Virginia Scott Jenkins. Bananas: An American History. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000. xiii + 210 pp. $16.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-56098-966-0.

Andrew F. Smith. Popped Culture: A Social History of in America. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. xxi + 264 pp. $16.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-56098-921-9.

Andrew F. Smith. Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. xiii + 242 pp. $16.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-56098-993-6.

Reviewed by Trudy Eden

Published on H-Amstdy (July, 2004)

Food history, like all historical felds, has had (1908), William J. Ashley, The Bread of Our Forefa‐ its active and dormant periods. Historians in the thers (1928), and William G. Panscher, Baking in frst part of the twentieth century explored it America (1956). While providing an understand‐ avidly. Many of them sought to give an expansive ing of food supplies, practices, and habits over view of the cultivation, distribution, preparation, long chronological periods and broad geographi‐ and/or consumption of a particular product. Ex‐ cal spaces, these texts come up against a major amples of this type of macro-view history include impediment to in-depth analysis. For much of hu‐ Edward R. Everson, Beverages, Past and Present man history, food has been a local thing. People H-Net Reviews have grown and distributed much of their food former are inclusive. In other words, they over‐ supply locally and have prepared and consumed look context for detail. Of course, not all studies it according to local custom. This tendency does can do all things and food history needs both such not mean that local customs cannot be compared approaches, but cognizance and consideration of and classifed in a larger context--there are such related scholarship on food and food habits is des‐ things as "French cuisine" and "British food" (to perately needed. The history of American food use the problem addressed by Stephen Mennell in has not only come of age as a valid academic feld, All Manners of Food [1985]), but within each of it also has enough substance for a lengthy and those categories there exists a universe of variety complex historiography. It is time for more of its and meaning. While it is important to understand practitioners to incorporate that historiography the larger picture, the drawback of many such into their studies. In other words, ketchup, pop‐ studies is that they miss the sociological, chrono‐ corn, and bananas not only can go together, they logical and geographical variety in the enterprise should, even must, go together. Here's why. of eating. Andrew Smith's intention in writing Popped Take, for example's sake, the subject of eating Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America is pork. If one only looks at pork in a general way, to tell the story of the origin of popcorn in Anglo- then it is correct to state that people ate pork American culture and why "the mainstream em‐ heartily in America in 1650 and in 1850 and in braced it" and "enshrined [it] in our national 2003. However, who ate pork (the social distribu‐ mythology." In doing so, he vowed to disprove the tion among men and women, the wealthy, poor, "myths and twice-told tales" that he felt made up black, white, Asian, native American, etc.), what the bulk of popcorn history at the time he re‐ parts of the hog each of those people ate (baby searched and wrote the book (p. xvii). Popcorn, back ribs, tenderloin, chops, hot dogs, or fried like other types of maize, originated in Central rinds), how they prepared it (roasted, barbecued, America. One of six kinds of maize, it had small boiled, pickled), how they consumed it (appetizer, kernels with extremely hard seed coats which main course, snack, as a roast or steak, stripped made it difcult to chew or grind into four. Al‐ and stir fried, or pulled), and what they threw or though each ear of corn had lots of kernels, they gave away (to other people or animals for food, or were small, which made it more labor-intensive as trash) cannot be adequately analyzed in the than other varieties of maize. In addition, like oth‐ broad view. (Nor can why people chose to eat er types of maize, popcorn hybridizes easily and pork in the frst place.) Is it because they thought so it had to be grown in isolation. As a result, it it tasted good or was good for them? Was it be‐ was not an important food crop among the Native cause pork was cheap or, perhaps, expensive? If American cultures that grew it or among Anglo- the answer to any one of these questions is yes, American culture. then one must ask "why?" If the answer is no, By the 1820s, however, seed companies began then the next question is "why not?" to feature popcorn varieties in their catalogs, Cognizant of these shortcomings, historians of though whether due to supply or demand Smith more recent date have focused their attentions on does not make clear. By the 1840s, popping corn specifcs, most frequently on a particular food‐ entertained many Americans, most of them, it stuf. In the past two decades, numerous analyses seems, in New England. Popcorn companies be‐ have been written on topics such as sugar, maize, gan marketing the seeds for consumption in the potatoes, salt, chocolate popcorn, ketchup, and ba‐ 1860s and a decade later it was a "much relished nanas.[1] These studies can be as exclusive as the food" (p. 24), predominantly among the middle

