which is today known for its canned meals, especially its ravioli, has changed hands a number of times since. Another 6 years later and he came up with the now famous brand name Chef Boyardee, changing the spelling of his name to be phonetically correct, as he was tired of explaining to people how to pronounce his name and thought if he was going to be selling nationally, he should make it easy for Americans to pronounce. I didnt say much and handed the phone back to my friends dad who was shocked I wasnt impressed. Real or Fake: The Names Behind 12 Famous Food Brands - Mental Floss Thank You! The plaintiff who filed the class-action lawsuit was demanding more than $5 million in damages. He worked as a cook at his first restaurant at the tender age of 10 years old in Italy. What a dude. The company was founded by Italian immigrant Ettore Boiardi in Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 1928. 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. Husted picked the first name Betty because it sounded warm and friendly, and combined it with Crocker as a tribute to retired Washburn Crosby executive William Crocker. While it might seem like that smiling face on the box must be that of the inventor, don't forget that the concept of idealized domesticity is still very powerful in the marketing world, and there are plenty of products that are still playing it up, albeit in a slightly more politically correct way. And he's just one of the 33 grocery store brands named after real people. Whats more: Hector Boiardi was a respected chef who even helped cater Woodrow Wilsons second wedding. Who Is Chef Boyardee? | Sporked Real. 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Also, if you give her a bag of Takis she will be your best friend. I was at a friends house and his father was an actual good friend of the Chef. Boiardi originally grew his trademark mustache to try to make himself look older as he was generally the youngest cook in the often top notch restaurants where he was a cook at, starting around 16 when he moved to America. The Unhealthiest Canned Foods on the Planet | Eat This Not That "There are people that are working, and their kids have to come home and make something for themselves," Boiardi told NPR, "even when I was growing up and my mom is a fabulous cook she would open up a can of Chef Boyardee for us on certain nights when there just wasn't enough time. Fairly quickly, it became clear that the young Boiardi he was a prodigy. His name? and "Hilltop" for Coca-Cola. Hector Boiardi, born in 1897, was born in Italy, where he began working at a hotel in his hometown when he was 11 (child labor meant something a little different in the early 1900s.) Chef Boyardee pasta products contain no artificial ingredients, no artificial colors, and no preservativesjust the time-tested taste your family loves. Afterward, Bioardi ended up moving to Cleveland, Ohio, where he opened up his very own restaurant. Hector Boiardi, born in 1897, was born in Italy, where he began working at a hotel in his hometown when he was 11 (child labor meant something a little different in the early 1900s.) [19] The lawsuit was dismissed in 2016.[20]. [17], In 2005, Chef Boyardee was shown in MasterCard's "Icons" commercial during Super Bowl XXXIX, which depicts advertising mascots having dinner together. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine In terms of famous people from Ohio, Chef Boyardee might just top them all! Once he arrived, he landed a job at the famous Plaza Hotel. When Hector opened his Italian restaurant in the 1920s, Italian food was foreign to Americans.
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