There's not much to watch on TV on a Sunday night once afternoon baseball is done. And now that football season has started, unless there's a team I'm interested in, there is even less choice. Thank goodness for the History Channel. A couple weeks ago I watched a series on Rockwell's UFO incident and last night there was Foods That Built America. After learning a bit about the cola wars (I still prefer Coke) I got into the story of how cake mixes came to be.
While it turns out that Betty Crocker was an invented character, there really was a Duncan Hines. Now when it comes to biscuits and chocolate chip cookies, my go-to is the Pillsbury Doughboy but when it's time to make a cake, Duncan Hines is my choice. It was with great surprise that I learned Duncan Hines had nothing to do with baking cakes. Let me explain.
Duncan Hines was a traveling salesman who by 1935, had racked up quite a few miles on the road. He loved good food and began making notes on the restaurants he found along the way. This was way before we had an abundance of chain restaurants and there were lots of mom and pop places to enjoy. When friends began insisting on his recommendations as they traveled, he decided to put his notes together into a book titled, Adventures in Good Eating.
In his 1939 edition, he reviewed the Sanders Court and Cafe in Corbin, Kentucky:
41 — Jct. with 25, 25 E. ½ Mi. N. of Corbin. Open all year except Xmas.
A very good place to stop en route to Cumberland Falls and the Great Smokies. Continuous 24-hour service. Sizzling steaks, fried chicken, country ham, hot biscuits. L. 50¢ to $1; D., 60¢ to $1
That restaurant was operated by Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The book sold so well that soon restaurants were posting signs "Recommended by Duncan Hines". He eventually expanded his writing to include hotels as well. Today it is quite common to see the familiar owl logo for Tripadvisor on the advertising and doors of many restaurants and hotels. Like us, many people go to the app for advice on where to eat when they are on the road or looking to discover a new place to eat or find a nice place to stay the night.
Oh, how did Duncan Hines become synonymous with cake mix? Because of his popularity with food recommendations, he was offered an endorsement deal and sold the right to use his name and book title to one company that eventually sold the license to the Nebraska Consolidated Mills in Omaha who developed and sold the first Duncan Hines cake mixes.