2 H-Net Reviews and upper classes. After the Civil War, Americans "Jify Pop," microwave popcorn, hot air poppers, could and did consume popcorn at fairs, circuses and pre-popped popcorn all helped shore up the and expositions. They ate it plain and as a confec‐ market as did Orville Redenbacher's introduction tion like popcorn balls. By the 1890s, due to the of gourmet popcorn, and the American obsession expanded technology of moveable commercial for low-fat, high carbohydrate foods. Ironically, popcorn poppers, Americans could buy freshly this obsession cut dramatically into popcorn sales made popcorn from street vendors. Limited and at movie theaters when scientists released a study short-term use was made of popcorn four as a that showed that a large container of buttered cooked cereal eaten with milk and sugar and as a popcorn, which was more than likely cooked in coagulant in commercially prepared chocolates, coconut or palm oil, contained as much fat as but these uses were minor in comparison to the eight Big Macs. others. This story is an interesting one. Smith accom‐ The advent of radio advertising helped boost plished his goal of presenting a documented histo‐ popcorn sales, as did the sale of it by initially re‐ ry of popcorn that dispels some of the cultural leg‐ luctant movie theater owners, who thought ofer‐ ends around it. He has compiled an extensive bib‐ ing it to their customers "beneath their dignity" liography on its cultivation, use, and marketing. (p. 100). During the Depression, however, when He is not so successful with his second goal, that they realized that not only would popcorn attract of explaining why Americans have embraced pop‐ customers to their theaters, and that they could corn in the way and to the extent they have. In make a whopping proft from its sale, they gave fact, he leaves the reader wondering whether up their scruples about noisy eaters and messy popcorn was simply a tool of our budding capital‐ foors and gladly ofered it. Up until the 1950s, ist society to make money of a responsive public, most of consumed in the United or whether consumer demand drove the market, States was prepared and eaten outside the home, or whether it was a combination of both depend‐ half of it in movie theaters. When television sup‐ ing on the time period and place. If it was de‐ planted movies as a major form of entertainment mand, why did consumers want it? What was it in the 1950s and 1960s, popcorn producers and about the combination of white fuf, crunch, and marketers had to scramble to retain their markets vegetable that made it so desirable? Was it one of and get people to fx and eat it at home. Home ap‐ the many items Americans embraced in their de‐ pliances such as the electric corn popper, and termined quest, a la Richard Bushman, for refne‐ heavy marketing of the great compatibility of pop‐ ment?[2] Did it have more to do with the impact corn with television, helped spur sale greatly. As of industrialization on family mealtimes, the re‐ Smith said, this efort "establish[ed] popcorn as arrangement of leisure time, or the adoption of part of the television ritual" (p. 122). snack foods? Could nutritionists, whose nine‐ Popcorn sales increased even more, aided by teenth-century mantra was fats, protein, and car‐ successful hybridization for disease resistance, in‐ bohydrates have infuenced its success? creased productivity, and improved size after pop‐ The same questions could be asked of ping. The invention of the mechanical harvester ketchup, the subject of Smith's other book under reduced the amount of human labor required. In review here, Pure Ketchup: A History of America's addition, new markets opened with spread of the National Condiment. Unlike with popcorn, English U.S. Army, frst in Great Britain during World War immigrants in the seventeenth and eighteenth II, then in Korea and later in Japan. By the 1970s centuries brought with them a habit of eating and later, convenience popcorn products such as pickled and fermented sauces along with their

