Bob and Marcia explored various aspects of food and business history, including the origins and evolution of wedding cakes, messenger systems, and the Betty Crocker brand. Bob shared interesting facts and insights, while Marcia added unique perspectives and questions. They also discussed national parks, with Bob providing information on the most remote American National Park (American Samoa) and the largest national park in Alaska (Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve).
Outline
Wedding traditions and cake history.
- Bob and Marcia Smith discuss the size of the moon and the continent of Asia, with Bob revealing that Asia has more surface area than the moon.
- The couple also talks about the origins of wedding cake, with Bob sharing that it was originally broken over the bride’s hands, not eaten by the bride and groom.
- Bob Smith shares interesting facts about the history of wedding cakes, including ancient Roman traditions and early English recipes.
- Bob Smith questions the number of marshmallows in a can of Spaghettios, which the book claims is approximately 1750.
Food, drinks, and history.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the similarities between wine bottles and rifles, including the use of screw-like tools to remove obstructions.
- Marcia Smith corrects Bob Smith’s pronunciation of “Yoshida Kogyo” and provides additional information about the YKK zipper company.
- Marcia Smith discusses the history of Gatorade, developed by a University of Florida physiology professor to replace bodily fluids lost during physical exertion.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia about a mythical animal President Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore, which turned out to be extinct mammoths.
National parks and their sizes.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the number of possible drink combinations at Starbucks (87,000) and the origin of the Qwerty keyboard layout (to prevent typewriter jams).
- Bob Smith has questions about the most remote American National Park, but Marcia Smith is unable to provide an answer.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the location and size of various national parks in the US, with a focus on Alaska’s Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve.
- Marcia and Bob discuss ancient messenger systems, ranking cookies, and Girl Scouts.
Food, cooking, and culinary history.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the origins of famous food businesses, including Ben & Jerry’s and Hershey’s, and their humble beginnings in a Penn State University correspondence course.
- Bob and Marcia also explore the design of chef’s hats, which are tall to allow air circulation around the chef’s scalp and keep their head cool in the kitchen.
- Bob Smith shares a fascinating fact about Julia Child, who was once a spy during World War Two.
- Marcia Smith correctly identifies the famous cookie named after a Massachusetts town as Fig Newton.
Tom Wiggins, the world’s first pop star, and Betty Crocker, an advertising icon.
- Tom Wiggins, blind and autistic former slave, was the world’s first pop star.
- In 1880, Washburn Crosby changed its product name to “Gold Medal Flour” after winning an international award, and later created the fictional character Betty Crocker in response to a flood of mail from housewives requesting recipes.
- Bob and Marcia Smith discuss Winnie the Pooh quote and remind listeners to contribute questions for the show.
Bob Smith 0:00
Originally wedding cake wasn’t eaten by the bride and groom, what was it used for?
Marcia Smith 0:05
And what continent is bigger than the moon?
Unknown Speaker 0:09
Hmm, wow, I never thought of that.
Marcia Smith 0:12
I know.
Bob Smith 0:12
Okay, answers to those another big questions coming up at this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith
Welcome to the off ramp by chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on the earth. Okay, wow. So there is a continent on the earth that is bigger than the moon correct. In terms of surface? Yeah, well, it would have to be either Africa or Asia. So I’ll say Africa,
Marcia Smith 1:01
Africa. No. Oh, gee, the moon isn’t as big as it looks, Bob. It’s around 27% of the size of Earth. And it has 14 point 6 million square miles of surface area. Okay. All right. And although that seems like a lot, it is significantly less than the total surface of Asia. Whoa. Which is 17 point 2 million square miles, making Earth’s biggest continent larger than the moon
Bob Smith 1:31
larger than the surface area of the moon. Wow, that is different perspective tank
Marcia Smith 1:36
15. So that’s 3 million square miles bigger.
Bob Smith 1:39
Wow, Asia has more surface area than the moon. There. That’s pretty impressive. Okay, this is impressive to Marcia. Wedding Cake. Yes. I
Marcia Smith 1:49
never had a wedding cake.
