Victorian food brands still extant

[Mercury Wells]

And a new entry to the US food list at number "whatever" Wolferman's Bakery 1888, now owned by Harry & David (Rosenberg).

[J. Wilhelm]

https://www.wolfermans.com/w/view/about01

In 1888, Wolferman's started as a corner grocery store in Kansas City, Missouri. By 1910,
we were baking our legendary super-thick English muffins using only the best
ingredients. Our recipe is the same today as it was back then, and the English muffins
that began with a loyal following in Kansas City are now enjoyed around the country.

Wolferman's baked goods (Bakery founded by Louis Wolferman in Kansas City, Missouri, 1888)

Thank you Mr Wells. Now that's a brand I've not heard of. There must be hundreds of similar businesses who have a relatively local following and which we haven't discovered yet. Also I should note that "English Muffins are probably equivalent to either a "muffin" or a "crumpet" in the UK. If I understand correctly there will be differences in both, and the US version will be equal to only one of them. I hazard a guess that English Muffins are in fact Crumpets by the look in wiki.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_muffin
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumpet

[von Corax]

Thank you Mr Wells.

(Psst! It's Ms Wells!)

[J. Wilhelm]

Thank you Mr Wells.

(Psst! It's Ms Wells!)

Holy Jehosaphat!  My apologies, Ms. Wells! All of these years I never noticed! I never bothered to check the profile!

[SeVeNeVeS]

Thank you Mr Wells.

(Psst! It's Ms Wells!)

I've been here for 10 years or so, to my apparent shame, I too assumed Mr..........

Oooops! Note to myself....... Must pay more attention sometimes........

Sorry, Ms Wells.

[Mercury Wells]

Thank you Mr Wells.

(Psst! It's Ms Wells!)

I've been here for 10 years or so, to my apparent shame, I too assumed Mr..........

Oooops! Note to myself....... Must pay more attention sometimes........

Sorry, Ms Wells.

Are you Gentlemen, sure that I am a Ms.?  

[SeVeNeVeS]

Thank you Mr Wells.

(Psst! It's Ms Wells!)

I've been here for 10 years or so, to my apparent shame, I too assumed Mr..........

Oooops! Note to myself....... Must pay more attention sometimes........

Sorry, Ms Wells.

Are you Gentlemen, sure that I am a Ms.?  

Mrs? I shall think of you as Enigma Wells from now on..........

[Mercury Wells]

Thank you Mr Wells.

(Psst! It's Ms Wells!)

I've been here for 10 years or so, to my apparent shame, I too assumed Mr..........

Oooops! Note to myself....... Must pay more attention sometimes........

Sorry, Ms Wells.

Are you Gentlemen, sure that I am a Ms.?  

Mrs? I shall think of you as Enigma Wells from now on..........

[J. Wilhelm]

Ms, Mrs, M, Mme, or Mx, all with the utmost respect! 

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Mercury is obviously fluid in more than one respect.

[Mercury Wells]

Just calling me Wells, is good enough for me.  

[Mercury Wells]

Euro list:-

LU Biscuits 1846 (now own by Kraft/Mondelez)
Menier Chocolate 1816 (now owned by Nestles)

[J. Wilhelm]

Euro list:-

LU Biscuits 1846 (now own by Kraft/Mondelez)
Menier Chocolate 1816 (now owned by Nestles)

Good find. Menier is old enough to enter the UK and US lists as well (factory in New York, 1891), although I've never seen the brand in the West or South of the US.

[Mercury Wells]

Should I do a separate Euro food/drink list or just compile one in this thread?

[J. Wilhelm]

Should I do a separate Euro food/drink list or just compile one in this thread?

Well, that depends on your degree of patience. Besides the individual posts, my lists are by default separate and updated from time to time and posted in the thread.

I have separate lists in text format in my computer, in case of forum malfunction and such. Every now and then I have to post the latest updated list as I see fit. Right now I'm far behind on my updates, and I need to scan at least 30 pages of the thread, to make sure all items were written down. The US list is so long that I've reached the maximum number of text lines for the quote gadget in the forum. I have to start splitting the list in two. The Mexican and Japanese lists are much shorter, so that's is not an issue.

