So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Fading Fast]

View attachment 113310
Coca~Cola in glass bottles also sold for 5¢.

The Frito Company was born in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression.
The family of Charles Elmer (C. E.) Doolin (1903-1959) owned the Highland
Park Confectionary in San Antonio, and Doolin, twenty-eight at the time,
wanted to add a salty snack to their repertoire. He responded to an ad in
the San Antonio Express newspaper,

The ad, placed by Gustavo Olguin, listed for sale an original recipe for
fried corn chips along with an adapted potato ricer and nineteen
retail accounts.

Doolin bought the small business venture for $100, and began to
manufacture the chips in his mother’s kitchen at first with the help
of his father, Charles Bernard Doolin; mother, Daisy Dean
Stephenson Doolin; and brother, Earl Doolin.
These four founders made up the first board of directors, with
Charles Bernard Doolin serving as the first chairman.

First location, a garage in San Antonio.
View attachment 113307
1940s
View attachment 113308


For the record, Frito-Lay did not invent tortilla chips; they were just the
first to make and sell them for a mass U.S. market. The original tortilla
chip is widely credited to Rebecca Webb Carranza, who is said to have
begun frying tortilla pieces at her Southern California tortilla factory in
the 1940s.

Cool stuff. If I've learned one thing from Fedora Lounge, it's that, given enough time to research, we'll find that somebody was actually frying up tortilla pieces in 1910 or 1890, oh, and here's a newspaper article from 1912 about the local sensation or here is an old B&W photo of someone's grandmother in 1899 with her "famous" creation. Or, back in the 16th Century, when the Spanish invaded Mexico, they learned of a local food of cut up, stale tortilla that were they covered in pig fat and cooked in a skillet...

My point, we seem to always be finding earlier antecedents to almost everything. To be fair, sometime that early knowledge was lost or localized and the person who later "discovered / invented" something truly did work without any of this former knowledge - but it is rare that something doesn't have an earlier progenitor of some sort.

 

[Harp]

Slipped away from my desk last nite to catch a train and deli; and it was snowing in April... Love this weather: overcast and snow.
Crashed the card at the deli register later. March madness maximum overdrive mahem; usually when I exceed the speed limit a simple
fine is tacked but the red light flashed along with the plastic. Money clipped the bill, back at the ranch settled in with sandwich, beer,
intending to listen to the Cubs-Brewers duel. Radio baseball nut, but the dial was tuned elsewhere to an excellent legal analysis
of the Mueller investigation. My shirtfront poker read is that the SC lacks sufficiency to subpoena presidential deposition; while the
incumbent would be best advised to listen to his lawyers and resist SC depose. Reveille is at 04:00 and shaving I recall that I missed
the game. Parked at Starbucks behind java and the Sun Times sports page I learn Lester caught a thief at third. The southpaw bounced
his throw to Bryant but nailed it. And Heyward hit a two-run homer in the ninth. Heyward.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Cool stuff. If I've learned one thing from Fedora Lounge, it's that, given enough time to research, we'll find that somebody was actually frying up tortilla pieces in 1910 or 1890, oh, and here's a newspaper article from 1912 about the local sensation or here is an old B&W photo of someone's grandmother in 1899 with her "famous" creation. Or, back in the 16th Century, when the Spanish invaded Mexico, they learned of a local food of cut up, stale tortilla that were they covered in pig fat and cooked in a skillet...

My point, we seem to always be finding earlier antecedents to almost everything. To be fair, sometime that early knowledge was lost or localized and the person who later "discovered / invented" something truly did work without any of this former knowledge - but it is rare that something doesn't have an earlier progenitor of some sort.

Another part of the context so far as snack foods are concerned is that during the Depression everyone was looking for get-rich-quick schemes, and cheap, portable comestibles were seen as an ideal field for exploration. The cheap magazines of the early 1930s were filled with little ads for various snack-food ideas and gimmicks: "greaseless potato chips" were a favorite, along with "Spudnuts" -- donuts made with potato flour -- and various types of fried, extruded, or puffed corn snacks, anything that would take a cheap bulk commodity and turn it into a product you could manufacture on your kitchen table and sell inexpensively to neighborhood grocers. It wasn't so much a matter of creative inventiveness that generated these types of products as it was a sense of desperation -- the out-of-work file clerk who had failed at running a minature golf course and selling cheap hosiery door-to-door was willing to try anything to make a few bucks, and occasionaly these products generated enough local interest to get something bigger going.