3 H-Net Reviews meats. Those ketchups, however, were made pri‐ fresh onions. These substitutions required long- marily of walnuts, mushrooms, oysters, and fsh, time ketchup producers to reformulate their not tomatoes. Tomato ketchups were not popular product. Despite the change, ketchup still sells until the nineteenth century when it became, like widely and has been adopted in several other na‐ popcorn, "the rage." Recipes for tomato ketchups tional cuisines, including those of Japan, India, were in all the major American cookbooks by the Venezuela, and several European countries. 1830s, a sign for Smith that it had become a staple In this book, Smith has given us an overview food item. The reason for tomato ketchup's popu‐ of commercial ketchup production that assumes larity, and indeed all ketchups, was because they the popularity of the product from the very begin‐ lasted a long time, one recipe claiming that its ning and therefore leaves many more questions particular formula would last up to fve years. than it answers. Why was it that tomato ketchup Ketchup ft easily into the commercialization of became the most popular and, in fact, by the the canning industry and, like popcorn, was a twentieth century the only ketchup commonly ready tool for marketers. available on store shelves? Ketchup is not eaten The frst ketchup bottlers appeared in the alone so consumers had to be eating it along with northeast United States in the 1820s. Soon, facto‐ something else. What was it? Did its use over time ries spread around the United States, each ofer‐ change? Did demand drive the market? If so, ing its own secret combination of tomatoes, vine‐ why? If the market encouraged demand, why was gar, sweetener, and spices. The H. J. Heinz compa‐ it that Americans so readily embraced ketchup ny dominated the ketchup industry by the 1890s when their other food habits, like the traditional and ketchup itself became the "national condi‐ meal of meat and starch, did not alter? Finally, ment" during that time (p. 50). Smith sees this could there have been something about bottled popularity as part of the larger trend of increased ketchup or the identifable Heinz label that, like canned tomato consumption in this country hundreds of other brand-name products starting (ketchup was made from the rejected tomatoes to be available to consumers in the late-nine‐ and leftover trimmings of prime tomatoes) and teenth century, gave millions of immigrants and because of its versatility in providing color and non-immigrants a sense of being American with‐ favor in many diferent types of dishes. Like oth‐ out threatening their own ethnic identity?[3] er commercially produced foods, ketchup fell un‐ Or, could it have had less to do with ethnicity der the regulations of the Pure Food and Drug Act and more to do with social class, as was the case of 1906 that required labeling and monitored with the adoption of bananas by Americans? Vir‐ adulteration practices. In the ten years after that, ginia Scott Jenkins's Bananas: An American Histo‐ manufacturers had to stop using the preservative ry tells a story of supply leading demand similar sodium benzoate. Technological innovations to that of ketchup and popcorn. In the case of ba‐ made the manufacturing process more efcient, nanas, shipping companies that moved people while print advertising and, starting in the 1920s, and goods between the United States and the Car‐ radio advertising kept the industry, and particu‐ ibbean in the nineteenth century looked for ways larly Heinz, fourishing. Ketchup remained essen‐ to increase profts and cut expenses. They culti‐ tially the same from 1906 until the 1970s when vated foreign banana production in the latter manufacturers, in order to eliminate idle factory while at the same time tried to create a domestic time, began to use tomato concentrate instead of market for the fruit. Bananas were frst available fresh tomatoes in their product. To save money to a sizeable population at the Philadelphia Expo‐ they used corn syrup instead of sugar, acetic acid sition of 1876 where experimenters could buy one instead of vinegar, and onion powder instead of

4 H-Net Reviews for ten cents. After that, however, they did not be‐ numerous ways to use bananas from the once- come widely available for twenty more years and novel slicing of bananas on top of cereal to more then were marketed as the "poor man's fruit." By exotic uses such as drying them and grinding the 1920s, importers found that this image actual‐ them into four to be substituted in breads or fed ly impeded sales to middle- and upper-class con‐ to babies. Like ketchup and popcorn, by the 1950s, sumers who did not want to eat the same foods as bananas held their own as an important part of the lower classes. They remade the banana's im‐ our visual, oral, and even musical culture. age to one of health and status to appeal to the Ketchup, popcorn, and bananas go so well to‐ new generation of well-educated middle-class gether because, according to these authors, they mothers and teachers who looked for vitamin are all products that gained staple status in our content. Vitamins were not discovered until after society due to the eforts frst of enterprising busi‐ the beginning of the twentieth century and before nessmen who wanted to make money and later that time bananas, and fruit in general, were not because of industrious home economists, cook‐ valued as nutritionally important foods. book writers, and other marketers, like street and The big movers in the change were the United theater vendors. Technology assisted production, Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company. By distribution, and marketing. Science evaluated 1920, United Fruit had become a huge vertically and improved the productive capacities of toma‐ integrated company that owned banana planta‐ toes, bananas, and popcorn and their nutritional tions, refrigerated transport ships, and railroad values. In each case, one or two companies be‐ cars for its banana business, and also ran passen‐ came dominant in the industry and shaped the ger, mail, and freight ships, ofered cruises, and food's acceptance by Americans. Furthermore, owned hotels. This was no small feat because at those companies had some lucky breaks. With the turn of the century the banana business was popcorn, it was the movies. With bananas it was burdened with production problems (how to keep the discovery of vitamins and germs (bananas a year-round fow of bananas to the market) and were the only fruit to come in nature's "germ- shipping problems (how to keep the bananas free" packaging). from ripening too quickly and getting bruised These studies also complement each other in during transit and, in World War I, the requisi‐ the questions they do not answer, namely, why tioning of its ships for the war efort). In addition, Americans embraced these foods at all. Were there were banana diseases that destroyed trees, Americans so much at the hands of marketers Securities and Exchange Commission activities, that they purchased and consumed ketchup, pop‐ corporate wars, hurricanes, and a proposed but corn, and bananas because someone told them to? defeated banana tax. Sociologists and anthropologists have concluded As in the case of popcorn, when the middle- that eating and dietary changes are far more com‐ class American lifestyle changed in the 1950s, the plex than that conclusion suggests. People will in‐ banana went along with it, this time as a nutri‐ corporate new foods in their diet for numerous tious low-calorie food. Jenkins concludes that reasons including to achieve a sense of refne‐ within ffty years of their presence in the market, ment, to belong to a social or cultural group, or to bananas lost their novelty status and became a absorb the cultural values that surround a partic‐ staple item (p. 101). Consumers viewed bananas ular food. Eaters have a strong sense of good and as a more variable food than popcorn. Fruit com‐ bad foods as well as those that are edible and panies, home economists, ladies magazines, and inedible and will accept or reject foods according‐ cook book publishers presented Americans with ly.[4]

