Greatest Food Inventions of the Last Century

[jamiemaw]

What's it to be folks? What are the greatest inventions of the past century or so that turned the culinary world upside down?

Is it the restaurant POS terminal? The food processor, or the Messermeister chef's knife with recessed Granton pockets? Ju-Jubes? Adolph Rempp's Meat Tenderizer? Brown 'n' serve dinner rolls? Caesar Gardini's eponymous salad? Worcestershire Sauce? Keith Kellogg's Corn Flakes? Clarence Birdseye's frozen food technology?

Or maybe it really is sliced bread.

[racheld]

Ice cream anytime.

[SuzySushi]

Refrigeration and frozen food technology which, yes, made it possible to keep foods longer safely.

The microwave oven, which revolutionized Americans' perceptions of how much time is needed to cook a meal.

[snowangel]

Yes to the fridge, although that may be just over 100 years old (or just over 100 years older than I am).

The fridge amazes me.

At home I have a side by side with water and ice in the door (the kids drink more water and the doors open less often for ice).

But, what amazes me more about the fridge is that up at our cabin, we have a big, huge LP tank that the truck fills every other fall. Up there, we have no electricity, but we have a Servel fridge. Actually we have two. One in the cabin, one in a shed. These are not the models shown on the web site, rather they are the 60's (they are that brown 60's color -- the brown equivalent of harvest gold or avocado green), with rounded edges, and the freezer door inside the fridge). But, they are quiet. No compressor going on and off. No noise. A door that closes with a latch thing.

They save us from coolers and melted ice and putting food in stuff that the melting ice won't get into.

Yes, the fridge. 'Tis a very good thing. Forget the knives. Forget the stoves (I could cook on a grill (and make one myself, if need me).

But, cold! Ice, a way to keep food. To freeze food.

[Flotch]

The fridge

Kitchen Aid Stand up mixer

Microplane zester

Portable blow torches for creme brulee etc.

[nwyles]

My dishwasher says that teflon is the greatest invention. I think that stainless steel was a giant step forward. It is everywhere in a commercial kitchen.

[jodicalhoun]

The Gourmegg- have you ever seen one? It's a looooong icky tube that when you slice it, presents perfect hard boiled egg slices the equivalent of a flat of eggs per one tube.

Or...

The hand held blender

Or..oh,oh,oh

no, that was from the 1800s

How about...

bread machines?

[jamiemaw]

I'm goin to nominate the Universal Bar Code. Although not food-specific it is certainly food-relevant, especially with regard to how it has speeded the logistics and efficiency (and thereby the cost effectiveness) of delivery of foodstuffs to consumers.

[Boris_A]

To learn at the end of that century that the most simple and yet greatest food is not the result of an technological/anaylytical process. It's still the result of maybe only gently manipulated nature in the hand of skilled craftsmen.

[Grub]

That's a tough one. Depends on a lot of things, that would need to be quantified...

Does it have to be a physical invention, or could it be a conseptual one? Could an invention be considered great simply because it effected a lot of people, or could it only be considered so, if it had a significant, positive impact?

Canning was a big step forward. But the distribution of produce that exists today, has made fresh produce available every day -- look at cookbooks from the 50s, and recipes all expects canned goods... Yet again, the tomatoes you get all year round in the supermarkets today, aren't anything like genuinely real fresh tomatoes -- so just like it was progress when canning came along, as it made things available that previously hadn't, produce that is available year round might lower people's expectations of "fresh" produce, just like canning did.

TV shows about cooking has probably done a lot to encourage people to cook. The Internet too.

Fastfood had an enormous impact, but hardly a positive one.

The refridgerator clearly is a big one.

Flash freezing too.

[Moopheus]

Ice cream anytime.   

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The hand-crank ice cream freezer was invented in 1841. Refrigerators were invented in the 1870s, though commercially-available models for the home did not appear until around WWI. Refrigerated transport of perishable foods has obviously allowed big changes in the way food is grown and sold. Does the interstate highway system count also? There are probably a lot of inventions and developments (like also the bar code and stainless steel) that are not really food-related but have affected the way food is distributed and prepared.

[Andrew Fenton]

Does the interstate highway system count also? There are probably a lot of inventions and developments (like also the bar code and stainless steel) that are not really food-related but have affected the way food is distributed and prepared.

