Hector Boyardee: The First Italian Celebrity Chef?
Hector Boyardee: The First Italian Celebrity Chef?
(April 21, 2013)
BORN ETTORE BOIARDI
My facebook friend Jimmy Bello posted a picture on his wall of Chef Boyardee with the following caption:
My response was that while this is a fantastic American success story, Mr. Boiardi’s original “vision” really changed from sharing his homemade, ethnic, restaurant-quality specialties with non-Italians into a mass-produced canned product…Maybe not at his own fault in particular, but nevertheless not quite a representation of the dinners he was originally sending home to his guests from his Cleveland Little Italy kitchen.
Had he started this business today, there’s no doubt in my mind, his product line would be more in tune with some of the higher end celebrity chef jarred sauces and pasta products like Mario Batali, and no doubt he too in his own right would be a fixture in the media circuit as opposed to just being a caricature on a can. Now I know a lot of these celebrity chefs get flack these days for doing too much “celebrity-ing” and not enough “chef-ing,” so would that actually be a more fitting reflection of his vision? Well, let’s explore that…
I have talked endlessly in blogs about the wide “gap” within the Italian-American community which exists because of the different ways one expresses and perpetuates their interpretation of Italian-Americana. There’s the one end of the spectrum which is the popular “Jersey Shore / Guido” sub-culture against the activism extreme / Renaissance Art / Opera music high culture. Then you have the “regular” Joes and Josephines from the old neighborhood. These are your working class folk, not quite able to identify with either end of the spectrum, with passionate ideals and interests – which, in its simplest areas, revolve around family and food. It seems to me, that a lot of these celebrity chefs try to appeal to all these different demographics, adjusting their vernacular and mannerisms depending upon with whom and where they are “appearing.”
Bridging the gap is not always at the forefront of these chefs’ minds but rather it is about a photo-op with the flavor of the week. But hey, that’s show-biz. Although, when you take away all the glitz and glamour, the food itself can indeed be that gap-bridging piece, and I’ve explained in the past how that needs to be done and that can only be achieved with respect. Showing as much respect to a fancy dish such as Osso Bucco and Risotto Alla Milanese that would be shown to spaghetti and meatballs and peppers and eggs. There needs to be an equal amount of attention and care paid into putting out a quality New York style pizza as there is to an “authentic Napolitano pizza.”
But that’s where, years ago, things went wrong and the “real red sauce joints” slowly vanished (although some do still exist, but only a fraction of what once did), and were replaced by either: A.) An expensive, 5-star restaurant and a high-end chef’s personal interpretation of “authentic” Italian food or B.) Generic quality Xerox copy franchises, your Olive Garden/Pizza Hut/Blimpies. The only one of those three, Blimpie, was actually started by Italians. Founders Tony Conza, Peter DeCarlo and Angelo Bandassare opened the first store in 1964 in Hoboken. And while Blimpie is far better than the other two, it is still not on the level of an independently owned deli/salumeria. The regular customer may not know the immediate difference between sliced pepperoni (which doesn’t exist in Italy) and hot Soppressata Calabrese, but it is a reflection of our society on how appealing to the “masses” is the only way you can compete.
That’s why Boiardi became Boy-Ar-Dee, but did he stray too far and why? Well, I will tell you why…the main reason comes down to the interest in the next generation in perpetuating something. Less of these real red sauce joints would vanish if the kids and grandkids had a genuine interest in continuing the family business and keeping up with the traditions rather than selling out for a dollar amount or to do something else with their lives.
Chef Boyardee is a brand of canned pasta products sold internationally by ConAgra Foods. Named after its founder, Italian-American immigrant Ettore “Hector” Boiardi, the company began production in the United States in the 1920s. Proud of his Italian heritage, Boiardi sold his products under the brand name “Chef Boy-Ar-Dee” so that his American customers could pronounce his name properly. During World War II, Chef Boyardee was the largest supplier of rations for the U.S. and Allied Forces.
My response was that while this is a fantastic American success story, Mr. Boiardi’s original “vision” really changed from sharing his homemade, ethnic, restaurant-quality specialties with non-Italians into a mass-produced canned product…Maybe not at his own fault in particular, but nevertheless not quite a representation of the dinners he was originally sending home to his guests from his Cleveland Little Italy kitchen.
Had he started this business today, there’s no doubt in my mind, his product line would be more in tune with some of the higher end celebrity chef jarred sauces and pasta products like Mario Batali, and no doubt he too in his own right would be a fixture in the media circuit as opposed to just being a caricature on a can. Now I know a lot of these celebrity chefs get flack these days for doing too much “celebrity-ing” and not enough “chef-ing,” so would that actually be a more fitting reflection of his vision? Well, let’s explore that…
I have talked endlessly in blogs about the wide “gap” within the Italian-American community which exists because of the different ways one expresses and perpetuates their interpretation of Italian-Americana. There’s the one end of the spectrum which is the popular “Jersey Shore / Guido” sub-culture against the activism extreme / Renaissance Art / Opera music high culture. Then you have the “regular” Joes and Josephines from the old neighborhood. These are your working class folk, not quite able to identify with either end of the spectrum, with passionate ideals and interests – which, in its simplest areas, revolve around family and food. It seems to me, that a lot of these celebrity chefs try to appeal to all these different demographics, adjusting their vernacular and mannerisms depending upon with whom and where they are “appearing.”
