Fairly quickly, it became clear that the young Boiardi he was a prodigy. Chef Boyardee products are available in cans or single-use microwavable cups. He is buried at All Souls Cemetery in Chardon Township, Ohio. WSCQ 96.3 FM - SUN RADIO TRIVIA Question: Which of these - Facebook Did Trader Joe's Just Release a Cheaper Momofuku Instant Noodle Dupe? Then, a lucky break came in the way of a local grocer helping Boiardi start canning his sauce. Believe it or not, Chef Boyardee was a real live chef, and Chef Boyardee's history is pretty amazing. Pharmacist Charles Alderton developed the formula for Dr Pepper while working at W.B. From the Chef Boyardee website: . In Milton, the company exploded. biggest importers of olive oil and Parmesan cheese from Italy. very interesting. Fields began franchising in 1990 and then sold the business while staying on as the companys spokesperson. [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. In other cases, they were created by advertising agencies to give a friendly face to a faceless company. It was also around the time that Boiardi sold to the conglomerate American Home Products. Thanks. [2] He decided to anglicize the name of his product to "Boy-Ar-Dee" to help Americans pronounce his name correctly. Well, a lot, actually. 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. Real or Fake: The Names Behind 12 Famous Food Brands - Mental Floss I wish they would bring back the older version of macaroni and cheese with the long noodles and white cheese sauce. And that picture on the product labels, of course. 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. This article is about the canned pasta product line. and "Hilltop" for Coca-Cola. 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. They even hired a former slave, Nancy Green, to be the first spokesperson. They spell the name phonetically to keep American tongues from twisting on the Italian pronunciation. [12] He had five grandchildren. One of the more famous he worked at as a youth was New Yorks famous Plaza and Ritz-Carlton hotel. He was still a teenager. Boiardi quickly rose through the ranks, earning a spot as the Plaza's head chef just a year later. Chef Hector Boyardee was born in 1897 in Piacenza, Italy, not surprisingly with a very Italian name: Ettore Boiardi. He even got a Gold Star for it. In 1938, the company moved to Pennsylvania where it is still today. I needed that information for ia project I am doing on Chef Boyardee. [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. 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. It then expanded when the production was moved to Milton, Pennsylvania, and there, the Chef Boyardee empire was born. He worked in a variety of top restaurants in New York as a chef, eventually working until he reached Chef. Look at Chef Boyardee, for example. Your email address will not be published. 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. Soon enough, patrons were asking if they could start making the recipes at home themselves. [3] The first product to be sold was a "ready-to-heat spaghetti kit" in 1928. After immigrating to America at the age of 16, he got a job at New Yorks Plaza Hotel, And during those years, Boiardi also directed the catering for Woodrow Wilsons. That was the town where its tomatoes were grown, and the company even grew mushrooms insidethe factory. Whats more: Hector Boiardi was a respected chef who even helped cater Woodrow Wilsons second wedding. This was too much for Boiardi and his brothers to handle. From there, he worked his way up the ranks and became the head chef. Your email address will not be published. He was invented by the Doyle Dane Bernbach ad agency in 1959, to appear in advertisements for the . 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. Chef Boyardee was a real person. If ever a man was fit for that title, it was Boiardi. The Real Chef Behind the Chef Boyardee Brand - Laughing Squid [13], In June 2000, ConAgra Foods acquired International Home Foods. The brand's signature tomato sauce has always been sweet and sort of thin, . I was at a friends house and his father was an actual good friend of the Chef. 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. He sold the company to American Home Foods in 1946 for nearly $6 million, and remained as a spokesman and consultant for the brand until 1978. At one point, the company ranked among the biggest importers of olive oil and Parmesan cheese from Italy. 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. But his facelike his name, or at least the phonetic spelling of itendures on the label of every can. Chef Boyardee | Real Or Fake: 21 Famous Brand Namesakes Revealed And in 1928, the Chef Boyardee food company was born.. Terms of Use [11], Boiardi died of natural causes on June 21, 1985, at age 87 in a nursing home in Parma, Ohio, survived by his wife Helen J. Boiardi, who died in 1995, and son Mario, who died in 2007. Soon, he moved up to the ranks of matre d', becoming one of the most well-known hosts in the city. Boiardi continued developing new Italian food products for the American market until his death in 1985. But after rising to the rank of head chef at the Plaza,he started to put food from his birth country on the menu. [9][10] His last appearance in a television commercial promoting the brand aired in 1979. 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.) But not all brands involving a person's name have origins that are so cut and dry. Chef Boyardee Cooked Up Success In Cleveland, Ohio - OnlyInYourState 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. Fictional. 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. The take-out business got big enough that the family started thinking about selling their sauce on a larger scale. And Uncle Ben's rice is still very cagey on whether Uncle Ben actually ever existed. The Milton factory started operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 1942, according to the company website. Chef Boyardee Was A Real Person What's more: Hector Boiardi was a respected chef who even helped cater Woodrow Wilson's second wedding Kat Eschner March 20, 2017 You know what he looks like,. 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. That inspired Boiardi to start assembling homemade meal kits for customers, which featured dried pasta and milk bottles filled with marinara alongside a set of instructions. by Audrey Engvalson BuzzFeed Staff 1. The name was created for the Washburn Crosby Company (which would later merge with other businesses to form General Mills) by Marjorie Husted as a way to personalize the companys products and customer relations. 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. Colonel Sanders was real. With all that in mind, it's natural to be skeptical of the origins and credentials of any food company mascot. Again, what a dude! Known affectionately as 'Chef Boyardee,' he founded his food franchise of products with his wife, Helen. With all that said, it's pretty clear that Chef Boyardee was the real deal. Real. Kat Eschner is a freelance science and culture journalist based in Toronto. In the 1970s, friends suggested that Amos make cookies his full-time business. Hector Boyardee himself died a millionaire in 1985. Lines wrapped around the block and customers begged to know the secrets of his signature dish - cooked-to-order spaghetti with homemade sauce and cheese. 