For those who might not have known, Duncan Hines was a popular restaurant critic who pioneered the ratings of restaurants for travelers. As a traveling salesman in the early 20th Century (there was no U.S. interstate highway system then) he ate many meals on the road and he (and his wife Florence) began putting together lists of good restaurants around the country – originally for their friends. The list became so popular, in 1935 he began selling a paperback Adventures in Good Eating and in the years that followed Hines wrote a regular newspaper column “Adventures in Good Eating at Home.” In 1953, Hines sold the right to use his name to Roy H. Park to form Hines-Park Foods, which licensed the name to a number of businesses. The cake mix license was sold to Nebraska Consolidated Mills, which developed and sold the first Duncan Hines cake mixes. In 1957, Nebraska Consolidated Mills sold the cake mix business to Procter & Gamble.
It’s All About the Food