[J. Wilhelm]

Noooooo!

I didn't know where to place this post, so I'm placing it here, because the news are very much related to food, and while not Steampunk it could be considered Diesel or Atomic Age in nature.

Outside of Texas no one of you will know what I'm writing about, but suffice it to say that a major Texas tradition just went under with COVID. The tradition in question is a restaurant chain called "Luby's" The stock owners have decided to sell all of their assets including several food chains that joined the franchise in the early 21st century. It's not clear who will buy what, for how much, or whether the Luby's name will even exist after the sale.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby%27s

Luby's is different from a diner, in that the format of the restaurant is a tray style buffet line with limited waitress attention. It's a relic of the Atomic Age, having been founded in San Antonio in 1947 during WWII.  As such its probably one of the last restaurant chainsiI. The state to have survived since the end of WWII (the other one I can think of is a diner format hamburger restaurant called Jim's - Hamburgers with a Texas theme, serving travelers on the road near major highway intersections , basically).

In the heyday of the brick and mortar consumerist culture of the 1970s, just after the Vietnam War, Luby's franchises could be found inside shopping malls, long before anyone had ever seen a food court. Back in those days, prior to the 1980s, there were no food courts nor full fledged restaurants inside a shopping area, unless you were a giant shopping mall (for a the Era) such as The Galleria "in Dallas or a giant department store, such as Harrod's in London.

In the past 30 years it had gained a reputation of being a restaurant for pensioners, given that the old Atomic Age American cuisine is far less interesting to the younger crowd than say ethnic cuisine or high brow trendy fusion restaurants. Nevertheless the chain persisted, buying several chains of fast-food restaurants, and even started selling their signature dishes as frozen food available at the supermarket for the last couple of years. A few plates on their menu were famous, most particularly their "Macaroni with Cheese" pasta (which is bar none the best I've ever tasted anywhere in the US) , as well as roast beef, fried fish and chocolate cream pies.

With the fall of Luby's we get yet another nail on the coffin of the 20th century. I shall have to buy a frozen tray of their macaroni and some of their fried and breaded fish fillets just to have a last taste of history.

[Mercury Wells]

Re:- Luby's...,I would place them both in the Diesel & Atomic ages.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

US list:-

Libby's (Libby, McNeill & Libby) Est. 1869.

[EDIT]Sorry. Ignore this this entry, as "Libby's" was mentioned within the first 10 pages...but no information was given/offered of said company.[/EDIT]

[J. Wilhelm]

Re:- Luby's...,I would place them both in the Diesel & Atomic ages.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

US list:-

Libby's (Libby, McNeill & Libby) Est. 1869.

[EDIT]Sorry. Ignore this this entry, as "Libby's" was mentioned within the first 10 pages...but no information was given/offered of said company.[/EDIT]

There should be at least a link to the Libby's web page somewhere. The company started as Libby, McNeill & Libby, as a seafood canning company, but their most famous product became canned "Corned Beef. " The company was founded in Chicago Illinois in 1869.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby%27s

Libby's sold corned beef in a distinctive trapezoidal can (1898)


Libby, McNeill and Libby salmon fishing vessel, 1918

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&)

Yeah, as far as Luby's (not to be confused with Libby's), it was founded in 1947 in San Antonio, Texas, United States by Robert Luby, but there's no Diesel food list. We could start a new thread.There's a couple of members who might be interested in such Americana though, we just don't have enough Diesel people in the forum I think. And only until very very recently did Luby's became a brand to be found at the supermarket, sort of like a novelty kind of product, mostly frozen dinners (similar to what other chain restaurants did, such as The Cheesecake Factory, TGI Friday's and PF Chang's). Their Macaroni and Cheese pasta is phenomenal and worth the $6 for a large-ish box, but I recoiled a bit from their breaded and fried cod fillets for $9. They're good though, if they managed to copy the flavours and texture.

