The National Chicken Cooking Contest may have been “National,” but the celebrated ingredient at its center was “Delmarva Chicken,” and the press on the peninsula didn’t forget it. As usual, the Salisbury Maryland Daily Times reported heavily on the contest in 1957. Entrants came from 12 states to compete in the crown jewel event at…
An advertisement ran in the San Francisco Examiner in 1932, posing as a heavily illustrated article. The top left illustration is alarming: it shows a tearful wife looking on as her angered husband hurls a biscuit. The biscuit penetrates the wall, heading for the edge of the newspaper itself. A caption explains that such violent…
Gray Poole got tired of cooking and eating chicken during World War II. “Chicken, chicken, chicken!” she recalled to the Baltimore Sun later, in 1967. “It was always chicken.” With other meats rationed, Poole found herself getting inventive with chicken. Her husband had been stationed in California and then sent to the Pacific, where he…
Benjamin Chew Howard wrote genuinely loving letters to his wife, the former Jane Grant Gilmor. In one he quoted a poem, telling Mrs. Howard “time has not ‘dimmed your eye.’” It was 1835 and Jane Howard was 34, hardly an old matron. Still, the sentiment was sweet. The letters between Mr. and Mrs. B. C….
The Heinz company once manufactured more than sixty products, from the pickles that started it all, to the famous ketchup, plus baked beans and soups. The product offerings far outstripped the mythical “57 Varieties.” Legend has it that H.J. Heinz simply liked the number 57, and coined the brand slogan after being inspired by a…