This week saw the passing of two Americans who dramatically changed the way that we eat: Peg Bracken and Vincent M. DeDomenico Sr.
When Peg Bracken's cookbook, The I Hate To Cook Book, appeared on shelves in 1960 it wasn't quite like anything else. The book was dedicated not to women who like to cook, but to everyone else. According to the New York Times, Bracken "emphasized speed, and if speed happened at the expense of the rubbing and rolling and stuffing and tying and long, sensuous, self-congratulatory simmering that James Beard was just then making de rigueur, then, Ms. Bracken strongly suggested, so much the better." The book, now out of print, managed to sell more than three million copies and was a suburban staple.
Bracken died at her home in Oregon on Saturday at the age of 89.
Just as Bracken was telling home cooks to take it easier, Vincent M. DeDomenico and his brothers were doing their part by inventing Rice-A-Roni. The idea for the product reportedly came from watching "a sister-in-law mix a can of Swanson’s chicken broth with rice and vermicelli" in 1958. Once DeDomenico figured out to use dried soup, the product, dubbed the "San Francisco treat" by marketers, took off and proceeded to feed millions of people the world over. Eventually the company was sold to Quaker Oats for $275 million.
DeDomenico died at his home in California last Thursday at the age of 92.