Bob Smith 1:50
Oh, here we go again. Did you have one originally? In my first marriage? Oh, yeah. Oh,
Marcia Smith 1:56
she got the cake. Oh, here we go. Oh,
Bob Smith 1:59
my goodness. All these things at the time. You talk them through and they’re fine. Yeah, we’re going to elope that’s just fine with me, Bob. But where’s the cake? Where’s the gifts? Oh, Lord. Okay. Originally wedding cake wasn’t eaten by the bride and groom. What was it used for? Well, was it goes back to Roman time Roman
Marcia Smith 2:21
of those Romans owes us it just to feed the guests or the family. How about the family? The bride and groom’s family because to just shut them up during the ceremony?
Bob Smith 2:34
No. Okay. I love that. No, no. Originally, wedding cake was broken over the bride’s hands. Oh, no.
Marcia Smith 2:42
Really? Oh, that’s hilarious. Yeah,
Bob Smith 2:44
ancient Rome when marriage ceremonies ended with a scone like wheat or barley cake broken over the bride’s head for luck and fertility. Oh, wow. Still sounds condescending, doesn’t it? Yeah, it does. So
Marcia Smith 2:58
the guy had nothing, huh? Well,
Bob Smith 3:00
the new husband and wife might eat some crumbs together as one of the first unified acts as costing off her face. It wasn’t frosting it was like a scone, you know, a scone or wheat or barley cake broken over the bride’s head when and then that kept changing as times went on. So the Romans brought their cake breaking wedding tradition with them when they came to Britain that was in 43 ad. But the Brits they decided to throw bread at the bride to show her fertility throwing bread bread at the bride. In medieval days, the English started stacking spiced buns, scones and cookies as high as possible, like tiered wedding cakes, and the bride and groom would try to kiss over and if they smooched successfully without tipping and over
Marcia Smith 3:41
they’d have good fortune. Wow, crazy tradition.
Bob Smith 3:45
Here’s the first recipe for a wedding cake. 1685 brides pie. It included pastry crust filled with oysters, lamb testicles. A fibroid? A rooster comb and pine kernels. Oh, God, that sounds delicious. Oh,
Marcia Smith 4:02
no butter cream.
Bob Smith 4:04
All right. And they thought that eating the pie ensured the couple would have a happy life.
Marcia Smith 4:08
Well, if nothing else, it certainly would be vomitus
Bob Smith 4:12
Yes, why single women would definitely want to eat that pie for fertility because it had a ring in it somewhere. Did it really? And that’s how they determine who’s going to get the next man. Really? Yeah, whoever got that ring in the cake that was going to be the next is the early bouquet throwing. Yeah, so those are the early traditions about wedding cake. You know, let’s just crack that wedding cake over the bride’s head and get this wedding over with. It just sounds cruel, doesn’t it? Even though she’s smiling, standing there with crumbs on her hair
Marcia Smith 4:41
like it Gladys over there trying to rip through that cake looking for a rug. Okay. All right. It’s very funny, Bob.
Bob Smith 4:49
Well, my next question is about Spaghettios marshmallow. There you go. Remember Spaghettios as a kid did you ever eat Oh no. Okay, how many O’s are in a can of Spaghettios
Marcia Smith 4:57
133 Yeah,
Bob Smith 5:00
well that’s pretty nothing. You have a whole handful of broth with 133 O’s. Well, they’re pretty big. No, they’re not tiny Oreos, okay, they’re leaving eight
Marcia Smith 5:10
out of spaghetti center and seven know how many 1750
Bob Smith 5:13
O’s Yeah, in every can of spaghetti. You know, I don’t believe that’s an important thing to biggest that I have a hard time believing that too. But according to the book, who knew? The makers of that product? Say there are approximately 1750 O’s in every can of Spaghettios? Well,
Marcia Smith 5:32
they have to be really tiny. I want you to buy a can and count them.
Unknown Speaker 5:37
If it’s true, I have more food questions. Good.
Marcia Smith 5:40
I like food questions. So how long do you think it takes our rocket and launch tower to travel the four miles between the NASA assembly plant and the launchpad? Doesn’t it take like two days to get there? Know what? Two hours know how long? Over 10 hours 10 hours significantly less than one mile an hour. 10 hours over 10 hours to get that four miles.
