Today in 1911, the birthday of William A. Mitchell, a food inventor whose name might not ring a bell but whose creations are unforgettable.
You might even be enjoying one of them right now.
Mitchell was born in Minnesota; he had to start working at a very young age to support his family, and eventually earned a masters degree in chemistry.
His career was almost over before it started, thanks to a lab explosion that severely burned over 80 percent of his body (!)
After recovering, he got a job with General Foods and started coming up with some of the best-remembered foods of his time.
Consumers in this time wanted foods that saved them time and money, and they didn’t mind if it came more from a lab than from a farm.
Take Mitchell’s first invention.
During World War II, when tapioca was in short supply, he came up with a popular substitute that the troops called “Michell’s Mud.”
In the 1950s he combined sugar, vitamin C and fruit flavor into a powdered drink mix known as Tang, which became a hit with the public (though not always with the astronauts) when NASA started sending it up into space.
While trying to create a carbonated version of an instant drink mix like Kool Aid, Mitchell added carbon dioxide molecules to sugar, which we know today as Pop Rocks.
The name he chose when he patented the idea was “Gasified Confection.”
We’re not even close to done here!
In the 1960s Mitchell invented a quick-set version of Jell-O and the iconic whipped cream substitute Cool Whip.
He kept at it until he retired in 1976, patenting something like 70 creations in all.
It is almost enough make my head spin to think that Tang, Cool Whip, Pop Rocks, so many of the signature treats of the 60s and 70s all came not just from one single company or one single brand but one inventor, who found a lot of different ways to make a lot of different stomachs happy.
Today in 1905, a story in the Clinton Mirror newspaper with an odd headline: “Man Was Mailed.”
A guy on the English island of Guernsey wanted to visit the nearby island of Sark, so for five shillings and sixpence, he sent himself parcel post.
According to the article, quote “He was accepted as malleable.”
The Scientist Behind Some of Our Favorite Junk Foods (Smithsonian)
“Man Was Mailed.” (Clinton Mirror via Google News Archive)