Yeah, I'd be tempted to vote for the revolution in information technology and its effects on transportation. The recent New Yorker article about UPS makes a good case, using the specific example of lobsters: they're now available anywhere, anytime, with good quality and at a reasonable price.

[jamiemaw]

Does the interstate highway system count also? There are probably a lot of inventions and developments (like also the bar code and stainless steel) that are not really food-related but have affected the way food is distributed and prepared.

Yeah, I'd be tempted to vote for the revolution in information technology and its effects on transportation. The recent New Yorker article about UPS makes a good case, using the specific example of lobsters: they're now available anywhere, anytime, with good quality and at a reasonable price.

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The New Yorker article was indeed fascinating, especially the section about the 'resting' depot (the time the lobsters are given between their trucking in from Canada and their final distribution via UPS) that ensures they arrive in peak condition. The process is incredibly complex (and just one example of a vast number of solutions in the logistics/distribution industry), and all to satisfy that long distance foodstuffs arrive at our doorsteps painlessly.

[chromedome]

Canning dates from the early 19th century. The ill-fated Franklin expedition of the 1840's took large quantities of canned food in their quest for the Northwest Passage.

I think Clarence Birdseye was a pivotal figure, in conjunction (of course) with the technology he relied on. While we tend to view frozen foods with a degree of snobbishness, the plain fact is that they're better than canned/dried/salted for most applications, and better than non-frozen product for much of the year. That was a truly revolutionary thing, and one of the most far-reaching developments of the twentieth century. Midwestern sushi lovers, rise and salute your hero! (...and the bloody awful Labrador winters that sparked Birdseye's creative imagination...)

Another thing I consider to be pivotal, which began in the 19th century but was brought to a high level in the twentieth, is our understanding of food safety. Previous centuries knew what to do to keep food from spoiling, but didn't understand why some things worked and some things didn't. The century just ended brought us a more-or-less complete understanding of foodborne illness and how to prevent it. That, my friends, is a monumental achievement on par with the eradication of smallpox.

[feloniousmonk]

I know I know it isn't an invention, but tolerance. Without which I would not be able to live in a town of 7,000 people and have a chinese, mexican, and italian restaurant ran by the respective ethnicities. God bless my mother for teaching me that no matter what people look like and sound like we all bleed red, and that no matter what all of the food is good.

[Susan G]

I'm gonna go with refrigeration technology.

I've seen the way masses of people are fed in third world cities. It ain't pretty.

[Moopheus]

I know I know it isn't an invention, but tolerance.  Without which I would not be able to live in a town of 7,000 people and have a chinese, mexican, and italian restaurant ran by the respective ethnicities.

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It's not an invention, but the waves of immigration in the US over the last century or so has clearly meant that the descendents of those immigrants are being exposed to a much wider variety of food than their ancestors likely were.

[Taboni]

Saran wrap

[Carlovski]

Why the internet of course. Where else could we even have this discussion

[Soup]

Concept of food being entertainment

[Susan G]

Concept of food being entertainment

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Oohh, I'm going to disagree with this one - it's a concept used in the 20th century, but not exclusively ours.........the royal courts of England and France were using food as entertainment for more than 600 years.

[Pan]

Food was entertainment for the ancient Roman patricians, too, and I would think, the ancient Chinese court, etc., etc.

[Andrew Fenton]

Concept of food being entertainment

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Oohh, I'm going to disagree with this one - it's a concept used in the 20th century, but not exclusively ours.........the royal courts of England and France were using food as entertainment for more than 600 years.

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Food was entertainment for the ancient Roman patricians, too, and I would think, the ancient Chinese court, etc., etc.

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Sure, food has always been entertainment: that's why you have food at special occasions. Maybe what Soup really meant was the effect of consumer culture on food entertainment: both the explosion of food media and the revolutions in production and transportation that have brought a wide variety of cheap food to a large population. We can all-- at least all of us in the West-- be Apiciuses today.

[racheld]

What shold it han avayled to werreye........

Ah, the days of a 110 degree classroom at Ole Miss, translating Chaucer and trying to IMAGINE a chilblain. Thanks for the deja vu.

[dougery]

Without a doubt, modern hygiene practices and the sneeze guard.

Electric home refridgeration also...