So I guess I'll have to get some of those, set up a glass counter buffet in my kitchen, complete with infrared lamps and don a paper hat, a large spoon and an attitude (actually that's really unfair, I've never been "given attitude" by Luby's staff, what is true is that the a pensioner clientele became predominant over the years).   For me, this is strictly "memory lane," as the restaurant was really never that great, it was just decent food available at (or a brick and mortar location near) the mall before food courts existed. When you're a child and all it means is that you are closer to visiting the toy shop at the shopping center, the food becomes more like a glorious parade  

Jeeezus. I was looking for some old video of a 1940s Luby's diner, and all I could find was "Luby's 1991 massacre" "Luby's shooting survivors" and some training videos. Surely there's a 1940s or 1950s movies news reel somewhere  

So I'll just post these videos for laughs...

Introduction to the Luby's Line

Luby's Frozen Meals

Well, we got him to state that "it's the same fish caught from a boat with the same hook."  

[Mercury Wells]

Euro list:-

Demel Pastry & Chocolaterie Est. 1786

[J. Wilhelm]

Euro list:-

Demel Pastry & Chocolaterie Est. 1786

Dear, Mercury, one passage from your link to that Viennese pastry shop called my attention:

It was in 1786 across the now former Royal & Imperial Hofburgtheatre that confectioner Ludwig Dehne opened his confiserie, which almost instantly flourished into a success story. By the time the confectionery became the Demel that we know and love today in 1856, it had already become a hotspot among aristocrats and Vienna's bourgeoisie.

Whether it was young Emperor Franz Joseph I., who would write love-letters about the large variety of treats or his Elizabeth, who could not get enough of the famous violet-sorbet – Demel became a pilgrimage site for those with a sweet tooth and kept its status even after the fall of the monarchy. Anna Demel, the first woman to ever receive the title of ,Councillor of Commerce' in 1957, strictly guarded and assured that the old standards and traditions were kept, and so Demel continues to be a portal to monarchic times until today.

If young Emperor Franz Joseph was well acquainted with the K. u. K. Hofzuckerbäckerei Demel, then it's almost a certainty that his younger brother, Ferdinand Maximilian, visited the pastry shop as well. I wonder if any of that, or maybe a chef or two were brought to Chapultepec Castle in the 1860s. Maximilian was a renowned foodie. His wine cava alone is said to have housed 10000 bottles of wine! How many of those recipes were adopted Mexican pastry shops?!?


Ref. Trip Advisor, the 10 Best Pastry Shops in Mexico City.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurants-g150800-zfg9901-Mexico_City_Central_Mexico_and_Gulf_Coast.html

Ref. "Maximilian and Carlota in Mexico, History of the Second Empire," Diana Editors, 1976, pp. 193-194

The life of the imperial couple passed in the midst of allegories, since Mexican things were only seen subjectively.  Their mentalities and habits were still tied to Europe.  It was not conceivable that a Mexican ruler would take care of "likes of the most refined gastronome" of his cooks, who'd prepare "dishes" according to French cuisine, nor that he would like, as Maximilian did, to listen during the meal to "anecdotes, spicy tales and adventures  ", nor that at lunch, an orchestra performed selected pieces for their delight, nor that they dressed with exaggerated elegance, nor that they drank champagne, sherry, Bordeaux and wines from Hungary and the Rhine in the morning and afternoon.

The prince, having finished the agreement at seven in the morning, mounted a horse, "a horse of light gait to which it had baptized. with the name of Anteburro", for which it dressed "Mexican charro suit of blue cloth, with silver buttons and wide gray hat with white shawl" and used "cowboy" saddle.

All this made the life of the emperors served well by many personnel.  "The servants of the Chamber were twenty-six: the kitchen had a counter with a budget of one hundred and twenty-five pesos a month, a great chef with one hundred and twenty-five, and six galopines, pastry chefs, or assistants;  [in] the stable, a chief and six waiters.  In one month, three thousand eight hundred and fifty-two pesos were spent in the kitchen, apart from the wines and salaries. "The expenses of the individuals who went to Miramar to offer the crown of Mexico amounted to one hundred four thousand nine hundred pesos.  