Bob Smith 6:06
It’s got huge crawler. You’ve seen the pictures of it moving?
Marcia Smith 6:10
And that’s what it’s called the crawler. Okay, very apt food oriented
Bob Smith 6:13
question for you, Marsha and about one of your favorite subjects. She subjects wine. Excuse me that I did I slipped into that. What do wine bottles and rifles have in common? Well, there you go. Wine bottles and rifles have something in common. They’re both
Marcia Smith 6:30
made from parts of them are both? Well, the cork and the shaft of the rifle are made from barrels. What do
Bob Smith 6:38
you put in a rifle?
Unknown Speaker 6:39
lead bullets you
Bob Smith 6:41
put bullets in a rifle. He went and put a cork in the wine bottle. Guess what? The design for the first corkscrew was inspired by a rifle tool called a gun worm. Now a gun worm was a screw like device used to extract bullets when they got stuck in a rifle.
Marcia Smith 6:56
Well see that’s not that’s not the way he phrased that question. I
Bob Smith 7:00
said what do wine bottles and rifles have in common? It’s more like that’s what they have in common. They have a screw like tool to remove obstructions in common.
Marcia Smith 7:08
There’s so many things
Unknown Speaker 7:10
I could say to very simple.
Marcia Smith 7:13
Okay, ready? Mm hmm. Have you ever looked at your zipper, Bob? Yes. Yeah.
Bob Smith 7:18
I’ve looked at several of them. Have
Marcia Smith 7:20
you seen the letters on them? Why
Unknown Speaker 7:22
MKYKKYKK
Unknown Speaker 7:25
You haven’t looked at your zip? I know the
Bob Smith 7:27
answer to this. All right. It’s the Yokohama something something company right. It’s a company that makes zippers.
Marcia Smith 7:34
That is correct. It’s actually Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushiki gaisha. What? Yes. And that’s why the guy changed it to YKK. Say it again. Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushiki gaisha. Okay, anyway, so in 1994 he changed it to just YKK. The privately held company is headquartered in Japan but it has 106 companies around the world including Macon, Georgia, which is the largest zipper company in the world. And they produce more than 5 million zippers a day just by themselves. Wow. How do you get 5 million all in all different colors? Do you needed them zippers now why? YKK and I went into the art closet to prove this was true. is considered an upper tiered zipper and as a staple on higher end products that need a quality zipper. Okay, so I did I went in and our good jackets all have YKK on the zipper very good. But our cheaper sweatshirts, not so much. Weird little things on those
Unknown Speaker 8:44
weird little. I love it.
Marcia Smith 8:45
Okay, there’s your zipper update for today.
Bob Smith 8:48
All right, well, that was fast as a zip should be. This is about a beverage. What contribution to the University of Florida make to sports training?
Unknown Speaker 8:58
Was that the Gatorade? Gatorade? That’s right. Yeah, Robert
Bob Smith 9:01
K. The University of Florida physiology professor. He developed the sports drink to replace bodily fluids loss of physical exertion. He tested the drink on 10 of his school’s players that year, the team the Gators posted a winning record and as a result, people started calling it Gatorade. And later they they patented it and trademarked it.
Marcia Smith 9:20
I’ll be darned Alright, here’s the Presidential question. I know you love your president’s when President Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark out west to explore. He told them to watch out for what animal
Bob Smith 9:34
watch out for what animal it was some kind of big exotic animal wasn’t it? Was it some kind of Bigfoot kind of thing? Was that some kind of mythical beast? Is that what it was?
Marcia Smith 9:44
It was an actual beast, but it was extinct about 10,000 years before dinosaurs. It was a mammoth. Okay. He was obsessed most of his life and was convinced that mammoth still roamed the American West and wasn’t the sharpest
Bob Smith 10:01
Well, get out of your area of expertise and you make statements like that.
Marcia Smith 10:06
It’s true because you’ve smartest guy in the room right? Yeah, the beasts were more correctly called American mastodons. And they went extinct at the end of the ice age around 10,000 years ago.
Bob Smith 10:17
Watch out for the mammoth!
Marcia Smith 10:18
Can you imagine Clark going, “Yeah, yes, sir. We’ll be there, sir.”
