How the Hot Dog Found Its Bun (22 page)

While Wiley worked on many projects in his forty-two years at Dow, Saran Wrap held a special place in his heart. “It pops into my mind every time I go by the [grocery] shelf,” he said. “I get a little flash of pride.”

S.O.S Pads: Desperate door-to-door salesman

Being a door-to-door salesman is a tough job. Edwin Cox lived that reality when he worked the San Francisco area in the 1910s. He had what he thought was a good product: Wear-Ever Aluminum cookware. His problem was he struggled to get many housewives to let him into their kitchens to show how these lightweight rustproof pots and pans were vastly superior to other options on the market.

Cox figured if he could give them something extra he would get in the door. His company Wear-Ever would commonly offer an “inducement” to lure people to demonstrations at stores. This would come in the form of a special discount for its goods. Cox had a different, more tangible idea.

Despite all of the aluminum-ware’s pluses—they didn’t scorch food and stirring was not necessary when heating liquids—the cookware could become blackened by coal-fueled stoves common in that day. Cox believed that if he could offer a useful (but inexpensive) cleaning tool to hesitant housewives, he’d see sales skyrocket.

In 1917 he began working on his freebee. Steel-wool Brillo pads were patented four years earlier, but a big complaint in the cleaning process was being able to get these abrasive aids really soapy. Cox began hand-soaking little steel-wool pads in buckets full of soapy water. He would let the pad dry and then repeat. Once the small woolly squares were completely saturated in soap, he’d dry them one more time. He then found, when moistened, his invention oozed soap—perfect when it came time to clean pots and pans.

Cox hit the streets again with his product and new pads. As much as he believed in Wear-Ever, it didn’t take long for him to realize that it was his steel wool that enamored potential customers. He would give one free sample of his new product to those who purchased cookware, but began getting calls to find out where additional pads could be purchased.

As a salesman, Cox recognized his new creation was the hot ticket. The next big question was what to name it. He asked his wife, who, the legend goes, suggested calling them S.O.S. pads. The acronym would stand for “save our saucepans” and would also be a reminder of the international Morse code distress signal. He loved it, but had to deal with one hiccup: He couldn’t trademark S.O.S. because of its use in international communication. As a result, he tweaked the name ever so slightly, simply dropping the last period and naming it the S.O.S pad.

Stainless Steel: From gun contract to utensils

Over time regular steel corrodes. Think of old orange-tinged railroad tracks weathered and rusted by years in the sun and the rain. For centuries this fact of life also meant bad news for the everyday use of knives, forks, and spoons. Before the beginning of the twentieth century, cutlery was generally made of carbon steel, which, when air-dried, developed an unsightly reddish tinge.

Of course, utensils were pretty inconsequential compared to other steel-based items like, say, buildings and ship hulls, that could lead to even bigger headaches when rust set in. These larger concerns led many nineteenth-century scientists to search for a way to prevent the corrosion that so badly damaged the metal.

Harry Brearley was not one of those scientists. A metallurgist who ran a laboratory in his hometown of Sheffield, England, he had other metal-related issues to attend to. In 1912, with World War I on the horizon, Brearley earned a contract with a small arms manufacturer to focus on gun barrels. Rather than the corrosion that impacted cutlery and utensils, the trouble with these metal barrels was
erosion
. The constant firing of the weapons wore down the metal and required them to be replaced.

Brearley went to work experimenting with different alloys (combinations of steel and other elements) that could solve the erosion problem. On August 13, 1913, the scientist made a metal that was 12.8 percent chromium and 0.24 percent carbon. Unknowingly, this formula would change the food world. From there mythmakers take over a bit. Some say that he thought the new steel was a waste and threw it in the garbage. Later, he noticed that it hadn’t rusted and took it out for further experimentation.

A more likely explanation, according to the British Stainless Steel Association, is Brearley etched the alloy with nitric acid—something he likely did with all the combinations he came up with—to assess its resistance to chemical attack. Nitric acid is a very powerful oxidizing agent. In a sense it replicates what it would be like for a knife or fork to be left out in the elements for a long time. Brearley was taken aback to find his chromium-carbon combo was highly resistant to the acid.

Now many other scientists during this period, including ones from Germany, Poland, and the United States, have argued that they were the first to independently come up with rust-repelling steel. But two facts do not appear in dispute: Brearley’s material was the first to be dubbed “stainless steel” and he was the first to come up with the idea of applying it for use with eating.

Neither of these happened overnight. In a decision that probably later led to a lot of high-level firings, the bosses at his laboratory balked at the idea of using the new alloy for cutlery. Brearley was undeterred. He was in the right location to find a good utensil maker. His native Sheffield had been the center of cutlery making in England since at least the seventeenth century. Brearley approached a local cutler named R. F. Mosley with what he called “rustless steel.” After some testing, Mosley loved the product. The new knives, forks, spoons, saucepans, and countless other kitchenware were shiny, easy to wash, and most important, rust-resistant. Still, he insisted on the more marketable name, stainless steel.

Styrofoam: Wartime insulator

For environmentalists, expanded polystyrene (aka Styrofoam) may be this book’s most annoying accidental discovery.

During World War II, a twenty-five-year-old scientist at Dow Chemical Company named Ray McIntire wasn’t thinking about a way to develop coffee cups or hamburger containers. He was aiming at coming up with a synthetic alternative to latex rubber that could serve as a sturdy flexible insulator. As part of his efforts, the inexperienced McIntire made a mistake when combining a petroleum by-product called styrene with a volatile liquid known as isobutylene. He was supposed to go easy on the isobutylene, but measured the ratio incorrectly, adding too much of the unstable matter.