Restoration work and furnishings of the National Palace amounted to one hundred and one thousand pesos and the expenses of the reception of the emperors, one hundred and fifteen thousand. "

Maximilian I on horseback wearing a Charro suit

Ref." A Dream, an Empire. Cuisine During the Tenure of Maximilian and Carlota in the Second Empire"
Cloisternomy Online Magazine article, Sister Juana Cloister University, Mexico, July, 3, 2019.
https://www.elclaustro.edu.mx/claustronomia/index.php/investigacion/item/166-un-sueno-un-imperio-la-cocina-durante-la-estancia-de-maximiliano-y-carlota-en-mexico

Some point out that the emperors liked the Mole sauces and other delicacies of the national cuisine, and it is even claimed that the Chiles Rellenos with cheese were a delight for Maximilian, but this is only an assumption because it is known that he suffered from stomach diseases.  From the imperial cuisine came the delights of French and Viennese cuisine that over time began to to be dressed with native products, as Carlota tells us in a letter to Eugenia de Montijo, Empress Consort of France.

It is also a time when coffee makes inroads into Mexican society.  Of the most famous places and with some exclusivity were the Eliseo and San Cosme "tívolis," which were beautiful spaces with kiosks, waterfalls and large gardens ideal for the most important receptions of social and political life in Mexico, and where French cuisine began to enchant the palates of the aristocracy and one or another noble.

An enigmatic character in imperial cuisine was Tudos, that Hungarian cook (for some only a myth from history and for others more an example of loyalty to the crown) who accompanied Maximiliano to his death.  He is said to have been the head of the kitchen and had at his service four cooks, two confectioners, six waiters, a baker, and a food inspector for the emperor and empress;  Other sources refer to a cook with the last name Gräf who arrived before Maximilian and Carlota, to work with everything related to cooking upon the arrival of their royal highnesses.  An important part of the castle was the cellar, where the good taste of the emperor was denoted in the wines brought from Hungary and France.

When a gala lunch or dinner was offered, the guests had to be half an hour early and be in the Yucatan Room to meet with Maximiliano.  Upon passing the Imperial Dining Room (which still survives in the Chapultepec castle) Maximiliano and Carlota were the last to enter and both upon arrival and upon their departure, everyone had to stand up, and the chamber orchestra played the national anthem of  Mexico.  The clothing to be worn at a court event followed the canons of the French fashion of the time according to gender: men in great uniforms while women in great gala.

The glassware and other items such as silver trays, fountains or plates came from Bohemia.  The earthenware used was ordered to be made in Paris and had the imperial monogram with the legend "Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico".  There was no lack of dishes made with pheasant, quail, pork loins, turkey, chicken, ribs or fish fillets that were dipped in hollandaise, truffle or fruit sauce;  There were also asparagus, pate, artichokes, or mushrooms as garnishes.  Desserts could be vanilla or chocolate creams, some preserves, ice creams, crepes, cakes and fruits.  Of course, the menu had to be approved by Carlota.

Today, these great feasts of the Mexican court, in addition to recreating them in our minds, we can reproduce them. Some historians assure that in the Second Mexican Empire Crêpes of huitlacoche were born as well as those of Poblano chile strips.  We can pair old flavors with new trends, for example by preparing quail in mango sauce or a volcano with asparagus foam.

Fernando del Paso in his book "News from the Empire," intertwines the love that Carlota professed for Mexico, referring to the country's cuisine:

"I am Mama Carlota.  They, the Mexicans, said that Europe's aunt [...] was going to be called Mamá Carlota.  They Mexicans made me their mother, and I made them my children.  I am Mama Carlota, mother of all Indians and all mestizos [...] I am not French, nor Belgian, nor Italian: I am Mexican because they changed my blood in Mexico.  Because there they stained it with Campeche wood.  Because in Mexico they perfumed it with vanilla.  And I am the mother of all of them because I, *talking to Maximilian*, am their history and I am crazy.  [...] It was their fruits: it was the Soursop fruit that Colonel Feliciano Rodríguez gave me and the pineapples, the peaches from Ixmiquilpan that poisoned my soul with their sweetness.  [...] To Napoleón and Eugenia, tell them that I am going to eat prickly pears with the Marquesa Calderón de la Barca, even though my tongue and hands are prickling.  And your brother Francisco José tell him that I am going to Acapulco to eat mangoes with Baron de Humboldt even though I'll die of embarrassment [2].