Bob Smith 10:22
Good. All right. You walk into Starbucks. Yeah. You have all types of different sizes of drinks. You have different types of syrups you have different types of shots. Hot and cold drinks. What? How many different combinations? Are there possible? Oh, at a Starbucks store?
Marcia Smith 10:40
I’ll just say 328
Bob Smith 10:44
It’s a lot more than that. Believe it or not, this is another one was really an unbelievable 87,000 possible drink combinations. 87,000. That’s now that’s when you factor in all the sizes, the shots, the syrups the hot, cold, wet, dry and blended drinks.
Marcia Smith 11:01
You should know the first part of this question, Bob. What is Cor TKWERTY?
Bob Smith 11:07
What is Qwerty?
Marcia Smith 11:11
You know this?
Bob Smith 11:12
I know I’m seeing this in my head. The words Q Oh, it’s about the keyboard of a typewriter. Correct. And it is what? It’s the keys that are on the top row Qwerty? That’s correct. But why was it created? Originally they had it in alphabetical order, but the keys they were all mechanical and they would bang into each other as you typed. So this was the combination of keys that would would not bang into each other.
Marcia Smith 11:36
Very good. So this dude invented it to slow down typewriter jams. Christopher Lapham Sholes.
Bob Smith 11:42
Yes. famous name in type writing history, Marcia.
Marcia Smith 11:47
Yeah, the S and the T with the most common combinations, and they were forever getting stuck because they were right next to each other. So that’s what he figured out. He was the newspaper editor in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He came up with the Qwerty and it’s still used today, even though we don’t need it on the computer keyboards, but we all learn to type that way. So there you go.
Bob Smith 12:07
All right, Marcia. I have a couple of questions on national parks. We’ll get to those in just a moment. Okay, we’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia. Bob,
Marcia Smith 12:15
Marcia.
Bob Smith 12:16
Can you say a little louder? Say it loud and proud.
Marcia Smith 12:18
And Marcia Smith
Bob Smith 12:21
We’ll be back. Okay, we’re back. And Marcia, I have questions on what is the most remote American National Park. This is the farthest Park away to travel to get to it said I’ll give you a call. Oh, thank you. It’s the only US National Park South of the equator. Did you know there was a national park south of the equator? Is it in Hawaii? No. Hawaii is not south of the equator. I know. Okay, tell me it’s the National Park of American Samoa Samoa Of course. Now, where is that located? That’s midway between Hawaii and New Zealand and South Pacific. It’s 4768 miles from Los Angeles. So it’s almost twice as far as Honolulu. It’s literally on the other side of the Earth from the rest of the United States. 13,500 acres of land and sea spreads across three islands. You can walk on trails or you can scuba dive, and you can swim with turtles and octopuses. And there’s a volcano nearby cash.
Marcia Smith 13:25
My first roommate and dear girlfriend at the time. She lived there for years when she came back to the US. She moved in with me. She lived
Bob Smith 13:35
in Samoa. Yeah. I didn’t know that. Yeah. All right now you know where the farthest National Park is? How many acres is the largest American National Park? Here’s my hit. It’s in Alaska. Oh, okay.
Marcia Smith 13:49
Is that Denali? No, it’s
Bob Smith 13:50
not. That’s number three actual okay.
Marcia Smith 13:53
I don’t – I haven’t been there.
Bob Smith 13:54
Our largest national park. And let me tell you how large it is. It’s larger than Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park and the country of Switzerland – combined. Grow in a country. That is amazing. Is the Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve 13 point 2 million acres that’s including an 18,000 foot mountain St. Elias – that’s huge. Now the top five national parks in the United States in terms of size, they’re all in Alaska. You’ve got that one. Wrangell St. Elias 13 point 2 million acres. The Gates of the Arctic National Park 8.5 million acres, Denali 6 million acres, and then there’s two more Katmai National Park and Preserve 4.3 million acres, and Glacier National Park with 3.3 million acres
Marcia Smith 14:44
Because of that, that’s why Alaska will be around for a while in its present form because it’s all parks now. That’s amazing. It is. Okay, Bob. How did the Incas deliver their mail?