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. The Unhealthiest Canned Foods on the Planet | Eat This Not That The Chef behind the brand: the true face and life of Ettore Boiardi When inventor Chris L. Rutt wanted to sell his pancake flour, he went for the stereotypical "mammy" archetype and took the name "Aunt Jemima" from a popular minstrel song. In short, Chef Boyardee was a real person. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [19] The lawsuit was dismissed in 2016.[20]. Wallace Amos was a entertainment talent agent who worked at the William Morris Agency. 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. Boiardi met his future factory superintendent when he approached the then employee of Vincennes Packing Co with the idea of canning his sauces. Anastasia Arellano. 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. He and his wife would hand them out using old milk bottles. Ettore Boiardi as shown in a 1953 television commercial, 1953 television commercial with Ettore Boiardi, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Chef Boyardee Was a Real Person Who Brought Italian Food to America", "Hector Boiardi: A Chef's Resume | Chef Boyardee", "Carl Colombi served up Chef Boy-Ar-Dee idea", "The Man, The Can: Recipes Of The Real Chef Boyardee", "Hector Boiardi Is Dead: Began Chef Boy-ar-dee", "Hector Boiardi of 'Chef Boy-Ar-Dee' Foods Dies", "Chef Boyardee's grand-niece Anna Boiardi reveals family recipes with new cookbook", The Man, The Can: Recipes Of The Real Chef Boyardee, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ettore_Boiardi&oldid=1144495541, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from May 2022, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 14 March 2023, at 01:48. Chef Hector retires from his consultant position. Ettore (Hector) Boiardi came from Piacenza, Italy to New York with his brothers, where he became the head chef of the famous Plaza Hotel at the age of 17. Who Was Chef Boyardee? RELATED: 10 Discontinued Restaurant Dishes You Totally Forgot About 12 Trader Joe's Vegetable Chili Shutterstock Trader Joe's has discontinued several of its chili offerings, including the fan-favorite veggie chili. Businessman. The Real Chef Boyardee - GenealogyBank Blog The businessmen who developed an early ready-made pancake mix reportedly saw one such character in a black-face minstrel show in the late 1800s and appropriated the image to brand their new product. Whether theres been a change of recipe, a decline in quality, or this is a case of misplaced nostalgia, we concede that Chef Boyardee products probably arent for everyone. Had Chef Boyardee created the worlds first perpetual motion machine? With his brothers Mario and Paul, Chef Hector starts the Chef Boyardee Company. The company, which is today known for its canned meals, especially its ravioli, has changed hands a number of times since. Real. Italian food wasnt on the radar. Weird History Food then added, Hector took over a food processing plant and began producing and canning the sauce on a larger scale. From Italian immigrant to selling his company for millions, Boiardi's story is the very embodiment of the American dream. So, he changed the product's name to the phonetic Chef "Boy-Ar-Dee." Ettore Hector Boiardi, born in 1897 in Italy, where he was working as an apprentice chef by age 11. It wasnt long before the sale totals of these products surpassed his restaurant earnings, despite the restaurant itself doing booming business. Also, if you give her a bag of Takis she will be your best friend. The Welsh sailor made his name defending British interests and raiding Spanish ships and towns throughout the Caribbean. He's become a household name, but few people actually know the chef behind the brand. 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. | READ MORE. Boiardi was an immigrant who went on to live the American Dream when he created a whole Italian food empire. Not only that, patrons were asking to take home his sauce to use at their own family dinners. 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. From Duncan Hines to Chef Boyardee, here are 33 grocery store items named after real people. So we salute you with a tip of the cap and a chef's kiss, Chef Ettore "Hector" Boiardi/Boyardee. 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I actually talked with Chef Boyardee on the phone when I was 10 years old. Meet The Real Chef Behind The Chef Boyardee Brand. They spell the name phonetically to keep American tongues from twisting on the Italian pronunciation. 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. 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. Which of these company figureheads was a real person? - Getvoice.org So impressed with Boiardi's cooking, Wilson chose him to supervise the homecoming meal of 2,000 returning World War I soldiers in late 1918. The company continues to use his likeness on Chef Boyardee-brand products, which are still made in Milton, Pennsylvania.[8]. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); Jessica Block is a freelance contributor to Sporked, a comedian, a baker, a food writer, and a firm believer that Trader Joe's may just be the happiest place on earth. Smashing 20,000 tons of tomatoes a season, the Milton factory produced upwards of 250,000 cans of sauce a day. Green made her public debut in character at the1893World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where she charmed the crowds and doled out pancakes from a booth.The Jemima brand soon became so popular that Green secured a lifetime contract, and the business was renamedthe Aunt Jemima Mills Company. 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. 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. This not only helped cut down on the cost of ingredients, but also helped insure that the ingredients were top quality and provided a steady supply. Chef Boyardee: Chef Boyardee The famous canned pasta is named after its founder, Hector. DUNCAN HINES CAKE MIXES. Ettore Boiardi was an Italian-American immigrant born in 1897. 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. Turns out Chef Boyardee wasnt just a mascot for canned raviolihe was a real boy(ardee)! At first, the revised name was Boy-ar-dee, a phonetic spelling of how the family name was pronounced. Your Privacy Rights The plaintiff who filed the class-action lawsuit was demanding more than $5 million in damages. 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. 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. By 1938, Chef Boyardee expanded again, relocating its headquarters to Milton, Pennsylvania in order to more easily cultivate a specific type of tomato for use in the sauce. Four years later, Boiardi and his brothers started the Chef Boyardee Company. 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.