I love popcorn 🍿 with butter & salt, especially at the movies. But, oily fingers need to be wiped and your cinema prefers clean seats. Fortunately, SCM Corporation came up with a patented solution – a butter salt sans butter, but without removing any of the enticingly delicious non-vegan bad stuff: – Salt– Butter flavouring– … Read more
Apr 26th, 2024Today’s Tabasco sauce would not have infringed the original Tabasco patent. Originally (in 1870!), it took 43 days to make Tabasco sauce:– Add vinegar and salt to peppers– Leave the mixture to stand for 6 weeks– Filter out the skins and seeds– Pot the extracted skins and seeds for 24 hours with alcohol– Press the liquid from … Read more
Apr 19th, 2024In 1971, Constance Vitale got caught up in the culinary rolling craze. He marvelled at sausage rolls, Swiss rolls and the next “big thing” – California rolls. He knew where destiny was tugging him, but with Italian blood flowing through his veins, his thoughts remained faithful to pasta. Instinctively, he set about spreading meat on … Read more
Apr 12th, 2024Fabrizio Bottero was proud of his pasta. He was proud of the whimsical array of shapes, of the unbounded range of sizes, their twirls, curls, ribbons and bows. But, it lacked pazazz – flair, stripes and an array of rainbow colours. So, he patented polychrome pasta – “a flat sheet of pasta having outer surfaces … Read more
Apr 5th, 2024Wavy lasagna pasta sheets look great – they add irresistible curves to a saucy, cheesy lasagna … a wholly unintended affect. In 1952, Stefano “ham-fisted” La Rosa who, contrary to popular expectations, lacked a delicate touch, vented his last animated profanity at a broken, flat pasta sheet. Determined that they had to withstand a robust, … Read more
Mar 29th, 2024Melba toast is difficult to make. If you put it in a toaster , parts easily burn. If you don’t compact it, the toast is too “airy” 😴 . And, if you compact it in between hot plates, you don’t get an encircling crust 😞 . In 1942, Harry Tatosian patented the perfect method for … Read more
Mar 22nd, 2024Before 1988, you could buy partially baked rolls 🥖 , but not croissants 🥐 . Ever wondered why? Partially baking bread is easy – it’s spongey and the small air bubbles don’t collapse after initial baking. However, croissants, with their thin layers of laminated dough separated by butter, are flaky and form relatively large holes … Read more
Mar 15th, 2024What makes Popping Candy Pop? It’s not a chemical reaction, and scientifically it’s quite the opposite to vacuous Space Dust. It’s those crazy little compressed air bubbles trapped in solidified sugar that explode when the sugar melts, triggering a gas-popping party in your mouth. Here’s how those Willy Wonkas concoct this magical treat:– Melt sugar and keep it at … Read more
Mar 8th, 2024Edward Mandelbaum really wanted to patent his Hotdog Roll, but struggled to come up with something “new”. Most Hotdog Rolls were simply cut; others were bored (and not so popular); and some were bored and slotted. What on earth could he change while continuing to provide customers what they were accustomed to? The cut roll … Read more
Mar 1st, 2024Did you know that the original peanut butter was meant to be sliced and placed in a sandwich? Well, it wasn’t very popular. Kellogg’s original 1897 peanut butter recipe was: – Blanche nut kernels– Roast the kernels or boil them for 4-6 hours– Grind / roll the kernels to a pulp– Add 1 part water to every … Read more
Feb 23rd, 2024In 1964, William Brastad added a vacuum pump to his oven to see whether it would shorten the time for baking bread. To his surprise, he found that reducing the pressure to 0.35 atmosphere shortened the time to raise the dough from 45 minutes to 1 minute! However, each time he equalised the ambient pressure, the … Read more
Feb 16th, 2024I bet you don’t know the origin of Pizza Hut’s Deep-Pan Pizza. It’s deep for a reason, and not because people actually crave mouthfuls of crust. Spreading toppings on a delicate pizza base is too arduous for Pizza Hut. So, they take pre-formed topping disks, slap them on a rimmed pizza base and heat. One problem: … Read more
Feb 9th, 2024Ever wondered why Shredded Wheat advertising always includes fruit – but in the wrong place? … something only centenarians would notice. Back in 1915, Kellogg’s patented the unique shape of Shredded Wheat – “a cylindrical cereal biscuit made with a concave top”. The concave top was intended to contain berries or fruit, and causes the milk … Read more
Feb 2nd, 2024German Utility Models (otherwise known as Gebrauchsmuster) can now be filed online via GlobalIPCo. GlobalIPCo and Prisma IP (a German patent law firm) have created an easy-to-use online system for filing national phase, convention and direct German Utility Models. Although, only national phase German Utility Models are available to general users, direct and convention German … Read more
Jan 30th, 2024Hotdogs are great. Saucy hotdogs are super, but a messy shirt is the pits Newton Hall was partial to a hotdog with plenty of butter, mustard and condiments, but he was also particular about his appearance. So, he set about boring a blind hole along a roll and slotting the roll partly along the bore. The slot allows for liberal squirtings of sauce, … Read more
Jan 26th, 2024