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Looked at from this perspective, these three [1]. See, for example, Sidney Mintz, Sweetness studies do give us hints that might answer the and Power (New York: Penguin Books, 1985); So‐ question of why Americans ultimately embraced phie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, The True History ketchup, popcorn, and bananas or why it took so of Chocolate (London: Thames & Hudson, 1996); long for them to do so. Jenkins mentions social Nelson Foster and Linda S. Cordell, eds., Chilies to class as a major factor in middle-class consumers' Chocolates (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, refusal to incorporate bananas into their diets as 1992); and Betty Fussell, The Story of Corn (New a mainstay and nutritional content as a reason for York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). their change of mind. They only did so when the [2]. Richard Bushman, The Refnement of image of the banana changed from being a cheap America (New York: Vintage Books, 1993). snack for the poor to one of ofering health and [3]. Donna Gabaccia, in We Are What We Eat: refnement, a particular goal of middle-class Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (Cam‐ America. Eating bananas not only gave Americans bridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), discusses a sense of health and refnement, but a sense of the complex process whereby Americans of all belonging to a group as well. ethnic backgrounds with traditional food habits Could that have been the case with ketchup began to try "American" foods as well as foods of and popcorn? Smith concludes that people ate other more traditional ethnic groups. ketchup because it lasted a long time. This myth [4]. For an excellent overview of the theoreti‐ about ketchup and preserved foods in general is cal perspectives of food and food habits see Debo‐ one that he perpetuated rather than dispelled. In rah Lupton, Food, the Body and the Self (London: early Anglo-American culture, preserved foods Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 6-36. had symbolic and nutritional signifcance.[5] In regards to popcorn, Smith states that until the [5]. Trudy Eden, "The Art of Preserving: How 1950s most people ate popcorn on festive occa‐ Cooks in Early Virginia Used Nature to Control sions or at sites of entertainment. What was the Nature," Eighteenth Century Life 23 (1999): pp. symbolic meaning of eating a frivolous food at a 13-23. frivolous event? Did it give people a sense of be‐ longing to a group that somehow was otherwise missing in a large anonymous crowd? Did ketchup do the same thing but at people's homes and in restaurants? When read alone, Popped Culture, Pure Ketchup, and Bananas read more as business his‐ tories than food histories. When read together (and in conjunction with other food studies), how‐ ever, these three studies play of each other and raise important analytical questions. Food histori‐ ans have amassed an extensive collection of simi‐ lar case studies. It is now time for them to use each other's work in the synthesis and analysis of larger questions. Notes

6 H-Net Reviews

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Citation: Trudy Eden. Review of Jenkins, Virginia Scott. Bananas: An American History. ; Smith, Andrew F. Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America. ; Smith, Andrew F. Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment. H-Amstdy, H-Net Reviews. July, 2004.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9652

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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