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The Agrarian's Alcove Celebrates Black History Month


Here at the Agrarian’s Alcove, we absolutely love to celebrate ag. I mean LOVE to celebrate it. It’s the basis for life and the world’s economy. February is Black History month and so we’d like to dedicate our celebration to the amazing contributions that African Americans have made to our industry.

First thing’s first-does anyone here like potatoes?(Read our post about the best potatoes here) What about potato chips? The salty, savory, crunchy snack that we all fall for was created by George Crum, a half African American-half Native American chef. After a customer’s complaint in 1853 that he cut his fried potatoes too thick, Crum responded by slicing the potatoes as thinly as possible, and fried them until they crunched. The restaurant goer (not surprisingly!) ended up loving the crispy potatoes and Crum ended up opening his own restaurant. Crum never marketed his snacks, but snack food junkie William Tappendon began putting these chips on the shelves of grocery stores in 1895. Who knew processed foods started that early?

Lloyd Hall is probably one of my favorite contributors to agriculture and food. During his career he researched preservation of foods. He had 59 U.S. patents, but in 1932 he found a way to combine salt, nitrites, and nitrates to suppress the nitrogen in foods that causes spoilage. His method for curing meats is still used today, and has been a HUGE game changer for the meat industry. Bacon, anyone?? (Spoiler alert: we may mention him again in next week’s post so stay tuned!!)

Another major pivotal moment for agriculture as a whole was when Frederick McKinley Jones invented refrigerated trucks. Before Mr. Jones, transporting food in trucks and railroad cars involved filling them with ice. A lot of time, truckers couldn’t make it to their destination before the ice melted, and everyone lost a lot of money and wasted a lot of food. Jones invented a roof mounted cooling system to ensure freshness of food. He also made refrigerators for military field kitchens, and had 38 other patents in the refrigeration field. Also, he invented equipment for movie projectors and box-offices to increase efficiency, and who doesn’t love going to the movies? Frederick Jones was the first African American to receive the National Medal of Technology award and he most certainly deserved it!

We are so thankful to be celebrating these accomplishments this month, and every month. Next time you see refrigerated trucks, bacon, and potato chips remember who invented them, and where you would be without them! Read more about the accomplishments celebrated in Black History Month here. Now, go out and celebrate!


levelson.mit.edu/resources/george-crum
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/african-americans-in-sciences/lloyd-augustus-hall.html
http://www.famu.edu/index.cfm?blackhistory&FrederickMcKinleyJones

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