Fresh From the Can
The whole story also can be read in a glass of orange juice. Frozen concentrate, introduced in 1945, was one of the first triumphs of modern food science, but it was born of failure. During World War II, the National Research Corp. retooled a vacuum-evaporation process used in penicillin production to make powdered OJ for the Army. It worked--but it was downright awful. The company that would become Minute Maid had invested in the technology, however, and it wasn't willing to give it up. Working with food scientists from the Florida Citrus Commission, it stopped the drying process partway and found that the thick orange sludge could actually make a decent glass of juice. By 1952, frozen concentrates had started to outpace sales of fresh-squeezed OJ.
Convinced that opening a can and adding water was still too much work, the food industry reached the apex of artificiality: Tang. The mix of sugar, vitamins, and a witch's brew of chemical compounds was a modest hit, until NASA called in 1965. A few TV ads featuring astronauts downing the stuff in space, and a legend was born.
As popular as manufactured food became, postwar Americans were also discovering gourmet cooking. By the time Julia Child arrived on TV in 1963, some home cooks were as likely to serve frozen chicken potpies one day as they were to spend hours preparing bouillabaisse from scratch the next. In the end, Americans seem to have struck an uneasy truce in the battle between convenience and elegance. As a result, says Shapiro, "we're the most mixed-up food market in the world. You can eat very well--healthy, delicious, and sophisticated--almost anywhere. And you can eat horribly, too."
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