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Updated: 5/3/2004; 8:22:49 AM.

 

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Baking cakes and making modeling software
While listening to the radio show "All Things Considered" in traffic recently, I was becharmed by, of all things, a story about 1950's-era U.S. homemakers. More specifically, about the processed food industry's attempts to displace homemade dinners and desserts.

While the easy-bake cake mixes were one of the many industrial advances enabled by World War II, the cake mixes were slow to be accepted by women consumers of that day. General Mills (not a real general) hired Austrian psychologist Ernest Dichter to study consumer sentiment; Dichter concluded that a cake mix with dried eggs did not leave the home baker with enough to do. The solution was to call for fresh eggs in the recipe.

I knew this story well, but not its ultimate source. It was a very favorite story of Ray Weiss, a longtime reporter and editor on ICs and embedded systems. -on adtmag, Apr 21, 2004

RELATED
Ray Weiss: In Memoriam - ED Online, Feb 4, 2002
Something from the Oven - NPR, April 19, 2004
When flower invaded the Kitchen - NYT, April 14, 2004

UNRELATED
Up to 10 Killed By Riyadh Car Bomb - VOA News, Apr 21, 2004
Jordo king snubs Bush - Reuters, Apr 20, 2004


YOU GOT TO BREAK
SOME EGGS


2:24:56 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Jack Vaughan.



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