Empress Carlota, 1864.

[Mercury Wells]

UK/Empire list:-
Brooke Bond Tea 1869

[J. Wilhelm]

Another one for the Mexican list.

In November of 1880, a French impresario by the name of Clément Jacques arrived in Mexico and began a number of business ventures as varied as they were numerous. He was involved in cork and bottle manufacture, deck cards manufacture, wood processing, munition and pyrotechnic items. He even had a hand at introducing the public lottery to the country.

It was his bottling company which first gave an indication of where the future would lie. Under the name Clemente Jacques y Cia. in 1887, Jacques built a packing plant in the State of Campeche. After the initial sale success with canned Jalapeño peppers, his business took off. His line of products is similar to the American Del Monte brand, basically concentrating on canned produce, ketchup and the like, but also includes some canned meats and sausages.

http://www.clementejacques.com.mx/historia.php

Export version packaging

Clemente Jacques canned produce (Founded 1887, as Clemente Jacques y Cia. State of Campeche, México

The brand apparently has remained in Mexican hands in spite of the transnational company incursions in the 20th century.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

How do you pronounce Chipotle?  Over here, it appears to read Chip-OH-tel or perhaps rhymes with bottle as it has no accents over any of the vowels to indicate otherwise. Do you use accents, ie. grave/acute or similar?

[von Corax]

How do you pronounce Chipotle?  Over here, it appears to read Chip-OH-tel or perhaps rhymes with bottle as it has no accents over any of the vowels to indicate otherwise. Do you use accents, ie. grave/acute or similar?

AFAIK it's pronounced "chih-POTE-lee." A can in my pantry has no accents on the word.

[J. Wilhelm]

How do you pronounce Chipotle?  Over here, it appears to read Chip-OH-tel or perhaps rhymes with bottle as it has no accents over any of the vowels to indicate otherwise. Do you use accents, ie. grave/acute or similar?

Close except for the "tel" which is incorrect. Try "Chee - póh - tleh" in Latin vowel pronunciation, and with the implied accute accent on the "o" and see if that makes sense. In this case the accute accent is not written, but implied. Spanish is a very rigid language, but not on everything. Accents are one of those issues where Spanish is all over the place in terms of rules.

SNIP
AFAIK it's pronounced "chih-POTE-lee." A can in my pantry has no accents on the word.

In Spanish, accents are not always written explicitly, and a single diacritical mark, the accute accent, is used over a vowel when needed (eg "á"). As an example see the word "que" ("what" in English)

¿Qué pasó? = What happened?
Esto es lo que pasó = This is what happened
Lo que él me dio = What he gave me

The word "que" will be written sometimes with an accent and sometimes not. When you verbally accentuate a word and then write it down, the accute accent is written to emphasize that pronunciation. Which means that qué and que are pronounced differently in the examples above - but the difference is very subtle, because in both cases verbal emphasis is on the same letter, and it's just a matter of degree.  "Qué," above, is accented to focus your attention on the the query, *what* happened?, ie "whát happened?" but not when you are explaining what happened.

But it also depends which country you ask. The Royal Academy of the Spanish Language is simplifying the rules as time moves forward and not everyone is following their recommendations; for example, they're suggesting that accent marks over upper case vowels be omitted and monosyllabic words should no longer be accented, but everyone is still doing it anyway.

There is active divergence of orthography, especially after Latin American independence from Spain. According to Spain since the late 1700s, México should be written Méjico, and printing dating back to the last few years of New Spain bear that fact (Tejas, Méjico, Javier, instead of Texas, Mexico, Xavier). And at the end of the 20th century in Spain, Septiembre became Setiembre, and Latin Americans are just not buying it. Most native proper names in Mexico retain their 16th century Spanish orthography.