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Features
November 1, 2003
A Note from Karl
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Karl
with Jonathan Crowe on Food Chain
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Friends, this month I'm sharing something a
little different with you. As some may know,
in addition to my regular spots on Canada Now
on CBC Television, I also make bi-weekly appearances
on a show called Food Chain on the CBC Country
Canada Channel, airing daily at 6 pm, 10 pm,
and 10 am (eastern). On that show I do a Thursday
column about whatever strikes my fancy. Recently,
I talked about Henry Ford's fascination with
soybeans, and also about a man called Clarence
Saunders who invented the world's first 'self-serve'
grocery store, the Piggly Wiggly. I have written
text versions of these two television columns
because I thought you might enjoy learning the
information as much as I did. Here they are...
Henry Ford - Soy Champion
I became a fan of soy the first time I made
a peanut butter and tofu sandwich. This is still
an offensive combination to most of my friends
but I love it. I get multi-grain bread and slather
it with good peanut butter (by good I mean the
type that contains just nuts, no sugar or additives).
Then I take a couple of slices of the firm textured
tofu and put them between the slices of bread
and voila! You have a peanut and soy creation
with great texture and peanutty flavour.
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Soybeans!!
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When it comes to soybean creations, one of
the first and perhaps the most significant experimenters
was Henry Ford. (Yes, the same Ford who invented
the Model T and founded the Ford Motor Company.)
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Henry
Ford
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He became interested in soybeans late in his
life (in his sixties) but some would argue that
his interest in developing uses for this particular
vegetable was at least as great as his interest
in making automobiles. He was raised on a farm
and was always looking for ways to make the
farmer's life better. In l929 he established
a laboratory on his extensive acreage in Dearborn,
Michigan. Ford wanted to develop more markets
for farm crops. He was keenly interested in
the idea of extracting chemicals from crops
to be used in the commercial production of any
number of products, including new and innovative
ones.
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Ford's
Soy Laboratory
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After investigating a number of different vegetables
and grains, Ford eventually steered his researchers
toward soybeans. A friend had purchased some
from a Chinese market and gave a few to Henry.
The automaker/farm researcher was quickly hooked
on the mysterious bean. The number of uses for
the simple bean staggered Henry Ford.
He discovered they were rich in a very versatile
oil, they were high in protein, and contained
fiber that could be put to many uses. For example,
by 1935 he was using soybeans in the manufacture
of Ford automobiles. Things like window trim,
accelerator pedals, door handles, and paint
were being made from soybean material. Eventually,
he even made a prototype soy car body.
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Ford
strikes soy car with axe, proving its
durability
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Ford
sports soy suit
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Ford also saw great potential for developing
food products from soybeans. He hired Edsel
Ruddiman, a chemist and longtime friend, to
develop soy based foods. The first was a soybean
biscuit. Then in 1934 at the Chicago World's
Fair called, A Century of Progress, the Ford
exhibit featured an elaborate presentation about
the potential of soybeans.
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Chicago
World's Fair poster, 1934
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Unveiled at the 1934 fair was a complete menu
of soy dishes, including things like: celery
stuffed with soybean cheese, soybean croquettes
with tomato sauce, soybean bread, cocoa with
soybean milk, and assorted soybean cookies.
Clearly, Henry Ford was ahead of his time.
After his death the Ford company got out of
the soybean business to primarily concentrate
on making automobiles. However, Henry's fledgling
research was enough to spur on subsequent soy
enthusiasts, taking the bean to great heights
by the nineteen seventies. In the 30's, when
Ford began his research, a bushel of soybeans
sold for 45 cents; by the mid seventies they
were selling for $12.12 cents a bushel (the
number one cash crop in the United States).
Eventually soybean researchers found even more
uses for the crop. Today soybean material is
used in cooking, ink, plastics, varnishes, enamels,
adhesives, coatings, lubricants, and industrial
resins. And to think, it all began with a the
man whose real claim to fame was making cars
and trucks, Henry Ford. He was a true champion
of soy!
Clarence Saunders and the Piggly Wiggly
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Wells
Groceteria, circa 1968
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The corner grocery store, now pretty well an
institution of the past, will always occupy
a special place in my treasury of memories.
You see, when I was a kid, we lived over our
family's grocery store. It was called Wells
Groceteria. It was mostly a self-service type
of store...with a few exceptions. My Dad was
a pretty good butcher, so we had a meat room
where you could place an order for a particular
cut and someone would get it for you. Another
service we provided involved me. If you wanted,
you could drop off your grocery list (or phone
it in), and we'd collect your grocery items
for you. Often, that's what I did. I picked
up other people's groceries.
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Ike
Godsey's on The Waltons
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At times (perhaps more often than not) I found
this to be a boring and time wasting occupation.
After all, why couldn't these people get their
own groceries? They could not be that busy.
If they did the task themselves then I would
be free to stock shelves or weigh up one pound
bags of dried baking beans, or some such chore.
That got me wondering how those stores from
yesteryear managed it. You know, stores like
Ike Godsey's on The Walton's.
Olivia Walton would arrive with her grocery
list and then, Ike ( or his missus ) would run
around from shelf to shelf collecting everything
on the list.
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Clarence
Saunders
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It's hard to believe that in the early 1900's
pretty well all grocery stores, everywhere,
operated like Ike's on The Walton's. That is,
until a guy named Clarence Saunders came along
with a better idea.
His idea was the 'Piggly Wiggly'. The first
time I'd heard of the place called the Piggly
Wiggly was in a movie...Driving Miss Daisy.
In it, one day Miss Daisy tells her driver,
Hoke Coleburn, she wants him to take her to
the Piggly Wiggly.
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Driving
Miss Daisy
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Now I know she wanted to go to Clarence Saunders'
famous grocery store in Memphis, established
on September 6th, 1916 at 79 Jefferson Street.
The store he called ( for reasons known only
to Clarence ) the Piggly Wiggly.
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The
Piggly Wiggly, Memphis, 1916
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It was the world's first self-serve grocery
store. You see, Clarence thought the old way
of doing things was a waste of time and man
hours. So he devised a store where you entered
the shopping area through turnstiles, took a
basket that would be provided, and then proceeded
to collect your own groceries from neatly stacked
shelves and aisles in a kind of maze. Eventually,
when ready, you would exit this maze through
a checkout lane where your groceries would be
checked, bagged and, of course, payed for. It
seems simple enough, but the fact is, nobody
thought of it before Clarence.
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Inside
the Piggly Wiggly
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The Piggly Wiggly quickly became a huge network
of grocery stores as Clarence began to franchise
his self-service invention. By the end of the
1930s there were over 2,600 Piggly Wigglies
across North America. Here are a few of the
firsts Clarence is credited with that consumers
still benefit from today:
Piggly Wiggly was first to...
...introduce checkouts
...price mark all items
...have refrigerated food cases
...have uniformed employees
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Piggly
Wiggly logo
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Saunders eventually lost control of the Piggly
Wiggly Company when it went on the stock exchange.
He started another chain under his own name
in the thirties but it fell victim to the depression.
Just before his death in October of 1953 he
was working on his greatest dream, to create
a fully automated grocery store with mechanized
food dispensers. It would have been called the
'Foodelectric'. Unfortunately, for Clarence
Saunders it was not to be, but the chain of
stores with the quirky name, Piggly Wiggly,
still survives.
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