Bob Smith 14:57
They had runners from one city to another. And they ran on these great highways they built Why do I even try? I’ll let me just pretend like, I don’t know.
Marcia Smith 15:07
Well, you were right, it was a relay system. And they could go 150 miles a day to deliver a message via their carriers. Each one would run about six to nine miles and then hand it off to someone else in a little house, who was waiting for them. But they didn’t have a written word. So what were they delivering, you ask? Well, what were they delivering? So you don’t know everything smarty pants, they had no written language. And each messenger carried a unique type of Indian textile, some kind of cloth that uses a system of knots to record data and information. Oh, and although they never had access to the wheel, they had a vast network of roads that went over 25,000 miles and these guys went you know, run all these different roads and 25,000 miles of road that rivaled the Roman roads in terms of size
Bob Smith 15:59
Amazing. Alright, Marcia, think of cookies cookies. Do
Marcia Smith 16:05
you think about NS Girl Scout time pretty soon?
Bob Smith 16:08
All right now, two of the three most delicious cookies in the United States are Oreos, and Chips Ahoy. Okay. Now what’s also on this list of the top three best cookies? There’s Chips Ahoy, and Oreos. What’s the third one?
Marcia Smith 16:22
Chocolate chip?
Bob Smith 16:23
You mentioned the organization just a moment ago. Girl Scouts. Ah, it’s Girl Scouts. Thin Mints. That’s number three. Yeah. Okay, amazing. When you think about them, they ranked third behind Oreos and chips, boys, which have much larger businesses behind them. But still, Girl Scout Thin Mints are the number three most delicious cookies according to most people,
Marcia Smith 16:44
those are good. Of those three. That’s the only one I like what famous
Bob Smith 16:47
food business duo got their start, thanks to a Penn State University correspondence course. These are two names that are well known in food and food. Roughly food roughly something to consume, but not necessarily.
Marcia Smith 17:03
Well. Now you got me What do you try to treat? It’s a treat HERSHEY’s Bar. No, that’s to name names. To guys. Yeah. This is a treat or have it’s a treat a treat I sell. Okay.
Bob Smith 17:16
Ben and Jerry, Ben and Jerry. Yes. The ice cream guys. Do you know what they originally wanted to go into? What business? They wanted to go into the bagel business? Really? That was their idea originally? And then cherries could have been like Einstein Bagels. Yeah, but they discovered the bagel equipment alone at the time would cost them $40,000. Did he have that money? Well, ice cream wasn’t cheaper, but they could learn to make ice cream cheap. Know how much it cost them to take a correspondence course. Oh,
Marcia Smith 17:42
that’s where that connection is. Okay, a $5 correspondence
Bob Smith 17:46
course on ice cream making from Penn State University. That’s where it began. It’s funny, and so began their rocky road to success. Oh,
Marcia Smith 17:55
yes. So Clay had to put that in there. There are certain words in languages of the world, Bob that have no translation in the US. And one of my favorites is a Portuguese word called pesah mentee arrow. And it’s Portuguese. And when I guess what it stands for is
Bob Smith 18:12
a mentee arrow. Yeah, there’s some India arrow. I don’t have any idea. Well,
Marcia Smith 18:18
you know what a wedding crasher is right. There’s a whole movie dedicated to that. But what about a word to describe people who crash funerals? Yes, the Portuguese have a word for that. Apparently they have a need for a word, but is it translates literally to a condolence person, but it refers to someone who goes to funerals just for the food.
Bob Smith 18:40
Oh, God. That’s as low as it gets. Oh, that is low. Really low. Yeah. So minty arrow. Yeah. Okay, more food questions. I got another one here for you. Why are chef’s hats so tall? Well,
Marcia Smith 18:54
that’s a good question.
Bob Smith 18:56
Is that just pretentiousness? No, there’s a function what is in the kitchen besides food? Ah,
Marcia Smith 19:01
hot fans. Feet heat.
Bob Smith 19:04
He’s okay. So is that why the hats are tall?
Marcia Smith 19:08
It doesn’t make sense. Yes, it does. So it that hats are tall because?
Bob Smith 19:13
The unique shape lets air circulate around the chef’s scalp which keeps his or her head cool. Is that right? Yeah, that’s why they were designed that way. That’s why they are used. All right. What world famous chef was once a spy. This is one of your favorite people. You used to do impressions of this.
