Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Lecture 29: Big Business and the Homogenization of Food

to children, and the role it plays in the American diet—who eats it

and why—completely changes.

 At fi rst, there were just a handful of small factories selling peanut

butter. The equipment was relatively cheap, the raw materials were

cheap, and with relatively little labor, you could manufacture and sell

peanut butter to local grocers. However, peanut butter is not a very

stable product. The oil tends to separate, it goes rancid fairly quickly

when that happens, and sometimes the salt recrystallizes. As a result,

the operations remain small around the turn of the century.

 The popularity of peanut butter grew, and two companies began to

dominate the market: the Beech-Nut company and Heinz. These

companies made other products, too, so they had bigger operations,

more capital to invest, and larger marketing networks. They

could afford machinery that produced a more consistent product

Peanut butter, although high in calories, is a very nutritious, protein-fi lled food.

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