 

[2jakes]

Another part of the context so far as snack foods are concerned is that during the Depression everyone was looking for get-rich-quick schemes, and cheap, portable comestibles were seen as an ideal field for exploration. The cheap magazines of the early 1930s were filled with little ads for various snack-food ideas and gimmicks: "greaseless potato chips" were a favorite, along with "Spudnuts" -- donuts made with potato flour -- and various types of fried, extruded, or puffed corn snacks, anything that would take a cheap bulk commodity and turn it into a product you could manufacture on your kitchen table and sell inexpensively to neighborhood grocers. It wasn't so much a matter of creative inventiveness that generated these types of products as it was a sense of desperation -- the out-of-work file clerk who had failed at running a minature golf course and selling cheap hosiery door-to-door was willing to try anything to make a few bucks, and occasionaly these products generated enough local interest to get something bigger going.

My father enjoyed eating a slice of plain white bread with sugar.
I believe he mixed margarine with the sugar.
He also enjoyed drinking butter-milk.
I tried it once but I threw it up!
Same with deer or goat meat, the wild taste is too strong for me.
I’m sure if I was starving, I would have to eat it.

But, if you pass me a plate of fried liver and onions....
I’ll pass it right back to you.

My grandmother owned a glass plate with a cone in the middle. She had two orange trees in
the backyard. She would slice the oranges in half and use this plate to squeeze the juice out.
She mixed the orange juice with sugar and water in a pitcher.

To this day, I can only enjoy store bought orange juice after I add plenty of water, sugar and ice cubes.
Otherwise drinking the store-bought orange juice straight will burn my throat.

 

[Fading Fast]

Somewhat related to Lizzie's Depression notes. Everyone responds to life experiences in their own way. I like bread and butter as a meal - I find it simple but flavorful and filling but not stuffing. Also, it's easy. My dad would see me eat this and shake his head and say, but we have "real" food in the house why eat a "shadow" sandwich?

He grew up very poor in the depression and, I'm guessing, as he said very little, had eaten plenty of "shadow" sandwiches, so, to him, no one would do that if they didn't have to. A meal to him meant meat or, at absolute minimum, eggs, but not bread and butter. Meanwhile, some of his friends (he had the same ones his entire life) continued to eat many depression foods even thought they didn't have to.

Everyone responded in their own way.

 

[2jakes]

Somewhat related to Lizzie's Depression notes. Everyone responds to life experiences in their own way. I like bread and butter as a meal - I find it simple but flavorful and filling but not stuffing. Also, it's easy. My dad would see me eat this and shake his head and say, but we have "real" food in the house why eat a "shadow" sandwich?

He grew up very poor in the depression and, I'm guessing, as he said very little, had eaten plenty of "shadow" sandwiches, so, to him, no one would do that if they didn't have to. A meal to him meant meat or, at absolute minimum, eggs, but not bread and butter. Meanwhile, some of his friends (he had the same ones his entire life) continued to eat many depression foods even thought they didn't have to.

Everyone responded IN their own way.

One thing you never did in front of my mother when eating at the table was throw
a slice of bread to whoever was sitting across the table (mostly my sisters)
when they would ask for bread.
If you did, you could expect a rap on the head or a pinch on the arm from her.
I thought that was so barbaric to discipline like that, but she was my ma and I loved
her nevertheless.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've had a taste for mustard sandwiches all my life -- just two or three pieces of bread with a schmear of mustard between them. I would take them to school occasionally, and when I did my mother would get a call from the teacher wanting to know if we had enough to eat.

 

[redlinerobert]

One thing you never did in front of my mother when eating at the table was throw
a slice of bread to whoever was sitting across the table (mostly my sisters)
when they would ask for bread.
If you did, you could expect a rap on the head or a pinch on the arm from her.
I thought that was so barbaric to discipline like that, but she was my ma and I loved
her nevertheless.

Whenever I was out of line according the Law of Mom, she'd yank on my ear. Probably why one is longer than the other.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've had a taste for mustard sandwiches all my life -- just two or three pieces of bread with a schmear of mustard between them. I would take them to school occasionally, and when I did my mother would get a call from the teacher wanting to know if we had enough to eat.

Holy Cow. I ate butter sandwiches regularly at school and also skipped lunch a bunch. I had to make it myself, my parents viewed their job as having to buy the food (I could make the sandwich as they saw it), so a lot of times I didn't have lunch - my choice not to make it. On those mornings, I'd eat a big breakfast and just skipped lunch. Not once did a teacher or school administrator ever say anything to me.

One thing you never did in front of my mother when eating at the table was throw
a slice of bread to whoever was sitting across the table (mostly my sisters)
when they would ask for bread.
If you did, you could expect a rap on the head or a pinch on the arm from her.
I thought that was so barbaric to discipline like that, but she was my ma and I loved
her nevertheless.