Marcia Smith 19:31
I do know this because I saw the movie about Julia Child. Just add a little wine to just burn joy.
Bob Smith 19:40
Well, what burns away her pantry chef’s hat now
Marcia Smith 19:43
the Wine Oh okay. Your sauce she put it in everything. God bless her. Yeah,
Bob Smith 19:48
before she attended the Cordon Bleu and mastered French cooking Julia Child did intelligence work for the United States Office of Strategic Services. She was in India and China during World War Two, I think It’s where she met her husband.
Marcia Smith 20:01
Yeah, it is. It is exactly where she met him. Okay, Bob, what US state is closest to Africa?
Bob Smith 20:09
Oh, this is? Its main is Oh, for God’s sake. Well, I’m sorry. I read.
Marcia Smith 20:14
How did we do this? How you got so many of my obscure ones?
Speaker 1 20:18
Just brilliant. I just know the odd thing. We’ve been reading the same thing probably okay. But isn’t that
Bob Smith 20:24
interesting? So So basically, the the point is that if you look at a globe of the earth, you’ll find that main hangs out farther than any other state farther than Florida. That
Marcia Smith 20:33
quote he had Peninsula is part of Maine. And it’s within 3154 miles of El Meduza. Africa.
Bob Smith 20:42
That’s the closest direct line between our continent and Africa. Fascinating. The two
Marcia Smith 20:48
are divided by the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean and not much else. So if you ever want to say that you’re close to visiting Africa, I just got the the coyote head Peninsula, we can see it from her house. And the pine trees state. Okay. Okay, another
Bob Smith 21:03
treat question. Okay. What famous cookie was named after a Massachusetts town? A famous cookie was named after a Massachusetts town. It’s got the name of a town in its name.
Marcia Smith 21:14
Boston Cream. Pie. No.
Bob Smith 21:18
But you’re in the right area.
Marcia Smith 21:19
I’m in Boston. The what else is it’s a town near Boston, a hot Cambridge, Cambridge cookies, no.
Bob Smith 21:28
WAPA Fig Newton. That’s the name of a town Newton is Newton, Massachusetts. See back in 1891, there was an inventor, James Henry Mitchell. And he came up with a machine that could inject fillings into Harlow cookie crusts. And then there was a company in Boston, the Kennedy biscuit works bought one of those and they had a line of cookies. For different towns around Boston, they had the Brighton and the Beacon Hill cookies. And they added this when they thought, well, let’s make the Newton cookie and let’s fill it with jam. So they filled it with all kinds of different jams. And the one that was the most popular was fig. So it became known as the fig newton because they had other kinds of Newton’s but those all went away and that proved to be the most popular cookie of theirs. And of course, that cookie went on to other management or ownership. Years later, I think at one time Nabisco had it but Fig Newton, that’s how it began. It was name of a town in Massachusetts.
Marcia Smith 22:19
All right. Why should the music world know who Tom Wiggins was? Can you say that Tom?
Bob Smith 22:25
Tom Wiggins was no, it’s Tom. Oh, Tom Wiggins. Why should the music world know who Tom Wiggins was? indicating he’s dead? Oh, yeah. He’s waiting. Okay. Tom Wiggins. Everybody would know him as Tom Wiggins.
Marcia Smith 22:41
Well, back then. Yeah.
Bob Smith 22:43
When are we talking back when?
Marcia Smith 22:44
1800s
Bob Smith 22:45
late 1800s.
Marcia Smith 22:46
Yeah.
Bob Smith 22:47
What did he do? Marsh? What is Tom Wiggins
Marcia Smith 22:50
He was the world’s first pop singer. Oh, really. He was born into slavery. 1849 Tom Wiggins was blind and autistic. But he had a special gift. Whenever the slave masters daughter played the piano Wiggins could recreate the song by ear. He also had an uncanny ability to memorize tune after he just played him once. By the age of eight, he had a humongous repertoire, and began touring, selling out shows to packed audiences. By the time he was 10, he became the first black musician to perform at the White House. Wow. By his teenage years, he was touring the whole globe and was composing sophisticated works of classical music.