Bridging the gap is not always at the forefront of these chefs’ minds but rather it is about a photo-op with the flavor of the week. But hey, that’s show-biz. Although, when you take away all the glitz and glamour, the food itself can indeed be that gap-bridging piece, and I’ve explained in the past how that needs to be done and that can only be achieved with respect. Showing as much respect to a fancy dish such as Osso Bucco and Risotto Alla Milanese that would be shown to spaghetti and meatballs and peppers and eggs. There needs to be an equal amount of attention and care paid into putting out a quality New York style pizza as there is to an “authentic Napolitano pizza.”
But that’s where, years ago, things went wrong and the “real red sauce joints” slowly vanished (although some do still exist, but only a fraction of what once did), and were replaced by either: A.) An expensive, 5-star restaurant and a high-end chef’s personal interpretation of “authentic” Italian food or B.) Generic quality Xerox copy franchises, your Olive Garden/Pizza Hut/Blimpies. The only one of those three, Blimpie, was actually started by Italians. Founders Tony Conza, Peter DeCarlo and Angelo Bandassare opened the first store in 1964 in Hoboken. And while Blimpie is far better than the other two, it is still not on the level of an independently owned deli/salumeria. The regular customer may not know the immediate difference between sliced pepperoni (which doesn’t exist in Italy) and hot Soppressata Calabrese, but it is a reflection of our society on how appealing to the “masses” is the only way you can compete.
That’s why Boiardi became Boy-Ar-Dee, but did he stray too far and why? Well, I will tell you why…the main reason comes down to the interest in the next generation in perpetuating something. Less of these real red sauce joints would vanish if the kids and grandkids had a genuine interest in continuing the family business and keeping up with the traditions rather than selling out for a dollar amount or to do something else with their lives.
This Boyardee picture hits close to home with me because in a lot of ways, I always found his marketing to be genius and ahead of its time. He became the “character” and did the commercials and had the catchy slogans and jingles. But did the food suffer because of it? That being said, I can personally identify more with Boiardi than I can with Mario Batali in a lot of ways. I have been approached on numerous times to go the route of canning my meatballs for a variety of reasons—mostly coming down to the economical factor and having opportunities for a more widely distributed product with more shelf stability and a cheaper price tag for the consumer. But I have continued to be skeptical of taking this direction because that’s just not my vision.
My vision is (and always was) to bring the old-school Italian-American Sunday dinner experience to your home. Although I don’t have a restaurant, I do that by selling them in the streets at festivals, hot and direct to the public. When I did the retail side, my Johnny’s Meatballs In Sunday Gravy dinner packs were sold in the frozen food department and were essentially the same product I make at home—flash frozen—just like grandma would always make extra food for an army and freeze the leftovers. But because of the high competition, I could not compete with the retail giants.
Look, it is very difficult to run your own business, no matter what it is, but a food business is always a lot more complicated. Someone who truly is doing that for the love and passion of the product and not solely for the money, always wants to duplicate how the food is made in their home to the public which is not so easy when you are mass-producing it in a factory and not your house. From the research I’ve done, I get the sense that Boiardi was a man with a true passion and love for his product at his Giardino d'Italia restaurant on East 9th Street and Woodland Avenue in Cleveland all those years ago.
When he opened his first factory ten years later in Pennsylvania, he still had a very “hands-on” approach. He even grew his own tomatoes and mushrooms in the factory basement for use in his creations. I can only guess that the recipes began to change in the ‘40s when he sold his company to American Home Products (later named International Home Foods, now owned by ConAgra). Many don’t know that before opening his Cleveland place, Boiardi worked his way up to head chef at the Plaza Hotel in New York City and then the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, where he was the director of catering for President Woodrow Wilson’s wedding.
So to go back to my original statements which opened this blog which was my response to Jimmy’s facebook post, this is indeed a true, American success story and one that should be more well-known and appreciated within the Italian-American community. At the time of Boiardi’s death, the company was grossing $500 million dollars in sales. Would it have ever done so had it not been acquired by International Home Foods and transformed into the canned Beefaroni we know today? My guess is no.
So I cannot as a fellow entrepreneur fault him in any way, but as much as I would like to buy and eat Beefaroni to support this story, it just doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe that’s due to my upbringing and my mother’s ban on any kind of such products in our house. Why would we eat that when she made macaroni every Sunday morning? But by the same token, why would anyone buy my meatballs or Mario Batali’s jarred sauce if they make their own?
We live in a society today of shortcuts and getting things fast and now, especially here in the New York region. And although I’m a cook by trade, I too take shortcuts now and then. Like anything else though within our nationality, we have to find the middle ground. Just like I’ve been preaching from my first blog here and from my visit to the Calandra Institute, I am not “Jersey Shore” but I am not “UNICO” either. I don’t know exactly which side Boiardi would have related more towards if he was alive today.
I’d like to think he would have been in the middle—with the basic ideals of Italian-Americana—food and family at the forefront. Like Lou Monte was in the entertainment business for example. And although Monte’s music and comedy was sometimes called not “Italian” enough for the true Italian-Italians of the era while simultaneously being too “ethnic” for the more Americanized audience, he always stayed true and never changed his tune.
So I guess the bottom line in all of this is that you can never please everybody. But we should all try to get along better and have a better respect and understanding for our fellow paisans—whatever the social class or sub-culture we belong to. And a lot of that starts with doing our research and not shying away from exploring all areas of the heritage even if we can’t necessarily identify with that area or consider ourselves a “part” of it.
Today I hope that I gave you all a different perspective on Chef Boyardee to those who may have only known him as that caricature on the can. This June would be his 115th birthday had he still been alive. Maybe we should all pop open a can of Beefaroni in his honor. (Even if we don’t eat it.)
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