Tidings from Baby New Year—those postwar dream foods we have been hearing so much about are getting out of their dream state and will be coming in earnest.
Miracle of the moment—the big talk of the food field—is a new method in quick-drying developed by that wizard of the laboratory, Clarence Birdseye, who first gave the world packaged foods, quick-frozen. The new waterless items called the anhydrous, to distinguish them from their predecessors in the dried line, are semicooked, need no soaking, and from shelf to plate require but four to ten minutes in preparation. The finished aroma, and nutritive qualities of vegetables and fruits which are cooked fresh-picked from garden and orchard.
Three of these anhydrous vegetables, broccoli, carrots, and mashed potatoes, (also apple tarts made with anhydrous apples), were served recently at a press luncheon in the Wedgwood Room of the Waldorf Astoria, all without mention regarding their novelty. The two hundred food experts present had no idea they were eating a “miracle” until the announcement was made directly following the meal.
A platform demonstration was staged to show the ease and speed with which the vegetables could be prepared in the home kitchen. For example, with broccoli and carrots, the dried bits were placed in saucepans with water to cover, a little salt added, lids on the pans, then over high heat to bring the foods to a boil. After five minutes' boiling, the vegetables were done.
The potatoes were prepared without cooking. Anhydrous riced potatoes were placed in the top of a double boiler, over hot water, then boiling water stirred in and the spuds beat fluffy in four minutes flat. Potatoes will be dried in diced, sliced, or julienne form to be served in all the usual ways except as whole-baked.
Six years ago when Mr. Birdseye decided to do something to improve the present methods of drying, he started questioning the home cooks to find out what they wanted. The cooks told him plenty. They wanted dried foods to reconstitute in forms they were used to serving; that is diced, sliced, julienne, or whole flowerettes of cauliflower or broccoli. They wanted ease in preparation; no complicated directions, and short, short cooking. Point most important, the food must arrive at the table looking fresh-cooked, tasting and smelling that way. Also women invariably requested that the dried products carry all the nutritive values of the fresh, that they be inexpensive.
Mr. Birdseye decided that speed in the drying might prove as efficient as speed had in the freezing and that's how it worked out. Rapid-dried foods keep their cell structure, both physically and chemically. The new drying process he developed uses the three known forms of heat transfer; that is, radiation, conduction, convection. The average drying time for almost any fruit or vegetable by this process averages ninety minutes as compared to an eighteen-hour period by all other methods. The foods are semicooked, yet there is no overheating in the extraction of the water.
Production of these foods will begin in early 1946 when they will be marketed nationally by American Home Foods,Inc., a firm now manufacturing and distributing Clapps' Baby Foods and Baby Cereal, G. Washington Instant Coffee and Instant Broths, and Duff's baking mixes. The containers will be about the size of a cigarette package, the contents sufficient for three to five servings. The foods to be included in the new line are not yet announced. But to date Mr. Birdseye has successfully processed carrots, beets, parsnips, cabbage, peas, string beans, asparagus, and a half dozen other vegetables, as well as many small fruits.
You haven't time for morning orange juice? Tote it in your pocket to enjoy at your leisure. A new process has been developed for reducing the juices of citrus into hard candy form, the candy containing the tree-ripe flavor, the natural sweetness, vitamins, minerals, and other elements originally present in the fresh fruit. Nothing is added, except a trace of hydrogenated fat to enhance the tastiness. These small candy squares are individually wrapped, laid three in a row on a cardboard backing, then overwrapped to look like a short stick of gum. Both orange and grapefruit “Bruceets” are selling at Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, at Hearn's Fifth Avenue at 14th Street, at B. Altman's at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, TelBurn of New York, 161 East 53rd Street, also Abraham and Straus, 420 Fulton Street, Brooklyn; price around $1.54 for a box of 72 pieces.
Carrots are being treated in the same manner, to give a candy of rich caramel-like flavor, chockfull of this vegetable's potential vitamin A. Prunes, too, have been reduced to eat as hard candy. “Bruceets” are the brain child of Bruce's Juices, Inc., of Tampa, Florida, processors for twenty years of fine juices from fruits and vegetables. Ideal these nutritive tidbits for tucking into the food kits traveling abroad.
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