After putting the combo under extreme pressure, the result was not the flexible rubber substitute he’d been hoping for. Instead, it was a rigid, exceptionally lightweight foam that had bulked up thirty times greater than what McIntire expected. Moreover, it was tremendously sturdy, extremely buoyant, and an excellent insulator. It hadn’t been what McIntire had been looking for, but the young scientist figured out practical applications for the finding.

Patented in 1944, Styrofoam was adopted by the US Coast Guard, which used it in life rafts and other flotation devices. Following the war, the most popular civilian application for Styrofoam was as an insulator in home building. But as other plastic companies started producing their own versions, Styrofoam migrated into the world of food. As a great insulator, it was perfect for both ice chests and coffee cups. It also didn’t easily get scalding hot so it made sense for picnic plates and fast-food packaging. It helped that it was extremely inexpensive to produce as well. (Geek note: Most squeaky takeout containers or white trays are not Styrofoam; the term—like “Kleenex” for tissue paper—is often used incorrectly to represent material created by other companies that is similar to, but not the same as, McIntire’s invention.)

But for all its low-price convenience, the light-as-a-feather product can be an environmental nightmare. Its hard-wearing structure is great when you’re packing leftovers, but it also makes Styrofoam-esque disposable items nearly impossible to break down at landfills. This realization came in full focus in the 1980s, when Green groups fought McDonald’s over the clamshell polystyrene boxes used for their hamburgers. In 1990 the fast-food giant got the message and did away with the packaging.

Still, the plastic foam unintentionally innovated by McIntire remains omnipresent. For example, one Boston school principal said in 2010 that his cafeteria uses 72,000 lunch trays made from the material a year. As for McIntire’s legacy, Dow has tried hard to keep it clear of the pollution issue, emphasizing that
real
Styrofoam (as opposed to other companies’ hardened foam) is used primarily in building and never finds its way to local garbage dumps.

Tea Bags: Sample packaging

Though tea is considered a national drink in Great Britain, it was an American who revolutionized how it’s used, doing so—inadvertently—in the name of capitalism. In 1908 (some say it was 1904) Thomas Sullivan was a wholesaler in New York searching for ways to cut down on his bottom line. One outlay he was finding particularly tiresome was the cost of tins used to mail tea samples to customers. To streamline expenses, he decided to try wrapping samples into sleek silk sachets.

The new packaging puzzled some recipients. Instead of opening up the small envelopes, pouring its contents into water, and sampling the tea as Sullivan had intended, a number of store owners decided to dip the bag directly into their boiling pots. For most people at this point, tea leaves were painstakingly measured and then placed in a strainer, providing flavor as hot water was poured through it into a mug. But those who tried Sullivan’s tea bags loved them and wrote the wholesaler asking for more pouches (but offering suggestions on how to improve its design). A stunned Sullivan wasn’t one to disappoint customers and went to work on new designs—in particular replacing the silk with less expensive gauze. Not only did this help the tea infuse the water better but it was also a financially sound maneuver.

From there a San Francisco manufacturer named Joseph Krieger refined the bag and began successfully selling his variation commercially to restaurants and hotels in 1919. Americans embraced the new way to drink tea. After all, Yanks did have a love-hate relationship with old-school tea; check your encyclopedia under the heading “Boston Tea Party.”

In contrast, the Brits were not so thrilled at Sullivan’s discovery. For decades after its invention, the British stuck to tradition and avoided bags. It wasn’t until 1953 that a prominent British tea maker, Joseph Tetley and Company, began offering them. Their initial efforts were not good. By the early 1960s only 3 percent of tea was being purchased in bags.

But Tetley continued to advertise heavily, appealing to both the pocketbook (they pointed out that a cup of tea cost less than a penny when it came in a tea bag) and to customers’ busy lifestyles (tea bags were quick and easy to use compared to measuring out tea leaves). Tetley’s efforts combined with additional innovations to the packet turned the British around. Today, 96 percent of tea in the United Kingdom comes via tea bags. That equates to 130 million cups of tea consumed
every day
via Sullivan’s invention.

Teflon: Guinea pig, refrigerator coolant, and fishing gear

The invention of everyone’s favorite nonstick cooking material, Teflon, is a remarkable example of a series of fortunate moments. Without any of them, our eggs might still be sticking to the frying pan and pundits would have needed another nickname for “Teflon president” Ronald Reagan.

It all begins with Teflon’s inventor, Roy J. Plunkett. An Ohio native, Plunkett graduated from Manchester College in 1932. He went out into the world to look for a job, but his timing couldn’t have been worse. It was the height of the Depression and he couldn’t find work anywhere. Left without options, he decided to go to Ohio State University and pursue a PhD in chemistry. By the time he was finished in 1936, the pains of the economy had lessened and Plunkett found a position at DuPont. His job was to come up with a nontoxic compound to cool refrigerators; he looked to fluorocarbons to reach his goal.

The fact that Plunkett would even consider the odorless, nonflammable, and nontoxic fluorocarbon as a basis for his experiments was thanks to some luck a decade earlier. In 1928 two Frigidaire scientists, Thomas Midgely Jr. and Albert Henne, were the first to consider a fluorocarbon mix, called antimony trifluoride, as a gas to keep refrigerators cool. The chemical was extremely rare. In fact, the scientists ordered five one-ounce bottles, which represented the complete supply in the United States at the time.