"I think every woman should have a blowtorch." ~ Julia Child
Food technology goes hand in hand with what we eat and how we choose to eat it as a culture today. If you have baked bread, you know how difficult cutting equal slices are in the home kitchen. Over the years, we cooks have tried the cutting board-knife combo, "the freestyle," as I like to call it, and even some of us have bought a slicer for their homes. In my family, breaking bread is core to our DNA. As a food hobbyist and researcher, I am game to try anything. Baking bread is something I do, and it is important to me to know the basics. But slicing homemade bread is something other than what I do at home. I love a good sandwich with all the right condiments and fillers. Without a perfect slice of the loaf, where would it be?
Thanks to Otto Rohwedder, he allowed us to say “sliced please” when standing at the bakery counter. From then on, every working American began bringing sliced bread sandwiches to work, church, and local potlucks everywhere. Men building the Empire State Building, carryied their lunchboxes up the steel girders, dangling their legs while eating ham and cheese. Back then, they didn’t even know that Otto Rohwedder even existed. They were able to unwrap their wax paper folded sandwiches and eat with one hand while dangling their feet above the New York City Skyline.
Next time you open that fridge or walk into a deli, thank Otto Rohwedder Chillicothe Baking Co. in Chillicothe, Missouri, which introduced sliced bread on July 7, 1928. The "Home of Sliced Bread" honors its legacy with today's giant mural. (Charity Trotter, Clicks By Charity Photography).
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