There was no throwing of food at our table. My parents weren't fussy or anything - life had been too hard for them for that - but they did enforce what I'd call basic table manners where throwing food was definitely out.

 

[2jakes]

Whenever I was out of line according the Law of Mom, she'd yank on my ear. Probably why one is longer than the other.

Did your folks ever try to make you feel guilty about all the “starving kids in China”
when they served spinach at the table?

I had to duck out the back door kitchen fast when I answered with;

"They’re more than welcome to my spinach anytime ma...”

 

[BobHufford]

Did your folks ever try to make you feel guilty about all the “starving kids in China”
when they served spinach at the table?

"Name three..." (smack!)

 

[LizzieMaine]

We didn't need to worry about China, we had people starving right in our town -- hence my teachers' inquiry. Twenty-five percent local unemployment will do that.

 

[HanauMan]

Er, I love spinach. It was onions with me, hated them as a kid and still hate them now.

I with you guys on the bread, though. I also am happy just eating freshly made bread (not the white stuff you buy at the store though but the European sourdough type that the Germans, Poles and Jewish folk make} with butter and a cup of coffee. That tends to be my main meal whenever I go to a farmer's market to buy bread.

 

[KY Gentleman]

Anyone else have parents with the audacity to tell you candied yams actually taste like candy?
It was a lie repeated every Thanksgiving my entire childhood.

 

[Fading Fast]

Did your folks ever try to make you feel guilty about all the “starving kids in China”
when they served spinach at the table?

I had to duck out the back door kitchen fast when I answered with;

"They’re more than welcome to my spinach anytime ma...”

They didn't need China as I got the "In the Depression we'd have killed to have any food so nice...," so I quickly learned not to complain - life went much smoother that way.

 

[tonyb]

We too often view poverty as a moral failing. But when everybody's broke -- or most everybody, as was the case during the Depression -- there's no stigma attached to it.

I'm not a child of the Depression, but my parents were. My siblings and I and many of our classmates were sent off to school in patched clothing. Mom, who, like most moms of her time and place, knew her way around a sewing machine, detached shirt collars, turned them around and reattached them to squeeze some extra life out of them. Just about every kid with older brothers and sisters wore the clothes those older kids were wearing a year or two earlier.

There remain sub-populations where such is still common, I suppose. But clothing represents a relatively small portion of the average household budget these days. I suspect that modern youngsters gazing upon old snapshots of their parents and grandparents would think we were impoverished, what with those patched-up and ill-fitting clothes and all. And maybe we were, relatively speaking. But we never knew it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's an unfortunate legacy of the poisonous Puritanism the first colonists brought with them from Europe, a vicious perversion of the very essence of Christianity that would have set Christ himself to knocking over tables and cracking his whip. "Whitewashed sepulchres" indeed.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Did your folks ever try to make you feel guilty about all the “starving kids in China”
when they served spinach at the table?

I had to duck out the back door kitchen fast when I answered with;

"They’re more than welcome to my spinach anytime ma...”

I'm old enough that it was still, "the starving kids in Europe," although I doubt that anyone in Europe was starving by that time.

Dad: "There's some starving kid in Europe who'd give his right ARM for that bowl of soup!!"

Me (age four): "If he sends me the arm, I'll send him the soup."

 

[Fading Fast]

That's an unfortunate legacy of the poisonous Puritanism the first colonists brought with them from Europe, a vicious perversion of the very essence of Christianity that would have set Christ himself to knocking over tables and cracking his whip. "Whitewashed sepulchres" indeed.

Maybe because my parents were poor in the depression, but that wasn't an attitude I encountered at home, nor to be fair, in school or the neighborhood either (of course, there were always one-off jerks). The general attitude was respect - rich, poor or in between, be respectful. My parents lived it - it was the attitude I saw from teachers - and, again, it's overall, just what I saw around me.

To be sure, we knew of some people - family or friends - whose choices and actions repeatedly lead to bad results and, eventually, my parents did judge, but my view at the time and now, is that it was a legitimate assessment made with knowledge of the facts, attempts to help and, eventual, frustration.

Poverty, wealth (the flip of judging the poor negatively for being poor, IMHO, can be a default negative view of the rich for being rich) or in between - the default setting I was taught was a general respect of others until you knew by fact and thoughtful analysis that it wasn't deserved (and we didn't go looking for that result). It pained my parents the few time I saw them have to withdraw respect.

 

[tonyb]

It just breaks my heart to see those picked-on rich people. Makes me wanna take up a collection or something.