Bob Smith 23:32
And this was before records then right? Yes, but we don’t know his name. Yeah. And by the
Marcia Smith 23:35
turn of the 20th century, then we’re going to the turn. He was a household name. And it makes him one of the world’s first musical pop stars. Tom Wiggins. Yeah. Born where? Georgia in slavery. That’s amazing.
Bob Smith 23:50
Yeah. So he was a well known person.
Marcia Smith 23:54
And he was blind and autistic and black and a former slave. Wow.
Bob Smith 23:58
Well, you know, that’s there. Were people like that in early entertainment that were came from obscure places, but were world famous. Yeah. No, totally forgotten now because they didn’t have movies around to take pictures of him and things like that. Okay. Well, that’s a great one. That’s a great question. Tom Wiggins was the world’s first pop star. Correct. All right. Okay, Marcia, this is one more question on food for today. When a Minnesota flower maker won an international exhibition in 1880. It did two things. One, it changed the name of its product. What was the second thing it did? Now I’ll give you a hint. It changed the name of its product to reflect the name of the award. It won the gold medal gold medal. Yes. The Washburn Crosby company in Minnesota. They won a gold medal for their flower in an international exhibition. They changed the name of the product to gold metal flour, which we’ve all heard of. But they did another thing too. Women started writing in saying they wanted baking advice and how to use the flour and all of this What happened then what did the company do? It
Marcia Smith 25:02
did made a decision. They made a recipe book, they
Bob Smith 25:04
made a cookbook. That’s not the answer, but you’re all along the same lines. Okay. They
Marcia Smith 25:09
created a lot of desserts with flour in them. They created a character out of the Pillsbury Doughboy. No,
Bob Smith 25:14
no. If you had that win last week, yes. In the 20th century. Yeah,
Speaker 1 25:18
they created I don’t know. Oh, woman. Betty Crocker Betty Crocker. Yeah. Because he wasn’t real.
Bob Smith 25:25
I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to. Oh, don’t cry,
Marcia Smith 25:27
I guess. Okay. He had an apron and everything. They just made her up.
Bob Smith 25:31
Yes, they did. Because they got an avalanche of mail from housewives. They requested recipes asking for advice. And management said, you know, we should have responses go back from a woman. Yeah. So they invented Betty Crocker. Brilliant. They took Betty because that was a nickname for Elizabeth at the time, Betty. And then they chose the name Crocker because that was honoring a former director of the company. And Betty Crocker is still a mascot for the brand. In fact, the Betty Crocker there are Betty Crocker foods now not just recipes and things like that. And but that all came about because back in 1880, this company won an award I
Marcia Smith 26:03
thought she was real. And then I thought they just killed her off and updated the picture. But it’s cool to see her change her looks over the years on those Betty Crocker books. It is
Bob Smith 26:13
amazing. When you think of it as an advertising icon that takes on contemporary dress of the person. And you look back you can see it changing as the dress and mores of she got thinner, so it Yeah, and you know, look at her from the 50s on it’s like, oh, there’s our mother when they were younger. Yeah, that guy. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 26:28
that was so cool. Okay, Bob. Well, here’s a lovely quote that goes out to our children, Chelsea and Benjamin. And it’s from the Disney movie, the house at pose corner. It’s Christopher Robin talking to Winnie the Pooh. And you’re going to have to read it because I’ll cry.
Bob Smith 26:45
Okay, I can see why it’s hard to read. If ever there is a tomorrow when we’re not together, there’s something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you feel and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we are apart. I will always be with you. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 27:10
That’s so sweet. Isn’t that wonderful?
Bob Smith 27:13
All right. And we want to remind you if you’d like to contribute to the show, we’d love to get your question. So I can just pose it to Marsha and make her look like or maybe she can make me look like
Marcia Smith 27:23
yeah, it made me look foolish today. You knew a lot of my questions. Congratulations.
Bob Smith 27:29
I guess I’ll be sleeping alone tonight. Okay, there it goes the sofa. That’s it for today. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:37
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again next
Bob Smith 27:38
time when we return with
Marcia Smith 27:40
the off ramp.
Bob Smith 27:43
The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
