Co-Inventor of Rice-a-Roni Dies

[ludja]

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Vincent DeDomenico, co-inventor of Rice-A-Roni, whose catchy TV jingle paid homage to San Francisco and made the pasta dish known to every baby boomer, has died. He was 92.

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Along with his brothers, DeDomenico, the son of Italian immigrants, created the packaged side dish of rice and pasta for their San Francisco-based family business. "The San Francisco treat" became known in the 1960s through TV commercials that featured the city's cable cars.

In the 1930s, he and his brothers were running their parents' pasta business in San Francisco's Mission District. They got to experimenting in a test kitchen with recipes combining long-grain white rice, broken pieces of vermicelli and chicken broth. The dish evolved from a recipe one of their wives had originally gotten from a landlady.

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Rice-A-Roni, as it came to be called, became a national brand in the 1960s. The brothers sold the Golden Grain Macaroni Co. to Quaker Oats in 1986 for $275 million. By then the company also included such products as Ghirardelli Chocolate.

In later years, DeDomenico bought 21 miles of railroad track in Napa Valley and several vintage passenger cars, creating a tourist attraction called the Napa Valley Wine Train.

[DTBarton]

Gotta like that Rice-a-roni!

To attest to it's appeal, we use a web site called anysoldier.com http://www.anysoldier.com/ to send things to troops serving overseas. One thing that is often requested is microwaveable food. We sent one group in Iraq a big box of individual rice-a-roni servings from Sam's club, among other things.

We got back a great thank you note saying the Rice-a-roni was the big hit of the package.

[layla17]

It's amazing how Rice-A-Roni remains to be so popular through the years. It's a quick easy meal that accompanies anything. I bet the soldiers really enjoy it.