[Sca-cooks] Corn Flakes (Was: Period Baklava)

[Martha Oser]

Master A writes: 

> Parched grain and various flattened grain products have been around  
> for centuries, but the market for Kellogg's Corn Flakes did not arise  
> from a bunch of people standing around wishing someone would come up  
> with an industrial process for creating a new flattened, parched  
> grain product. Rather, the corn flake was invented -- using a process  
> not too different from that for phyllo, and not too far off in its  
> date, either --, and people's eating habits were altered to create a  
> niche for the product. I'm not sure if this is entirely untrue of  
> phyllo, which is why I suggested that it probably had clear period  
> antecedents, but may, itself, be post-period.

Actually, corn flakes came about by accident as the Kellogg brothers at 
their health sanitarium in Battle Creek, MI were trying to process corn and 
wheat into healthful foods for their patients.  Apparently, they left some 
cooked material at some point, it thickened, and they shoved it through the 
rollers anyway, hoping to produce a  long sheet, presumably to turn into 
crackers of some kind.  Instead, the stuff came off the rollers in flakes.  
These were toasted and then served for breakfast with milk and marshmallows 
(talk about healthy!).  The Kellogg cereal company came about after one of 
the brothers decided to market their cereal products for the general public. 

In addition, I have a recollection of seeing a TV show a few years ago where 
they profiled a gentleman (maybe in Turkey, I think?) making phyllo dough by 
hand in the "traditional" way.  It involved a process rather like I remember 
from my mother making strudel dough - gently stretching the dough by hand 
into a large square.  The difference was that the table my mother used was 
about 2x3 feet and the one this guy was using was probably 8x10 feet!  This 
is not to say that phyllo dough or baklava is period, but simply that there 
was a time-consuming hand process for making the dough before industrial 
methods were devised. 

Best, 

Helena